2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup


The 2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup was the 10th FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, the premier international beach soccer championship contested by men's national teams of the member associations of FIFA. Pre-2005 tournaments were not governed by FIFA and were held under the title Beach Soccer World Championships. Overall this was the 20th edition of the World Cup since its establishment in 1995. This was the fifth tournament to take place under the biennial basis; the World Cup now takes place once every two years, having taken place annually until 2009.
The tournament was confirmed publicly on 3 November 2017, during the annual FIFA Beach Soccer Workshop in Dubai as part of the recently renewed partnership between FIFA and Beach Soccer Worldwide. In October 2018, it was announced that the tournament would take place in Paraguay in the city of Luque, near the capital, Asunción, between 21 November and 1 December 2019. Fifteen teams advanced through preliminary continental qualification competitions, which started in September 2018 and ended in July 2019, to join the hosts in the final tournament which included Belarus as the sole team making their debut at the finals and notably saw the third placed team of the previous edition, Iran, fail to qualify. This was the first FIFA tournament to be hosted by Paraguay, the first edition of the World Cup held in South America since 2007, and the first time a landlocked country hosted beach soccer's principal event.
Following two narrow loses, hosts Paraguay were eliminated at the group stage. Brazil were the defending champions, but were defeated at the quarter-finals stage by Russia in what was a repeat of the scenario of 2015, thereby condemning Brazil to their joint-worst ever result. Portugal won the tournament, besting Italy in the final to claim their second FIFA World Cup crown and third world title overall ; Italy collected a second runners-up medal, following 2008. For the first time, the podium teams were all European nations. Japan finished fourth, matching their best ever placing previously achieved in 2005. A joint-record tally of 286 goals were scored.
Madjer of Portugal made his last international beach soccer tournament appearance at this competition. The all-time top scorer of the competition, often heralded as the best player of all-time, announced his retirement following the final, aged 42.

Host selection

The bidding schedule to determine the hosts was as follows:
Countries known to have declared interest in bidding to host the competition are inclusive of but not exclusive to:
On 1 October 2018, the FIFA Organising Committee recommended hosting be awarded to Paraguay as they were the only association to make an official bid after the initial declaration of interest stage. Confirmation of the awarding of hosting rights to Paraguay was announced at the FIFA Council meeting in Kigali, Rwanda on 26 October 2018.

Qualification

A total of 16 teams qualified for the final tournament. In addition to Paraguay who qualified automatically as hosts, 15 other teams qualified from six separate continental competitions.
The slot allocation for each confederation was decided at the FIFA Council meeting on 26 October 2018.

Qualifying rounds

The process of qualification to the World Cup finals began on 9 September 2018 and ended on 27 July 2019.
Note: All appearance statistics below include only the FIFA era ; see: National team appearances in the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup for inclusion of the pre-FIFA era stats.
ConfederationQualifying tournamentTeamBest performance
AFC
2019 AFC Beach Soccer Championship10th2017
AFC
2019 AFC Beach Soccer Championship3rd2015
AFC
2019 AFC Beach Soccer Championship6th2017
CAF
2018 Africa Beach Soccer Cup of Nations6th2017
CAF
2018 Africa Beach Soccer Cup of Nations7th2017
CONCACAF
2019 CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship6th2017
CONCACAF
2019 CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship5th2013
CONMEBOL
Host nation4th2017
CONMEBOL
2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualification 10th2017
CONMEBOL
2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualification 6th2009
OFC 2019 OFC Beach Soccer Nations Cup5th2017
UEFA
2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualification 1stn/a
UEFA
2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualification 8th2017
UEFA
2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualification 7th2015
UEFA
2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualification 5th2017
UEFA
2019 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup qualification 9th2017

Venue

One venue was used in the city of Luque, part of the Greater Asunción area, on the grounds of the Paraguayan Olympic Committee headquarters.
The stadium was purpose-built for the tournament, having been constructed between January and August 2019. It was officially opened by FIFA president Gianni Infantino on 9 November 2019, under the nickname of the Paraguayan national team, Los Pynandi, meaning "barefoot" in Guarani. The Paraguayan Football Association and FIFA funded the US$1.5 million cost of the concrete structure. The main arena was complemented by three external, floodlit training pitches located adjacent.

Organisation

The following were key milestones in the organisation of the tournament :
FIFA chose 24 officials from 24 different countries to referee matches at the World Cup, who were revealed on 29 October 2019. At least one referee was representing each of the six confederations: four from the AFC, three from CAF, five from CONMEBOL, three from CONCACAF, one from the OFC and eight from UEFA.
The most matches any one referee officiated in was seven ; however it was Ivo Moraes who officiated the most matches as lead referee, including the final. Only Hugo Pado and Sergio Soares were not appointed as first referee of any match, the latter also officiating in the fewest total matches.
ConfederationRefereeAgeQualified
AFC Ebrahim Al-Mansory2009
AFC Suhaimi Mat Hassan2010
AFC Bakhtiyor Namazov2009
AFC Shao Liang2013
CAF Hany Farouk2015
CAF Said Hachim2010
CAF Adil Ouchker2013
CONCACAF Juan Angeles2012
CONCACAF Gumercindo Batista2012
CONCACAF Gonzalo Carballo2014
CONMEBOL Gustavo Domínguez2012
CONMEBOL Aecio Fernández2018
CONMEBOL Ivo Moraes2005
CONMEBOL Mariano Romo2013
CONMEBOL Alex Valdiviezo2012

