He Loves Soccer and Portugal. So He Bought a Team.

Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll find out about a former City Council speaker who just bought a soccer team 3,400 miles from New York. We’ll also look at how a van could help people who are struggling with opioid addiction.

Credit…Carissa Diaz for The New York Times

From the beginning of 2002 to the end of 2005, Gifford Miller was the second-most powerful person in New York City government. As the City Council speaker, he tangled with the mayor at the time, Michael Bloomberg, overriding his vetoes more than 30 times.

Then, when he sought Bloomberg’s job, Miller endured a humiliating loss in the Democratic primary, coming in last among the five major candidates — even though he had entered the race with the most money to spend.

He left politics for another field that can have its ups and downs: real estate development. He formed a group that built an affordable housing complex in the Bronx.

Now Miller has plunged into a different kind of project, this one 3,400 miles away. With investors — one of them a teammate from when Miller played soccer in high school — he bought a Portuguese soccer team, Atlético Clube de Portugal. The team is nudging its way toward full-fledged professional status in Portugal’s multitiered league system. In its first preseason matches, Atlético Clube has won once and lost once. The third match ended in a draw.