[4] Portugal was introduced to football in the late 19th century by a combination of British immigrant workers, visiting sailors and Portuguese students returning from Britain.

[1][7] Notably, Aires de Ornelas had been an army officer, and after heroic campaigns in Africa he was a minister in several governments of the Portuguese monarchy.

From that group, Guilherme selected himself as the goalkeeper, along with his two brothers (Eduardo and Frederico), two cousins (João Saldanha and Fernando), the Vilar brothers (Afonso and Henrique), D. Simão de Sousa Coutinho (Borba), Augusto Moller, and three more for a total of twelve players, although in the end, Guilherme ended up being a substitute.

[2][5][8] The English squad had one unidentified element[8] and, among others, a certain F. Palmer, who notably appears in the line-up of Club Lisbonense in the 1894 Taça D. Carlos I, which means that he kept playing football with the Pinto Basto brothers for the next few years.

[2][5] The game took place on a slightly windy afternoon on 22 January 1889, held where today's Campo Pequeno bullring is located, a venue that was the opposite of the relaxed and familiar setting built by those 28 aristocrats on the grounds of Parada.

[3] Also unlike in Cascais, this time it was a public event with free admission and there were around 300 spectators, mostly curious members of Lisbon's high society, but also some city residents and friends of the town's football players.

[1] There were still no fixed positions, except for the goalkeeper, and game tactics did not seem to have existed, so the strategy adopted by the Portuguese was just to simply kick the ball forward in an attempt to introduce it into the opponent's goal.

[5] There is evidence that the most advanced English used tactic systems over the Portuguese's pure "kicking" chaos, and yet, they still lost the match, although it is not known by how many or who were the authors of these historic goals.

There was no lack of tumbles and rolls from the game itself, showing all the strong young men who took part in it, how expert they were in “managing” the kick, as an elegant woman who, by chance, happened to be next to us said".