When a team of Portuguese priests won an indoor football competition, they could hardly have imagined the divisions their triumph would provoke in Lisbon’s Parliament.
It was the fifth time they had won the European clergy championship for futsal (indoor five-a-side football).
The Social Democrats and Christian Democrats put forward a motion to congratulate the team. Although sincere, the motion was leavened with humour, describing team captain Fr Marco Gil as “the Cristiano Ronaldo of the Church’s team” and lauding Fr André Meireles for his “surprising hat-trick” in the final against Bosnia.
