The 1996 Beach Soccer World Championships was the second edition of the ''
Beach Soccer World Championships'', the most prestigious competition in international
beach soccer 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''. 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 know ...
).
The tournament again took 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 ...
in
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 ...
, Brazil, as it did during the maiden edition a year earlier.
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 ...
successfully defended their title by beating
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
3–0 in what was the lowest scoring final to date, to win their second World Championship. The Uruguayans remained the only side not to score in a world cup final until
Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austra ...
also failed to do so in
2017
File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a s ...
.
This edition is one of only two world cups after the first (the other being
2003) when no matches went beyond regulation time.
Organisation
The organisation remained the same as the format established for the maiden event in the previous year; the eight participating nations competed in two groups of four teams 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 progressed straight to the semi-finals from which point on 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.
The capacity of the arena used for this edition of the World Championships remained the same as in 1995, at 12,000 seats available for spectators.
Teams
Africa, Asia and Oceania were unrepresented.
European Zone (3):
*
1
*
*
1
North American Zone (2):
*
1
*
South American Zone (2):
*
*
Hosts:
*
(South America)
Group stage
Group A
----
----
Group B
----
----
Knockout stage
Semi-finals
----
Third place play-off
Final
Winners
Awards
2. Other sources suggest 13 goal
/small>
Final standings
Sources
RSSSF
{{FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup
Beach Soccer World Championships, 1996
1996
1996 in Brazilian football
1996 in beach soccer