The 1999 Beach Soccer World Championships was the fifth edition of the ''

Beach Soccer World Championships The Beach Soccer World Championships was the premier international beach soccer competition contested by men's national teams between 1995 and 2004. It was replaced by the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup. The tournament took place annually in Braz ...

'', the most prestigious competition in international

beach soccer Beach soccer, also known as beach football, sand football or beasal, is a variant of association football played on a beach or some form of sand. Whilst football has been played informally on beaches, the introduction of ''beach soccer'' was an a ...

contested by men's national teams until 2005, when the competition was then replaced by the second iteration of a world cup in beach soccer, the better known ''

FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup The FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup is an international beach soccer competition contested by the national teams of the member associations of FIFA, the sport's global governing body. The tournament was preceded by the ''Beach Soccer World Champions ...

''. It was organised by Brazilian sports agency Koch Tavares (one of the founding partners of

Beach Soccer Worldwide Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) is the organisation responsible for the founding and growth of association football's derivative sport of beach soccer. The founding partners of BSWW codified the rules of beach soccer in 1992, with BSWW as it is kno ...

). The tournament continued to take place at

Copacabana Beach Copacabana () is a ''bairro'' (neighbourhood) located in the South Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is most prominently known for its 4 km (2.5 miles) balneario beach, which is one of the most famous in the wor ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

, Brazil. Twelve teams (a record high at the time) took part for the first time, expanded for a second year running, from ten in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

. This championship also saw an African nation participate for the first time (and only time pre-

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

) making this the single pre-FIFA era world cup with the most continental representation, with all but Oceania represented by at least one nation competing in Rio.

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

won their fifth title in a row by beating Portugal 5–2 in what was the Iberians' first final appearance.

Organisation

The number of teams competing this year was increased to twelve meaning a shift in organisation from previous years. The twelve nations were split into four groups of three who played each other in a

round robin Round-robin may refer to: Computing * Round-robin DNS, a technique for dealing with redundant Internet Protocol service hosts * Round-robin networks, communications networks made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology * Round-robin schedu ...

format. The top two teams then progressed to the quarter finals. With the increase in nations in this edition, this saw a quarter final stage introduced to the Championships for the first time. From the aforementioned round onward, the championship was played as a

knock-out tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

until a winner was crowned, with an additional match to determine third place.

Teams

Africa was represented for the first time (and only time before FIFA took control of the world cup). Asia had two nations competing for the first time. Oceania was unrepresented, the only continent to be so. African Zone (1): *¹ Asian Zone (2): * *¹ European Zone (4): * * * * North American Zone (2): * * South American Zone (2): * * Hosts: * (South America) Notes: :

1. Teams making their debut

Group stage

Group A

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Group B

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Group C

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Group D

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Knockout stage

Quarter finals

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Semi-finals

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Third place play-off

Final

Winners

Awards

Final standings

Sources

RSSSF
{{FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

1999 in beach soccer 1999 in Brazilian football