Portugal's Historic Win Over Spain: Neemias Queta's Impact
Spain arrived as the heavyweight. Portugal walked in with a puncher’s chance and one NBA big man carrying a nation on his shoulders.
By the final buzzer, history had flipped.
Neemias Queta and Portugal stunned Spain, 95-89, in World Cup qualifying this week, delivering the country’s first-ever tournament win over a program long considered the global standard-bearer outside of Team USA. Spain, stacked with NBA experience and led by rising prospect Hugo Gonzalez and former Celtic Juancho Hernangomez, entered as 12.5-point favorites.
They left with a scar.
Portugal left with belief.
At the center of it all stood Queta. The Boston Celtics big man owned the second half, anchoring Portugal on both ends and finishing with 16 points on 5-for-10 shooting and nine rebounds. It wasn’t a gaudy stat line. It was a winning one. The kind that bends a game, and maybe a country’s basketball future, in a different direction.
The victory moved Portugal to 4-3 in qualifying and kept alive the dream that once felt fanciful: a first-ever World Cup berth.
A Nation Rising, A Center Growing
Portugal’s national team has spent decades on the fringes of European basketball. EuroBasket appearances have been rare—just four in history, and none between 2011 and last year. That’s slowly changing, and Queta has become both symbol and engine of that shift.
“It’s a growing thing,” he told Eurohoops. “We’re getting so much better as a country in the sport. So, I feel like it’s only fitting that I keep on getting better, too. So, I just want to be out here competing my best and live with the results.”
You can see that growth in the way Portugal now handles nights like this. Spain still had more depth, more pedigree, more names familiar to NBA fans. Portugal had one current NBA player. It was enough.
For Queta, these qualifiers are not just about national pride. They’re sharpening tools he’ll need in Boston for what looms as the biggest season of his career: 2026-27, when his new contract truly kicks in and expectations follow.
From Fringe Big to $56 Million Man
Queta’s rise with the Celtics has been just as steep as Portugal’s. Once a fringe rotation player bouncing between Sacramento and Boston, he broke through last season with the Celtics, averaging 10.2 points and 8.4 rebounds in 76 games. He started 75 of them—an enormous leap for a player who had appeared in only 48 total games across his first three NBA seasons.
Boston rewarded him this summer. Four years. $56 million. A life-changing extension and a clear message: you’re part of the plan.
But the deal also changed the conversation. Now Queta is not just a feel-good story; he’s a core piece on a contender with scars of its own.
Last spring’s playoff collapse against the Sixers still lingers in Boston. The Celtics blew a 3-1 series lead, and in the postmortem, team president Brad Stevens didn’t shy away from pointing at the center spot and Queta’s struggles against Joel Embiid.
“To be honest, one of the things with Neemi was just figuring out how to keep him on the floor,” Stevens said. “Because he had two games where he’s off the floor in four minutes.”
Impact at the rim. Discipline against elite bigs. Those are the boxes Queta hasn’t fully checked yet. The contract says Boston believes he can. The playoffs will demand proof.
New Competition in Boston’s Paint
Stevens didn’t just talk about needing more from the center position. He acted.
The Celtics brought in Mitchell Robinson, the former Knicks anchor, one of the league’s premier offensive rebounders and a punishing interior defender when healthy. When Stevens said he might have to look elsewhere for more rim protection, Robinson was the answer.
That signing changes the dynamic. Queta is no longer the unquestioned starter. Training camp will bring a straight fight for minutes, maybe for the job itself.
Robinson’s injury history, though, keeps the door wide open. He has never been a picture of durability, and Boston knows it will need more than one reliable big over the grind of an NBA season and a long playoff run. Queta will get chances. Plenty of them.
What he’s doing now with Portugal matters. The physicality, the pressure, the responsibility of being the focal point of a national team—those are reps you can’t simulate in a quiet gym in September.
Portugal’s Next Test
For the moment, the Celtics can wait. Portugal cannot.
At 4-3, they face Georgia—also 4-3—on Monday in what amounts to a must-win game. The stakes are clear: keep the World Cup dream alive or watch it slip away.
Queta will walk into that matchup as he did against Spain: as the lone NBA player on the floor for his country, the centerpiece of a project that is just starting to believe in itself.
He already helped deliver one first in Portuguese basketball history this week.
The next question is simple: how far can he drag a nation, and how much will that journey shape the player Boston is betting $56 million on?
