The Primeira Liga, also known as Liga Portugal, is Portugal’s top professional footballing division and has produced some of the world’s finest players, including the legendary Angel Di Maria and Manchester City star center back Ruben Dias.
Who are the best current players in the Primeira Liga right now in 2025?
Weighing basic box score stats like goals and assists while integrating passing, defensive, and possession-based analytics from FBRef.com, here is a current ranking of the best players in Portuguese football
10. Estoril DM Jordan Holsgrove
The most underrated player in the Primeira Liga right now in 2025, Jordan Holsgrove is a top defensive midfielder who is doing a fine job donning the No. 10 for overlooked Estoril.
A Scottish international, Holsgrove is one to watch in the coming years, as the 25-year-old is averaging 2.0 key passes and 1.4 fouls drawn per game with a solid 2.5 combined tackles and interceptions per match as one of the best defensive anchors in Portuguese football.
9. Sporting CP RM Geovany Quenda
Just 17 years old, the versatile Geovany Quenda looks like the future of Portuguese football and is already both one of the league’s most exciting and most effective players.
Quenda is averaging 1.8 key passes and 1.4 dribbles per game as one of the best wide creators and progressors of the football in the Portuguese game right now.
8. Benfica DM Florentino Luis
Florentino Luis is criminally underrated and an absolute destroyer at the base of the Benfica midfield. Like Joao Neves, it’s only a matter of time before Florentino gets his big move, and while, at 25, he doesn’t have the same upside as a his predecessor, he’s an even bigger presence defensively.
Remember the impact Casemiro had on the Champions League when he moved from Porto to Real Madrid? Florentino could do that for a top Premier League side smart enough to pluck his five combined tackles and interceptions from Benfica.
7. Benfica LW Kerem Akturkoglu
With 11 goal contributions, the versatile Kerem Akturkoglu is an underrated and highly consistent source of all-around attacking contribution to a Benfica side that is deep in first-team talent.
6. Porto ST Samu Aghehowa
Porto benefited where the likes of Atletico Madrid and Chelsea missed out, as Samu Omorodion Aghehowa is having a fantastic start to life in Portuguese football with 13 goals this season.
The big man is an absolute menace on and off the ball, and if it weren’t for Viktor Gyokeres hogging all the spotlight, Samu would be getting a lot more credit for being a lethal finisher in his own right.
5. Benfica CM Orkun Kokcu
Dortmund really missed out on not signing Orkun Kokcu from Feyenoord a couple of years ago, as the 24-year-old Turkish international has blossomed into one of the better midfielders in European football at the Champions League level for Benfica.
There’s very little that Kokcu can’t do. He is in the 95th percentile at his position in shot-creating actions with 2.2 key passes per game, and he’s also quite solid defensively alongside Florentino Luis.
4. Benfica CB Nicolas Otamendi
The 37-year-old Nicolas Otamendi may have frustrated with his aggression at Manchester City, but the Argentinian international is a legend for his country, in LaLiga, and now in Portugal for a reason.
Otamendi is, by far, the best center back in a league filled with great young talents like Goncalo Inacio and Ousmane Diomande at Sporting CP, as well as rivals Tomas Araujo and Antonio Silva on his own team.
Silva and Araujo will get their big moves soon enough, but they have to stare in awe as Otamendi ages gracefully with a whopping 1.9 tackles and 1.9 interceptions per game from central defense.
3. Benfica RW Angel Di Maria
Angel Di Maria is another Argentinian legend who is still putting up big numbers for Benfica at the tender age of 37. The former Real Madrid and PSG star is lighting up the right flank as an inverted playmaker who can still cause problems at the Champions League level.
Currently, ADM is averaging 2.1 key passes and 2.4 combined dribbles completed and fouls drawn with seven goals to prove that he can still provide spades of end product out wide.
2. Sporting CP ST Viktor Gyokeres
Benfica may have half of this top ten list, but Sporting CP’s top two stars are so clearly the best in the league that they alone are responsible for the club of Cristiano Ronaldo’s youth taking home the top spot, to this point, in the Primeira Liga.
Viktor Gyokeres is as good as everyone says he is, even if Trincao is underappreciated in comparison, as he is an absolute marksman who has more than 20 goals this season and offers very underrated all-around striker play to boot.
The 26-year-old Swedish No. 9 is averaging 1.8 key passes, 1.8 dribbles completed, and 2.3 fouls drawn per game for Sporting this season.
1. Sporting CP AM Trincao
Viktor Gyokeres is the most in-demand name in the Portuguese top flight with an incredible goal-scoring record both in Liga Portugal and in the Champions League, but Trincao is the beating heart of Sporting.
His all-around impact is absurd. Trinaco is responsible for winning nearly two plays defensively per game between tackles and interceptions, while he is the league leader’s leading table-setter with nine assists.
Furthermore, Trincao scores, too, with seven goals to his credit. His attacking output in terms of chance creation and take-ons is easily the best in the league with 2.6 dribbles completed and 2.2 key passes per game.
A product of Barcelona, the 25-year-old Trincao deserves a lot more praise globally than he gets, and he is responsible for a lot of the hard work that goes into the goals Gyokeres scores.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.