ConfederationRefereeAgeQualified
OFC Hugo Pado2010
UEFA---
UEFA Sofien Benchabane2011
UEFA Roman Borisov2014
UEFA Sergio Gomes Soares2014
UEFA Vitalij Gomolko2015
UEFA Raúl González2016
UEFA Ingilab Mammadov2012
UEFA Gionni Matticoli2012
UEFA Łukasz Ostrowski2012

Draw

The draw to split the 16 teams into four groups of four took place on 13 September 2019 at 19:30 PYT, at the CONMEBOL Convention Centre in Asunción, Paraguay. The draw was assisted by Roberto Acuna of Paraguay and Júnior of Brazil who both formerly represented their respective national teams at World Cups in both association football and beach soccer. CONMEBOL president, Alejandro Domínguez and Paraguayan Football Association president, Robert Harrison, also took part in the presentation.
For the purpose of the draw, the teams were divided into four pots each containing four teams. The teams were allocated into the respective pots based on their previous performances at recent World Cups, and their respective qualification tournaments. Initially, two teams from Pot 1 were automatically allocated to the groups – Paraguay, as the hosts, were assigned to position A1 and Brazil, as the defending champions, were assigned to position D1. Teams from the same confederation could not be drawn into the same group, except for UEFA for which one group was permitted to contain two, since UEFA are represented by five teams.
Pot 1Pot 2Pot 3Pot 4

Squads

Each team had to name a preliminary squad of between 12 and 18 players. From the preliminary squad, the team had to name a final squad of 12 players by the FIFA deadline. Players in the final squad could be replaced by a player from the preliminary squad due to serious injury or illness up to 24 hours prior to kickoff of the team's first match.
The squads included a number of high-profile players who, at this tournament, made their final international beach soccer appearances, announcing their retirements following the conclusion of the competition. This included Portuguese captain and three-time world champion Madjer, 2009 runners-up, Swiss captain Moritz "Mo" Jaeggy and his brother, Valentin Jaeggy and two-time runner-up Italian captain Francesco Corosiniti.

Group stage

Each team earned three points for a win in regulation time, two points for a win in extra time, one point for a win in a penalty shoot-out, and no points for a defeat. The top two teams of each group advanced to the quarter-finals.
All times are local, PYST.

Tiebreakers

The ranking of teams in the group stage was determined as follows:
  1. Points obtained in all group matches;
  2. Goal difference in all group matches;
  3. Number of goals scored in all group matches;
  4. Points obtained in the matches played between the teams in question;
  5. Goal difference in the matches played between the teams in question;
  6. Number of goals scored in the matches played between the teams in question;
  7. Fair play points in all group matches :
  8. Drawing of lots.

    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

Bracket


Quarter-finals

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Semi-finals

Heavy rain and strong winds threatened the postponement of the semi-finals and deterred fans from attending the matches.
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Third place match

Final

Awards

After the final, FIFA presented individual awards to the three best players of the tournament, three top goalscorers, and to the best goalkeeper. In addition, a collective award was given to the team with the most points in the Fair Play ranking. Following this, the winners' trophy was awarded to Portugal.

Winners

Individual awards

Along with the eventual winners of the gold, silver and bronze ball awards, Takuya Akaguma, Rui Coimbra, Gabriele Gori, Boris Nikonorov, Artur Paporotnyi, Fedor Zemskov and Emmanuele Zurlo were also announced as the candidates for the award in the initial ten-man shortlist.
The individual awards were all sponsored by Adidas, except for the FIFA Fair Play Award.
The goal of the tournament was decided via an online public vote from which there were ten options to choose from. The vote closed at 14:00 GMT on 9 December.

Statistics

Goalscorers

With 16 goals, Italian forward Gabriele Gori finished as top scorer for the second consecutive tournament, a feat achieved only once previously during the FIFA era of World Cups, by Madjer in 2005 and 2006. Having failed to score at the last edition, Madjer scored one goal at this edition to extend his record tally of goals at FIFA World Cups to 88.

Assists

Discipline

;Team & match statistics
Heimanu Taiarui of Tahiti against Italy
Heiarii Tavanae of Tahiti against Italy
Paraguay v Switzerland
Japan v Switzerland,
Belarus v United Arab Emirates,
Nigeria v Oman,
Brazil v Russia

;Player statistics
Artur Paporotnyi
Heiarii Tavanae
Jonathan Torohia
Victor Tale
Yoao Rolón
Ihar Bryshtel
Aleksey Makarov
Alfioluca Chiavaro
Guillermo Costa
Angelo Tchen
Sources: , ,

Final standings

Media

Broadcasting rights

180 territories broadcast matches of the tournament.
The following tables are a summary of some notable and participating territories' broadcasting licensee holders.
Individual territories listed that are also part of regional deals show the additional broadcasting licenses in those territories.

Closing report

Social media

At the closing press conference on 30 November, head of FIFA Tournaments, Jaime Yarza reported that social media posts had generated over 46 million impressions, 1.7 million user interactions and 14 million video views, setting a new record for social media engagement of the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, which Yarza claimed showed the continued growth of the sport.

Economic impact

Prior to the tournament, the Paraguayan Football Association estimated the competition would generate US$5 million for the local economy. The actual economic impact was reported at three times this amount of US$15 million at the closing press conference.

Attendance figures

Despite struggling attendance figures, APF General Secretary Luis Kanonnikoff declared "we are happy with the attendance numbers of both locals and foreigners."
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