The 2004 Euro Beach Soccer League, was the seventh edition of the

Euro Beach Soccer League The Euro Beach Soccer League (EBSL) is the premier competition in beach soccer contested between European men's national teams. The competition has been held annually since its establishment in 1998, making it the oldest beach soccer tournament in ...

(EBSL), originally known as the ''European Pro Beach Soccer League'', the premier

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 ...

competition contested between European men's national teams, occurring annually since its establishment in 1998. The league was organised by

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 ...

(BSWW) between July 2 and September 5, 2004 in ten different nations across Europe. This season, BSWW introduced a third division, Division C, to the EBSL alongside the already existing Divisions A and B. Each team continued, as in the previous seasons, to compete in their respective division, including the newly added Division C nations, to try and earn a place in the season-finale event, the Superfinal, in which the league title was then contested directly.

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

, who entered as defending champions, had looked odds on favourites to reclaim their title after dominating the top Division but suffered a shock loss to the Division C qualifiers and debutants,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, in the first round of the Superfinal. This opened the door for

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, who had originally narrowly qualified for the season-finale, to ultimately be crowned champions, winning their first and to date only European title. The league also doubled as the qualification process for the first FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in 2005. The nations finishing in first, second and third place qualified directly whilst the teams in fourth through seventh place competed in a final play off stage to decide which nation would gain the remaining berth at the World Cup.

Teams

This season 18 nations took part in the Euro Beach Soccer League whom were and were distributed as follows:

Division A (6)

* * * * * *

Division B (5)

* * * * *

Division C (7)

* * * * * * ''(withdrew)'' * *

Superfinal berths

There were eight berths available in this season's Superfinal, expanded from the six spots in previous seasons. The table summarises in what positions nations needed to finish in their respective divisions in order to qualify to the Superfinal, what round of the Superfinal they would enter finishing in said positions, and the seeding they would receive. Allocations *Division A, consisting of the best teams of the EBSL, was awarded four Superfinal berths *Division B, as the middle tier, received three berths *The new Division C, in consideration of being the bottom tier of teams, received just one berth.

Division A

Division A consisted of six rounds of fixtures known as ''stages'', with one stage hosted in each of the six countries participating as shown. Four teams took part in each, with each team taking part in a total of four of the six stages. In each stage, the teams played each other once. The nation who earned the most points at the end of the stage was crowned stage winners. At the end of the six stages all results were tallied up in a final league table.

Stage 1

The first stage took place in

Marsielle Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern France ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

claimed the stage.

Matches

Final standings

Stage 2

The second stage took place in

Scoglitti Scoglitti ( scn, Scugghitti) is a fishing village and hamlet () of Vittoria, a municipality in the Province of Ragusa, Sicily, Italy. In 2011 it had a population of 4,175. History Scoglitti found a niche in history after being selected by the All ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. Spain won their first stage of the season.

Matches

Final standings

Stage 3

The third stage took place in

Portimão Portimão () is a city and a municipality in the district of Faro, in the Algarve region of southern Portugal. The population in 2011 was 55,614, in an area of 182.06 km2. It was formerly known as Vila Nova de Portimão (). In 1924, it was ...

. The hosts earned their second stage crown.

Matches

Final standings

Stage 4

The fourth stage took place in

Stavanger Stavanger (, , American English, US usually , ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Norway. It is the fourth largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the a ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. A second stage victory was claimed by Spain.

Matches

Final standings

Stage 5

The penultimate fifth stage took place in

Palma de Mallorca Palma (; ; also known as ''Palma de Mallorca'', officially between 1983–88, 2006–08, and 2012–16) is the capital and largest city of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is situate ...

Mallorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean. The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...

. The hosts won their third stage title of the season. The Spanish also earned enough points during this stage to secure first place in the final division standings.

Matches

Final standings

Stage 6

The sixth and final stage was due to be the English stage of Division A, to be held in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

(originally to be stage 1 of the division, held at the end of June). However, the sponsors of the English event in previous years,

Kronenbourg Kronenbourg Brewery (french: Brasseries Kronenbourg, German: ''Kronenbourg Brauerei'', ) is a brewery founded in 1664 by Geronimus Hatt in the Free Imperial City of Straßburg, Holy Roman Empire (today Strasbourg, France). The name comes from the ...

, and other potential sponsors, were deterred from investing in the event again due to this year's fixtures clashing with

Euro 2004 The 2004 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2004, was the 12th edition of the UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football competition contested by the men's national teams of UEFA member associations. The ...

