Primeira Liga Correct Score: Why 1-0 Is Portugal's Top Score
Portugal's top division leans on the narrow home win. Here is how home advantage, the big three and the pre-match price bend the correct score board.
Compiled by Priya NadkarniCorrect Score Predictions specialistReviewed by Marisol Quintana, Editor-in-Chief7 min read
- Primeira Liga matches, 2005/06–2025/265,626
- most common score: 1-011.9%
- 1-0 home wins per 0-1 away win1.29 to 1
- 1-0 rate when home is priced under 1.5012.5%
Correct score is the market most bettors treat as a lottery ticket, yet across 5,626 completed Primeira Liga matches the scorelines follow a stubborn pattern. I wanted to know two things. Why does 1-0 top the table in Portugal? And how much of that comes from home advantage and the big three rather than from the league as a whole?
The short answer is that 1-0 finished 11.9% of matches, just ahead of 1-1 at 11.4%, in a league averaging 2.53 goals per game. That was the fifth-highest 1-0 rate of the 22 European divisions in the record. Home sides drive it, winning 44.1% of matches, and the home price reshapes the whole board. These are the base rates behind my exact score predictions page, and the four charts below show where they come from.
§ 11-0 and 1-1 lead a tightly packed scoreboard
The first chart ranks the ten most common full-time scores. 1-0 at 11.9% and 1-1 at 11.4% sit almost level. 0-1 is a clear third at 9.2%, followed by 2-0 at 8.1% and 0-0 at 8.0%. Together the top ten cover 77.0% of matches, and 3-0 closes the list at 4.1%.
What strikes me is how compressed the top of the table is. No single scoreline comes close to dominating. That is exactly why picking one hopeful score is the wrong approach and building a spread of plausible ones is the right one.
View the data: primeira liga: the 10 most common final scores
| Share of 5,626 matches, 2005/06–2025/26 | |
|---|---|
| 1-0 | 11.9% |
| 1-1 | 11.4% |
| 0-1 | 9.2% |
| 2-0 | 8.1% |
| 0-0 | 8.0% |
| 2-1 | 8.0% |
| 1-2 | 6.6% |
| 2-2 | 4.9% |
| 0-2 | 4.8% |
| 3-0 | 4.1% |
For pricing, 0-0 carries fair odds of 12.45 and 1-1 fair odds of 8.74. The Bundesliga's 1-0 rate is only 7.3%, so a Portuguese 1-0 deserves more weight than a generic correct score model would give it.
§ 2Home-win scores outnumber their away mirrors at every line
This dumbbell pairs each home-win score with its away mirror. 1-0 beats 0-1 by a ratio of 1.29 to 1, with 671 matches against 519. 2-0 arrives 1.68 times as often as 0-2, and 2-1 arrives 1.22 times as often as 1-2.
The gap widens as the margin grows. 3-0 lands 4.1% of the time against 2.2% for 0-3, and 4-0 lands 1.8% against 1.0% for 0-4. Home sides average 1.41 goals to the away side's 1.12, and that modest difference compounds in the bigger scorelines.
View the data: primeira liga: home-win scores vs away mirrors
| Home win score | Away win mirror | |
|---|---|---|
| 1-0 vs 0-1 (671 vs 519 matches) | 11.9% | 9.2% |
| 2-0 vs 0-2 (453 vs 269 matches) | 8.1% | 4.8% |
| 2-1 vs 1-2 (449 vs 369 matches) | 8.0% | 6.6% |
| 3-0 vs 0-3 (229 vs 126 matches) | 4.1% | 2.2% |
| 3-1 vs 1-3 (217 vs 159 matches) | 3.9% | 2.8% |
| 3-2 vs 2-3 (118 vs 79 matches) | 2.1% | 1.4% |
| 4-0 vs 0-4 (101 vs 54 matches) | 1.8% | 1.0% |
My reading is that the away side's best scoreline is usually a narrow one. When I build a spread for a visiting win, I keep weight on 0-1 and 1-2 and trim the heavier margins harder than I would for a home win.
§ 3Porto, Benfica and Sporting favour 2-0 at home
The table lists the six clubs with the most points per game. Porto (2.39), Benfica (2.32) and Sporting CP (2.17) each played 648 matches. All three most often won 2-0 at home and 1-0 away. Sporting's home 2-0 rate of 16.0% is the highest of the group, with Porto close behind at 15.8%.
