The 2018 Women's Euro Winners Cup was the third edition of the Women's Euro Winners Cup (WEWC), an annual continental beach soccer tournament for women's top-division European clubs. The championship is the sport's version of the UEFA Women's Champions League in association football.

Organised by Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW), the tournament was held in Nazaré, Portugal from 28 May till 3 June 2018, in tandem with the larger men's edition.

The event began 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.

Havana Shots Aargau of Switzerland were the defending champions, but were knocked out in the quarter-finals by WFC Zvezda of Russia, ultimately finishing in 8th place. WFC Zvezda went on to win their first title, beating Portsmouth Ladies of the England in the final, Pompey's second runners-up finish in a row.

Teams

20 teams entered the tournament – all of whom entered straight into the group stage.

12 different nations were represented.

Qualification As per BSWW regulations, qualification for the 2018 WEWC is achieved as follows:

The reigning champions qualify automatically (Havana Shots Aargau of Switzerland). The winners of all European national women's beach soccer leagues/championships are entitled to automatic qualification. (Note that no league champion from Switzerland qualified as this was Havana Shots Aargau who had already qualified as current WEWC champions) In countries where women's clubs exist but a national women's league or championship does not yet exist, one club can be nominated to represent that country. If a national association wishes to enter more than one club, they can request for permission to do so from the organisers BSWW who will grant or reject the clubs a berth at the tournament depending on the total number of teams already registered.

Entrants Key: H: Hosts \ TH: Title holders Group stage Sporting CP AIS Playas de San Javier DTS Ede WFC Zvezda Havana Shots Aargau Femenino Cáceres Amnéville Beachkick Ladies Berlin Higicontrol Melilla Lady Grembach EE Łódź Grande Motte Pyramide Nõmme Kalju Roses Platja KU AZS UAM Poznan Lokrians Portsmouth Ladies Madrid HTC Zwolle Terracina Ladies Vetlanda United

Venues

Three venues were used in one host city: Nazaré, Leiria District, Portugal. Matches took place at Praia de Nazaré (Nazaré Beach) on one of three pitches:

Host of 12 matches; all main bracket ties from the quarter-finals onwards and all host club (Sporting CP) matches.

Host of 24 matches; all Round of 16 ties and all losers brackets ties from the quarter-finals onwards.

Host of 26 matches; only used during the group stage.

Squads Each club must submit a squad of a maximum of 12 players that includes a minimum of two goalkeepers. Players are to be assigned shirt numbers between 1 and 22 (the number 1 must be reserved for a goalkeeper). Three delegates must accompany the players, including at least one medical personnel. A maximum of three foreign players are allowed to be part of the squad. This was later increased to four, however a maximum of three of these players are permitted to play in a match.

Draw The draw for the group stage took place on May 9 at 12:00 local time in Nazaré, Portugal at the Biblioteca Municipal de Nazaré (Nazaré Public Library), conducted by the Mayor of Nazaré, Walter Chicharro, PFP Director Pedro Dias, BSWW Deputy Vice-President, Gabino Renales and BSWW Head of Competitions, Josep Ponset.

The BSWW organising committee decided to split the 20 teams into five groups of four, conducting the draw as follows: The clubs were seeded. From every country represented, each club that finished highest in its country's national league were grouped together and ordered based upon the final ranking of the club that represented their national association in the previous edition of the championship. The exception to this was Sporting CP who, as the host club, were automatically given the number 1 seed and assigned to position A1. The top four clubs in this order received the next top seeds and were automatically assigned to the groups, with the 2nd seed placed in position B1 through to the 5th seed allocated to E1. Out of the remaining 15 clubs, again, from each country still represented, each club that finished highest in its country's national league were grouped together and ordered based upon the 2017 final ranking once more. These clubs in this order received the next top seeds available. For the countries still represented by one or more clubs, this process repeated until every club was seeded. The 15 teams were split into three pots, with the highest seeds placed into Pot 1 down to the lowest seeds placed in Pot 3 (along with one unseeded club, Nõmme Kalju, as there was no representative club of their association in the last edition to calculate a seed from). Each pot consisted of five teams. One team from each pot was drawn into each of the groups, A through E, chronologically. The teams from Pot 1 were assigned to position 2, those from Pot 2, assigned to position 3 and those from Pot 3, position 4. Teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same group. Auto-assigned clubsPot 1Pot 2Pot 3

Group stage The group stage fixtures were announced on 16 May.

All times are local, WEST (UTC+1).

