2008 Euro Beach Soccer League

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2008 Euro Beach Soccer League
Tournament details
Dates20 June – 24 August
Teams17 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)3 (in 3 host cities)
Final positions
Champions Portugal (3rd title)
Runners-up Netherlands
Third place Russia
Fourth place Italy
Tournament statistics
Matches played36
Goals scored309 (8.58 per match)
Top scorer(s)Portugal Madjer (11 goals)
Best player(s)Portugal Madjer
Best goalkeeperNetherlands Ran Reijer
← 2007
2009 →

The 2008 Euro Beach Soccer League, was the eleventh edition of the Euro Beach Soccer League (EBSL), the premier beach soccer competition contested between European men's national teams, occurring annually since its establishment in 1998. The league was organised by Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) between June 20 and August 24, 2008.

Unprecedented organisational changes had to be made to the EBSL in 2008 leading to a drastically shorter season than usual – just two regular season stages were scheduled due to a clash of dates with the arrangements of the 2008 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, the first edition to take place in Europe. As a result of the shorter season, BSWW also abandoned the concept of Divisions A and B, opting to have the teams compete in one collective division regardless of ability.

Portugal entered the tournament as defending champions and successfully retained their title, beating the Netherlands in the final to claim their third European crown.[1] Portugal became only the second team after Spain to defend the EBSL crown as incumbent champions, after the Spanish did so twice in 2000 and 2001. The Netherlands, as runners-up, claimed their best finish and only top four placing to date.

This was the first time this decade that the league did not double as the European qualification process for the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. In 2008, a dedicated World Cup qualifying competition for UEFA nations was established, replacing the EBSL as the qualifying route for European teams from this year onward.[2]

Structural changes[edit]

See also: FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualification (UEFA) § Founding

BSWW were forced to make radical changes to the organisation of the 2008 EBSL season due to circumstances regarding the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup:

Until 2007, the World Cup always took place in the Southern Hemisphere nation of Brazil, during the summer months of November to February. This left the European summer of June to September free for the EBSL to take place uninterrupted. However, in 2008, FIFA organised the first World Cup to take place outside Brazil, in France, during the Northern Hemisphere summer – right in the middle of the typical EBSL season. This greatly affected the scheduling of the EBSL as BSWW could not organise as many rounds of regular season fixtures as usual due to European teams in preparation for, participation in, and recovery from, the World Cup over the course of July and beginning of August.

This meant only two regular season stages were organised, considerably less than usual. To accommodate all teams in just two stages, the concept of Divisions A and B, in use since 2002, were also scrapped for this season – all participating nations of varying beach soccer abilities took part in one single division.

Teams[edit]

17 teams took part this season, in one single division.

16 nations participated during the regular season; one set of eight in stage one and the remaining eight in stage two. The 17th nation, Portugal, were awarded a bye straight into the Superfinal as hosts.[3]

The teams are listed below, showing at which stage of the competition they entered:

Regular season[edit]

Format[edit]

The formats of the two regular season stages were organised as unconventional double elimination tournaments as explained below.[3]

The top three teams from each stage earned qualification to the Superfinal as well as the best fourth placed team from stage 1 or 2 as per the cumulative standings.

Stage 1[edit]

The first stage took place in Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy.

Results[edit]

20
June 		Quarter finals (QF)
Italy  8–2  Andorra
Poland  5–5 (a.e.t.)
4–3 (pens.) 		 Czech Republic
Spain  9–2  Greece
Switzerland  11–2  Austria
21
June 		QF Winners ↓ QF Losers ↓
Winners' semi finals (WSF) Losers' semi finals (LSF)
Italy  7–3  Poland Greece  8–3  Austria
Switzerland  4–2  Spain Czech Republic  5–4  Andorra
22
June 		WSF Winners ↓ WSF Losers ↓ LSF Winners ↓ LSF Losers ↓
Final 3rd–6th place deciding matches 7th & 8th place match
Italy  5–5 (a.e.t.)
1–2 (pens.) 		  Switzerland Spain  1–4  Czech Republic Austria  4–3  Andorra
Poland  5–2  Greece
Awards[4]
Best player: Italy Roberto Pasquali
Top scorer(s): Switzerland Dejan Stankovic (10 goals)
Best goalkeeper: Switzerland Nico Jung

Final standings[edit]

Rank Team Qualification
1st place, gold medalist(s)   Switzerland Advance to Superfinal
2nd place, silver medalist(s)  Italy
3rd place, bronze medalist(s)  Poland
4  Czech Republic
5  Greece
6  Spain
7  Austria
8  Andorra

Stage 2[edit]

The second stage took place in Tignes, France.

