How Jose Mourinho's club could become Invincibles - but still not be champions

José Mourinho has achieved much in his storied career – but he’s never gone unbeaten across an entire league season. Now the former Chelsea and Manchester United manager has the opportunity to do just that, with Benfica unbeaten in the Primeira Liga with just four matches remaining. There’s only one problem: They probably still wouldn’t win the title.

Why Mourinho’s Benfica could go ‘invincible’ and still not be champions

As it stands, Benfica have won 21 and drawn nine of their 30 top-flight matches – and having gone unbeaten against both Sporting and Porto, there is a very good chance that Mourinho’s side ends the league season unbeaten, mimicking Arsenal’s ‘Invincibles’ of the 2003/04 Premier League season.

That would be a remarkable achievement, by any standards, but even more amazingly they are still highly unlikely to win the Portuguese title – because Porto, who drew both of their matches against Benfica, remain seven points clear at the top with just one defeat to their name. Barring an unprecedented collapse, it’s Mourinho’s old team that will win the league rather than his current employers.

Nor do Benfica stand any chance of winning silverware elsewhere – they were beaten 1-0 by Porto in the quarter-finals of the Portuguese Cup and were knocked out at the semi-final stages of the League Cup by Braga. Real Madrid, meanwhile, beat them 3-1 on aggregate in the Champions League play-off stage. They could become a rare team to go both invincible and trophyless.

Astonishingly, they won’t even be the first Benfica side to do that. In the 1977/78 season, they went unbeaten but finished second to Porto on goal difference under the management of former Chelsea defender John Mortimore – so Mourinho won’t even be the first Chelsea alum with his initials to achieve the unusual feat.

Benfica also went undefeated in 1972/32 but won the league on that occasion, while Porto have also won the league without losing a match twice, in the 2010/11 and 2012/13 campaigns.

How Mourinho and Benfica got here – and the teams that stand in their way

In many ways, Benfica have become the very image of the classic Mourinho side – defensive, rigid, focussed on counter-attacks and immensely difficult to break down. They have conceded just 19 goals in 30 league matches.

It wouldn’t even be fair to say that a lack of attacking flair has cost them, as tempting as it would be to characterise a Mourinho side in such a way: Their 63 goals is the second highest mark in the league, behind only Sporting. They have simply failed to win games they might otherwise have done, drawing just a little too frequently to keep in touch with a Porto side that have been slightly more ruthless when it counts.

An invincible season would be an unusual runners-up prize, but still something for the club’s supporters (and Mourinho himself, one imagines) to crow about. Four teams stand in their way: Fourth-placed Braga, fifth-placed Famalicão, and two mid-table teams in the shape of Moreirense and Estoril Praia. None of the games are all that easy, but they’re still ones Benfica will expect not to lose.

It’s highly unlikely that even four straight wins would be sufficient to catch Porto, who need just five points from their remaining fixtures to seal the title. Benfica could well even finish third – although currently ahead of Sporting, Rui Borges’ side have a game in hand. No Portuguese team has ever finished unbeaten and as low as third place, and it may well be a unique achievement in top-level European football.

If Benfica do finish unbeaten, they will be the only team in a European top flight to do so this season – after Slavia Prague unexpectedly lost to Hradec Králové over the weekend, Benfica became the only unbeaten side in the first division of any of Europe’s summer leagues.

It probably wouldn’t quite rank up there with his Champions League wins or numerous other titles, but an invincible season has been beyond even Mourinho until now – but it’s a very realistic possibility as it stands.