Group A TeamQualification1 Higicontrol Melilla33000178+99Knockout stage2 Lady Grembach EE Łódź320011310+363 Sporting CP31002912–334 Vetlanda United30003413–90

Group B TeamQualification1 Beachkick Ladies Berlin3200197+26Knockout stage2 Lokrians320011313063 Havana Shots Aargau31002811–334 Madrid3100298+13

Group C TeamQualification1 Portsmouth Ladies33000345+299Knockout stage2 HTC Zwolle320011010063 Femenino Cáceres31002615–934 Nõmme Kalju30003424–200

Group D TeamQualification1 AIS Playas de San Javier32001117+46Knockout stage2 Amnéville3200198+163 Terracina Ladies32001119+264 DTS Ede30003613–70

Group E TeamQualification1 WFC Zvezda31110159+66Knockout stage2 Roses Platja32001127+563 KU AZS UAM Poznan31002611–534 Grande Motte Pyramide30003713–60

Knockout stage The top three clubs from each group, plus the best fourth placed team advance to the Round of 16.

In the knockout stage, the clubs compete in single-elimination matches. Consolation matches are also played to determine the final rankings involving the clubs knocked out of each round of the knockout stage.

Round of 16 draw: The Round of 16 draw was conducted on 30 May following the conclusion of the day's matches. The 16 clubs were placed into two pots of eight. The five group winners and the three best runners-up (Lady Grembach EE Łódź, Amnéville & Roses Platja) were placed in Pot 1. The remaining two runners-up, the five third-placed teams and the best fourth-placed club were assigned to Pot 2.

For each Round of 16 tie, a club from Pot 1 was drawn to play against a club from Pot 2. However, clubs who finished 1st and 2nd in the same group could not be drawn against each other. As each tie was drawn, they were allocated chronologically from top to bottom in the bracket below. The draw was conducted by the Mayor of Nazaré, Walter Chicharro and Dario Ramacciotti of Viareggio.

Round of 16

Quarter-finals

9th–16th place

1st–8th place

Semi-finals

13th–16th place

9th–12th place

5th–8th place

1st–4th place

Finals

15th place match

13th place match

11th place match

9th place match

7th place match

5th place match

3rd place match

Championship final

Awards The following individual awards were presented after the final. Top scorer Melissa Gomes ( Amnéville)14 goalsBest player Molly Clark ( Portsmouth Ladies)Best goalkeeper Viktoriia Silina ( WFC Zvezda)

Top goalscorers Players who scored at least 5 goals

14 goals

Melissa Gomes ( Amnéville)

12 goals

Molly Clark ( Portsmouth Ladies) Natalia de Francisco Gomez ( Higicontrol Melilla)

11 goals

Gemma Hillier ( Portsmouth Ladies)

10 goals

Federica Marino ( Lokrians)

9 goals

Adri ( Lady Grembach EE Łódź)

8 goals

Katie James ( Portsmouth Ladies) Alba Mellado ( Madrid) Carla Morera ( Roses Platja)

7 goals

Saki Kushiyama ( Lady Grembach EE Łódź) Jade Widdowson ( Portsmouth Ladies) Carolina González ( AIS Playas de San Javier)

6 goals

Mariana Rosa ( Sporting CP) Noele Bastos ( Terracina Ladies) Laura Del Río ( Madrid) Anastasiia Gorshkova ( WFC Zvezda) Andrea Miron ( AIS Playas de San Javier) Anna Cherniakova ( WFC Zvezda)

5 goals

Sandra Genovesi ( Havana Shots Aargau) Sarah Kempson ( Portsmouth Ladies) Louisa Meza ( Sporting CP) Lorena Asensio ( Higicontrol Melilla) Maria Soto ( Higicontrol Melilla) Marta Stodulska ( Lady Grembach EE Łódź) Silvia Ferrer ( Roses Platja) Selene Alegre ( Femenino Cáceres) Celine van Velsen ( HTC Zwolle)

Source

Final standings RankTeamResult 1 WFC Zvezda Champions (1st title) 2 Portsmouth Ladies Runners-up 3 AIS Playas de San Javier Third place 4 Amnéville 5 Lady Grembach EE Łódź 6 Roses Platja 7 Femenino Cáceres 8 Havana Shots Aargau 9 Sporting CP 10 Higicontrol Melilla 11 HTC Zwolle 12 Terracina Ladies 13 Beachkick Ladies Berlin 14 Madrid 15 Lokrians 16 KU AZS UAM Poznan

See also 2018 Euro Winners Cup (men's edition)

References

External links Women's Euro Winners Cup 2018 , at Beach Soccer Worldwide Euro Winners Cup Women 2018, at Beach Soccer Russia (in Russian)