Results[edit]

4
July 		Quarter finals (QF)
France  12–4  Hungary
Norway  4–3  Estonia
Russia  10–0  Netherlands
Turkey  7–3  England
5
July 		QF Winners ↓ QF Losers ↓
Winners' semi finals (WSF) Losers' semi finals (LSF)
France  7–4  Turkey Hungary  3–1 (a.e.t.)  England
Russia  5–0  Norway Netherlands  5–3  Estonia
6
July 		WSF Winners ↓ WSF Losers ↓ LSF Winners ↓ LSF Losers ↓
Final 3rd–6th place deciding matches 7th & 8th place match
Russia  8–3  France Norway  2–3  Hungary Estonia  3–2  England
Turkey  3–5  Netherlands
Awards[5]
Best player: France Stéphane François
Top scorer(s): Russia Egor Shaykov (7 goals)
Best goalkeeper: Russia Andrey Bukhlitskiy

Final standings[edit]

Rank Team Qualification
1st place, gold medalist(s)  Russia Advance to Superfinal
2nd place, silver medalist(s)  France
3rd place, bronze medalist(s)  Netherlands
4  Hungary
5  Norway
6  Turkey
7  Estonia
8  England

Cumulative standings[edit]

The top three placing nations from each stage qualified for the Superfinal, along with the statistically best of the two fourth placing teams, as per the below table.

The teams are ranked in order of their final placings in the stage they participated in.

The two teams that finished in the same corresponding final placing in each of the stages (i.e. Spain finished 6th in stage 1 as did Turkey in stage 2) are then split based on which of the nations earned the most points and then on the best goal difference.

Pos Team Pld W W+ L GF GA GD Pts Notes
1  Russia 3 3 0 0 23 3 +20 9 Qualified to Superfinal as top 3 in stage 1 or 2
2   Switzerland 3 2 1 0 20 9 +11 8
3  Italy 3 2 0 1 20 10 +10 6
4  France 3 2 0 1 22 16 +6 6
5  Netherlands 3 2 0 1 10 16 –6 6
6  Poland 3 1 1 1 13 14 –1 5
7  Czech Republic 3 2 0 1 14 10 +4 6 Qualified to Superfinal as best fourth place team
8  Hungary 3 1 1 1 10 15 –5 5
9  Greece 3 1 0 2 12 17 –5 3
10  Norway 3 1 0 2 6 11 –5 3
11  Spain 3 1 0 2 12 10 +2 3
12  Turkey 3 1 0 2 14 15 –1 3
13  Estonia 3 1 0 2 9 11 –2 3
14  Austria 3 1 0 2 9 22 –13 3
15  England 3 0 0 3 6 13 –7 0
16  Andorra 3 0 0 3 9 17 –8 0

Superfinal[edit]

The Superfinal took place in Vila Real de Santo António, Portugal.

Format

This season the Superfinal was played as a straight knockout tournament. All eight teams contesting the title started in the quarter-finals, playing one match per round until the final when the winner of the 2008 Euro Beach Soccer League was crowned. The losers of the quarter-finals played in consolation matches to determine their final placements.

Seedings

Automatic entrants Portugal were assigned the number 1 seed. The other seeds, numbers 2–8, were allocated based on the order of the qualified nations in the cumulative standings. The top seed were drawn against the eighth seed, second seed against the seventh seed and so on.

Results[edit]

  • Dates: QFs – 22 August; SFs – 23 August; Finals – 24 August
Fifth place5th–8th place semifinalsQuarterfinalsSemifinalsFinal
2 Russia7
7 Poland3
7 Poland22 Russia1
3  Switzerland56 Netherlands3
3  Switzerland2 (3)
6 Netherlands (p)2 (4)
3  Switzerland76 Netherlands1
8 Czech Republic51 Portugal5
4 Italy3
5 France2
Seventh place5 France44 Italy4Third place
8 Czech Republic61 Portugal12
7 Poland58 Czech Republic22 Russia6
5 France71 Portugal54 Italy1

Championship match details[edit]

Portugal 5–1 Netherlands
Torres
Madjer
Zé Maria 		Report Ajiach

Winners[edit]

 2008 Euro Beach Soccer League
champions 

Portugal
Third title

Awards[edit]

Best player
Portugal Madjer
Top scorer
Portugal Madjer
11 goals
Best goalkeeper
Netherlands Ran Reijer

Superfinal final standings[edit]

Pos Team Notes
1  Portugal EBSL Champions
2  Netherlands Runners-up
3  Russia Third place
4  Italy
5   Switzerland
6  Czech Republic
7  France
8  Poland

Sources[edit]

  1. ^ "Portugal win the Superfinal". englandbeachsoccer.com. 27 August 2008. Archived from the original on 15 September 2008. Retrieved 20 August 2017.
  2. ^ "Euro Beach Soccer League 2008". englandbeachsoccer.com. 2 July 2008. Archived from the original on 7 February 2009. Retrieved 20 August 2017.
  3. ^ a b "Европейская лига пляжного футбола (EBSL) 2008" (in Russian). beachsoccer.ru. Retrieved 20 August 2017.
  4. ^ "Euro Beach Soccer League 2008". England Beach Soccer. 2 July 2008. Archived from the original on 2009-02-07. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
  5. ^ "Европейская лига пляжного футбола (EBSL) 2008 - Турнир группы «B» - 4 – 6 июля, Тинь (Франция)". beachsoccer.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 11 July 2022.
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