, in which it was believed audiences would be far more interested and therefore a risk to invest money into this event.

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space. In the field of astronomy, ...

continued to offer TV coverage, but no new sponsor could be found, and so the stage was ultimately cancelled. BSWW subsequently made an attempt to reorganise the stage as stage 6 in

Catanzaro Catanzaro (, or ; scn, label= Catanzarese, Catanzaru ; , or , ''Katastaríoi Lokrói''; ; la, Catacium), also known as the "City of the two Seas", is an Italian city of 86,183 inhabitants (2020), the capital of the Calabria region and of its p ...

at the end of August, but this ultimately fell through too.

Final table

The top four teams qualified to the Superfinal. The final positions of the nations occupying first through fourth respectively determined seedings in the quarter-finals. Spain were crowned runaway winners of the division, earning the top seed in the Superfinal. France, finishing in the last qualifying position, claimed the lowest seed on offer in Division A. Despite the teams playing different numbers of games due to stage 6 being cancelled, this ultimately proved inconsequential to the final league table since, after the completion of stage 5, Norway had no fixtures remaining and it was impossible for England to gain enough points in the final round of matches to move up into a Superfinal qualification spot. Hence the four qualifiers were confirmed at this point. If played, the matches of stage 6 would have been

dead rubber Dead rubber is a term used in sporting parlance to describe a match in a series where the series result has already been decided by earlier matches. The dead rubber match therefore has no effect on the winner and loser of the series, other than the ...

Division B

Like the top tier, Division B consisted of five rounds of fixtures known as ''stages'', with one stage hosted in each of the five countries participating as shown. Four teams took part in each stage, with each nation participating in four of the five stages overall. In every round of fixtures the teams played each other once. The nation who earned the most points at the end of the stage was crowned stage winners. At the end of the five stages all results were tallied up in a final league table.

Stage 1

The first stage took place in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

won the first stage of Division B.

Matches

Final standings

Stage 2

The second stage took place in

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital of ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

won the event.

Matches

Final standings

Stage 3

The third stage took place in

, alongside the running of the Division A and C events.

claimed their first stage win.

Matches

Final standings

Stage 4

The fourth and next to last stage took place in

Interlaken , neighboring_municipalities= Bönigen, Därligen, Matten bei Interlaken, Ringgenberg, Unterseen , twintowns = Scottsdale (USA), Ōtsu (Japan), Třeboň (Czech Republic) Interlaken (; lit.: ''between lakes'') is a Swiss town and mun ...

. The hosts won their second stage crown.

Matches

Final standings

Stage 5

The fifth and final stage took place in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

. The hosts won the event, their second of the season, and secured the division title after beating Germany on the final day.

Matches

Final standings

Final table

The top three teams qualified to the Superfinal. The final positions of the nations occupying first through third respectively determined seedings in the quarter-finals. The remaining Division B nations exited this season's EBSL. Belgium were crowned winners. Switzerland and Austria were the other two successful teams, the latter qualifying ahead of Germany by a slim margin.

Division C

Results

The inaugural season of Division C was played as a straight knockout tournament. All teams contesting the division started in the quarter-finals, playing one match per round until the final when the winner was crowned. The losers of the quarter-finals played in consolation matches to determine their final division placements. Slovenia withdrew immediately prior to the start of the event, giving Poland a walkover into the semi-finals, Monaco a bye in the consolation matches with no opponent to face, and meant there was no seventh place play-off.Slovenia were due to play but withdrew just before the start of the Division C event.

Final standings

The winner of the division qualified into the Superfinal quarter-finals. The remaining Division C nations exited this season's EBSL. The

won the Division C tournament title, comfortably beating

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

in the final. Since they withdrew, Slovenia did not receive a placing.

Superfinal

Qualified teams

This is a summary of the teams who qualified for the Superfinal.

Results

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 2004 Euro Beach Soccer League was crowned. The losers of the quarter-finals played in consolation matches to determine their final league placements.

Championship match details

Winners

Superfinal final standings

beat Portugal in the final to win their first Euro Beach Soccer League title. The success of the three nations finishing in the podium positions meant they earned qualification for the upcoming

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 ...

. The teams in fourth through seventh place competed in a final play off stage to decide which nation would gain the remaining berth at the World Cup.

Sources

Roonba

BSWW archive

{{International Beach Soccer Euro Beach Soccer League 2004 in beach soccer