The first Portugalcaptain was Cândido de Oliveira, who captained Portugal in the international match against Spain on 18 December 1921. This was his only international appearance. Vítor Gonçalves captained Portugal in their first international on home soil, on 17 December 1922 against the same opposition. The current individual with the most caps, as captain of the Portugal team is Cristiano Ronaldo.
The following players captained a side in a FIFA-declared unofficial match. Nevertheless, the Portuguese Football Federation has decided to award caps to the intervening footballers and as a result these matches were taken into account in the above table.
^ abWhen applicable, the columns sort the number of caps recognized by the Portuguese Football Federation, written in parentheses. The 2007 friendly in Kuwait was in fact an against Al-Salmiya although FIFA at the time recognized the team as a legitimate representative of the Kuwait Football Association and sanctioned the game which resulted in being accepted as a full international match and as such FIFA awarded caps.