During the twenties, Sporting would win its first Championship of Portugal (1922/23): A competition attributed as the National title although it was contested as an eliminatory competition. The decisive game was contested in Faro on the 24th of July 1923, with a 3-0 victory against Académica de Coimbra. The Sporting team was at the time comprised of Torres Pereira, Jaime Gonçalves, Francisco Stromp, João Francisco Maia, Carlos Fernandes, José Leandro, Filipe dos Santos, Joaquim Ferreira, Cipriano dos Santos, Jorge Vieira and Henrique Portela. Joaquim Ferreira scored two goals, while Francisco Stromp would leave football the following year (1924).
 
The sections of swimming, water polo and rugby where also founded during this period. It was the historic leader and career athlete Salazar Carreira, with the help of Sporting, that first introduced Rugby to Portugal.
 
In 1928 Sporting first appeared in its famous shirts with horizontal white and green stripes: A move provided, largely, by the rugby team. This change occurred while on a tour of Brazil, the first for a Portuguese team, and was largely due to the facts that the kits used by the rugby team where cooler and in better condition than those used by the football team (White and Green shirt with black socks). It is from these fortunate circumstances that the present day, world famous, kit has evolved through history: A kit that is much sought after for its originality. The design of horizontal stripes used by the rugby team was a design of Salazar Carreira and was inspired by his time with the French club Racing de Paris, although Racing de Paris used red and white. Upon returning from Brazil, the football team returned the kits to the rugby team. However, in October 1928, the football team played a game against Benfica, only to emerge in the second half of the game wearing the shirts of the rugby team. Sporting won the game and so was born....A new kit.
 
The series of victories in the Portuguese Football Championship continued into the thirties with Portugal claiming titles in 1933/34, 1935/36 and 1937/38. During this decade, Sporting also claimed success in the sports of tennis, cycling, rugby (regional level), shooting, roller-hockey (victory in the National Championship in 1937/38 - the first season of the competition), ice-skating, gymnastics and fencing.
 
Alfredo Trindade, already with a variety of titles in numerous cycling disciplines, won the Tour of Portugal in 1933: The first individual and collective victory for Sporting in the most important event of the Portuguese cycling calendar. Trindade became an infamous figure not only for his personal successes but also for his intense rivalry, although tempered with respect and friendship, with the Benfica cyclist José Maria Nicolau. Their epic duels even then, without the presence of the media dynamic that exists today, excited Portugal.  José Albuqerque, known as "Sparky", won the Tour of Portugal in 1940.
 
The legendary centre-forward Fernando Peyroteo, who debuted for Sporting in 1937, emerged as the leading scorer of the League 1 Championship with 34 goals. He would be a central figure in the golden years still to come.