The bigger split among them is margin. Porto won by three or more goals in 24.8% of games and Benfica in 25.0%, against 17.3% for Sporting. Further down, Braga and Vitória Guimarães default to 1-0 at home, at 14.2% and 17.2%. Famalicão's most common home result was a 0-0 draw at 13.4%.
| Club | Matches | Pts/game | Top home score | Top away score | 3+ goal wins |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Porto | 648 | 2.39 | Won 2-0 (15.8%) | Won 1-0 (14.5%) | 24.8% |
| Benfica | 648 | 2.32 | Won 2-0 (13.0%) | Won 1-0 (13.9%) | 25.0% |
| Sporting CP | 648 | 2.17 | Won 2-0 (16.0%) | Won 1-0 (13.3%) | 17.3% |
| Braga | 647 | 1.81 | Won 1-0 (14.2%) | Won 1-0 (13.0%) | 12.7% |
| Vitória Guimarães | 618 | 1.43 | Won 1-0 (17.2%) | Won 1-0 (12.0%) | 5.5% |
| Famalicão | 238 | 1.35 | Drew 0-0 (13.4%) | Lost 0-1 (10.9%) | 5.5% |
Scores read from the club's side (its goals first).
So the league's 1-0 is a composite. The big three push the home column towards 2-0 and beyond. The chasing pack supplies the narrow wins and the stalemates.
§ 4The home price reshapes every line on the board
The heatmap splits matches by pre-match home odds. With the home side under 1.50 (949 matches), 2-0 leads at 16.0%, ahead of 1-0 at 12.5% and 2-1 at 9.9%. In the same band 0-0 drops to 3.3% and 1-1 to 5.2%.
In the middle bands the draw takes over. 0-0 peaks at 10.7% in the 2.00–2.49 band (1,576 matches), and 1-1 reaches 14.3% in the 2.50–3.49 band. With the home side at 3.50 and up (1,067 matches), 0-1 rises to 14.9%, 1-2 to 12.1% and 0-2 to 11.1%, while a 1-0 home win falls to 4.2%.
View the data: primeira liga correct score by home win price
| 1-0 | 2-0 | 2-1 | 1-1 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 1-2 | 0-2 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Under 1.50 · 949 | 12.5% | 16.0% | 9.9% | 5.2% | 3.3% | 3.0% | 1.2% | 0.3% |
| Home 1.50–1.99 · 1,074 | 16.6% | 10.6% | 9.3% | 12.3% | 8.7% | 6.5% | 4.6% | 3.1% |
| Home 2.00–2.49 · 1,576 | 14.0% | 7.8% | 9.5% | 14.2% | 10.7% | 9.2% | 6.5% | 3.5% |
| Home 2.50–3.49 · 960 | 11.4% | 4.8% | 7.6% | 14.3% | 8.9% | 12.2% | 8.1% | 6.2% |
| Home 3.50 and up · 1,067 | 4.2% | 1.7% | 3.0% | 9.6% | 7.0% | 14.9% | 12.1% | 11.1% |
One caution I hold to: these fair odds are break-even prices from past frequencies, and correct-score margins are wide, so quoted odds usually sit well below them. The record also has gaps, with no data for 2011/12 and an incomplete 2007/08, and club strength shifts from season to season. Treat every share here as a base rate rather than a forecast for one match.
Almanac verdict
- Respect the home 1-0
- At 11.9% it is the league's most common score and ranks fifth of 22 divisions. Give it real weight in any Primeira Liga spread rather than treating it as filler.
- Favour 2-0 for short favourites
- With the home side under 1.50, 2-0 landed 16.0% against 12.5% for 1-0. 0-0 fell to 3.3%, so the goalless draw earns little room there.
- Lean towards draws in mid-prices
- 1-1 reached 14.3% in the 2.50–3.49 home band, and 0-0 peaked at 10.7% at 2.00–2.49. Evenly priced matches are where the draw scorelines carry the most weight.
Questions bettors ask
What is the most common correct score in the Primeira Liga?
1-0 is the most common, finishing 11.9% of 5,626 matches between 2005/06 and 2025/26. 1-1 is close behind at 11.4%, with 0-1 third at 9.2%.
How often does a Primeira Liga match end 0-0?
0-0 finished 8.0% of matches, which gives fair odds of 12.45. It peaks at 10.7% when the home side is priced 2.00–2.49 and falls to 3.3% when the home side is under 1.50.
Do Porto, Benfica and Sporting usually win 1-0 or 2-0?
All three most often won 2-0 at home and 1-0 away. Porto, for example, won 2-0 in 15.8% of home games and 1-0 in 14.5% of away games.
I'm Priya Nadkarni, based in San Diego, and I write the correct score predictions at fixed-match.tips — built on goal distributions and game state, not on guessing a tidy final number.
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