2022 Euro Winners Cup


The 2022 Euro Winners Cup was the tenth edition of the Euro Winners Cup, an annual continental beach soccer tournament for men's top-division European clubs. The championship is the sport's version of the better known UEFA Champions League in association football.
Organised by Beach Soccer Worldwide, the tournament was held in Nazaré, Portugal from 3–12 June.
The event began with a qualification round. The competition proper then commenced, with a round robin group stage. At its conclusion, the best teams progressed to the knockout stage, a series of single elimination games to determine the winners, starting with the round of 16 and ending with the final. Consolation matches were also played to determine other final rankings.
Kristall of Russia were the defending champions but were barred from entering the competition this year. The final was contended between two Portuguese clubs, Benfica Loures and Braga; the former won the competition for the first time, whilst the latter finished as runners-up for the third year straight.

Teams

Qualification

Normal qualification rules returned, having been suspended for the last two editions, due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.
The number of clubs which are entitled to enter automatically from each country depends on the perceived strength of their country's national league. BSWW determine the strength of each league by analysing the performance of all clubs in the EWC on a country-by-country basis over the previous five editions. A points-based ranking is produced from the data, as seen in the table below.
From the most recent edition of their country's national league:
  • The first through sixth place performing nations can enter three clubs.
  • The seventh, eighth and ninth place performing nations can enter two clubs.
  • The tenth place and below performing nations can enter just one club, their league champions.
The above clubs take priority and are offered their country's slots first. However, if such clubs choose not to are or unable to participate, the slot is offered to the next highest placed teams from their league in turn until one accepts. Thus, in reality, some countries fill their allocated quota with clubs placed considerably lower down in their league, don't fill all their slots, or sometimes fill no slots at all.
The "host club" and defending champions also enter automatically.
Any and all clubs that don't qualify automatically, and/or are surplus to their countries allocated quotas, are entitled to enter the accompanying Euro Winners Challenge to take place in the days prior to the competition proper, as a last opportunity to qualify for the EWC group stage; the best eight clubs will qualify.

Entrants

60 clubs from 22 different nations entered the event – 32 entered straight into the group stage, 28 entered into the preliminary round.
La Louvière of Belgium originally entered but were subsequently replaced by Benfica Viseu of Portugal.
Key: H: Hosts \ TH: Title holders

Draw

The draw to split the clubs 32 and 28 clubs into groups for both the group and preliminary stages respectively took place at 12:00 CEST on 6 May at BSWW's headquarters in Barcelona, Spain.

Euro Winners Challenge (preliminary round)

The designation of "home" and "away" teams displayed in the results matrices is for administrative purposes only.
Matches took place from 3 to 5 June.
The group winners, plus the best runner-up, qualified to the competition proper.

;Key:

Group A



Group B



Group C



Group D



Group E



Group F



Group G



Group stage

Matches took place from 5 to 8 June.
The group winners, plus the six best runners-up, progress to the knockout stage. The statistically next best eight performing clubs recede to the 17th–24th place placement matches; the worst performing eight clubs recede to the 25th–32nd place placement matches.

Group A



Group B



Group C



Group D



Group E




Details

Group F



Group G



Group H



Group I (Challenge qualifiers, Group 1)



Group J (Challenge qualifiers, Group 2)



Placement matches


;Key

Knockout stage

The draw for the round of 16, and allocation of ties to the bracket, took place after the conclusion of all group stage matches on 8 June.
EW Challenge final

Round of 16



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Quarter-finals

9th–16th place



1st–8th place



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Semi-finals

13th–16th place



9th–12th place



5th–8th place



1st–4th place



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Finals

15th place match



13th place match



11th place match



9th place match



7th place match



5th place match



3rd place match



Final



Awards

The following individual awards were presented after the final.

Top goalscorers

Players with at least five goals are listed; teams/players involved in the Euro Winners Challenge are not included.
;17 goals
;14 goals
;13 goals
;12 goals
  • Filipe Silva
;10 goals
;8 goals
  • Jordan Oliveira
  • Nelson Manuel
  • Bokinha
  • Netinho
  • Duarte Vivo
  • Sven Körner
  • Sameh Moreb
;7 goals
;6 goals
  • Michele Di Palma
  • Kuman
  • Sebastien Groyne
  • Tim Kautermann
  • Patryk Pietrasiak
  • Cem Keskin
;5 goals
Source: