Portugal opened its final 2026 FIFA World Cup buildup against Chile in Lisbon this weekend, a friendly that arrived with the clock already running down to next year’s tournament in North America. Roberto Martínez is using these days to sharpen a team that won the 2024–25 UEFA Nations League and qualified for the World Cup with aplomb, but he is doing it without a few key players on Saturday.
The search interest around portugal vs now is obvious: Portugal is fifth in FIFA’s ranking, Chile is 54th, and the two teams met with very different recent trajectories. Portugal has spent the past year beating Spain on penalties to lift the UEFA Nations League, while Chile arrives after missing the World Cup entirely and finishing bottom of the CONMEBOL table.
For Martínez, the test is less about the opponent than the timing. Portugal faces Nigeria in the Portuguese capital on Wednesday, then travels across the Atlantic less than a week before its opening World Cup match against the DR Congo. Saturday’s meeting with Chile was only the fourth between the sides and the first since 2017, when Chile beat Portugal on penalties to reach the Confederations Cup final nine years ago.
That history gives the fixture a sharper edge than a routine warm-up. Chile was once ranked fourth in the world and won the Copa América in 2015 and 2016, but its last World Cup appearance came in 2014, when Brazil edged it in the first knockout round. Portugal, by contrast, is walking into this buildup with expectations that come with being among the world’s top five teams and with a recent trophy in hand.
The gap is that Martínez must manage the final stretch without naming the full hand he would normally want on the table. A few key players are out on Saturday, and with Nigeria next and the World Cup less than two weeks away, Portugal has little time to find out whether control on paper will still look the same once the real tournament begins.
