Torreense W

A first iteration

At the tail end of 1978, the announcement for the creation of a women's football team within Sport Clube União Torreense was made. Although the team would not immediately begin play, the prospect and intention can still be considered vanguardist for the time and the country's context, considering the national team would only first play on 24 October 1981. Torreense would finally play its first match on 21 November 1982 at their home stadium of Campo Manuel Marques against Valcovense, a team from the municipality of Bombarral - it would be a positive debut for the section, having won 6-0.

Overall, the women's football landscape was not particularly structured during this time - indeed, the first national competition would only start in 1985-86 and a national league would only come to be established in 1993-94, which left only the currently-defunct Lisbon District Championship as official competitions, in which it participated in at least 1982-83 and 1983-84. In between, Torreense would frequently play small locally or club organised tournaments, such as Costa do Sol (1982) or even reportedly abroad in Palma de Mallorca (1983). Possibly the most notable meeting in this first period of the section, however, was their reception of the Dutch national team in a friendly on 5 January 1985.

The team, which was considerably funded through sponsors to the point of having the name Torreense/Destaque, after a local fashion store Destaque Modas; would keep playing matches into late 1987 until it laid dormant for the next several decades.

Revival

Nearly three decades later, the section returned after an announcement in October 2014 through the practice of youth football at the start of the 2015-16 season. Its senior team would be (re-)launched three seasons later for the 2018-19 season. The women's football pyramid in the country at this stage was still on the brink of its large expansion and with the inexistence of district leagues, was directly placed in the national second tier, which is in turn divided into local groups. They officially debuted on 23 September 2018 away at União de Almeirim, with a 2-2 draw and their first home match a week later on the 30th, a 3-0 defeat to Sintrense. The rest of the maiden voyage, with João Ferreira at the helm, was expectedly tough, finishing seventh of 9 teams with points from four victories and two draws in sixteen games - the wins from the two teams under them (Os Vidreiros and Pêgo) and the two other points against the aforementioned Almeirim, directly above.