The European beach soccer tournament came to Scheveningen last weekend. Saturdays saw the beach stadium bathing in hot sunshine. This was my first visit to beach football as I would rather call it and didn’t really know what to expect.

Starting with the rules I could fathom out. Each game is played over three periods of twelve minutes. Any free kick, corner etc must be taken within five seconds making for a very fast moving sport. If a free is awarded, the shot is always direct. Shots on goal from one end to the other are common place. There is no offside, the keepers can also only hold on to the ball for five seconds maximum. There are continual substitutions and sin bins for serious foul play.

Due to the playing surface, which is of course sand, the play gets quite acrobatic. The amount of aerobatic headers, volleys and bicycle kicks is amazing. The skill on show in quite amazing and of course the bumpy terrain can cause the goalkeepers a few blushes as the ball takes an unpredictable bounce past them in to the net. There is a shot on goal roughly evey fifteen seconds or so.

Then during the intervals of a match, the glamour takes over, as some very nice, scantily clad beach soccer cheerleaders entertain the crowd with some heavenly gyrations. To keep an intensity of excitement throughout; there is a commentator yelling his thoughts and trying to whip up the crowd to create some noise. Not that any vocal encouragement is needed as during the whole day, including during the match, loud party music is thumping out.

The weekend saw a few different events going on, the top FIFA regulated European beach league being the mst important. The one that got all the attention though was the knock out format. On Saturday Holland played England in a semi-final. The stadium was full to capacity, the atmosphere was electric, real football crowd style, chanting, cheering, clapping, Mexican waves, the lot. As said earlier, these are professional events. Teams lead out, national anthems played before the games starts.

As it turned out, this semi-final was the best of the day, seeing Holland win 5-4 with a flying bicycle kick from distance deciding matters in the last minute of the game. In the other semi-final, Turkey beat Azerbaijan to set up a mouth watering final.

The last two games of the day saw some of the European giants of beach soccer play their European league games. These games involving Spain, Russia, Switzerland and Romania were a bit slower than the other match played; however, the skills levels were far higher and it was really exciting to watch.

Sunday saw a change in weather, rain showers at least keeping the sand down and out of the players’ mouths. The highlight of the day was of course going to be the final between Holland and Turkey at 15.15.

In drizzly warm weather, the fans still packed out the stadium. Great atmosphere yet again welcomed both teams on to the sand. The game itself was full of skill, tense and exciting at the same time. Unfortunately for the Dutch, Turkey hit a long range free straight in to the back of the net to give them a 4-5 lead with only thirty seconds remaining. The Dutch still managed to threaten the goal on two occasions in those final thirty seconds. The whistle blew and Turkey celebrated with a group dance on the pitch. The Dutch were however very sporting in defeat and congratulated their opponents.

What a great weekend of fast, action packed entertainment. There are more dates to excite you at the beach stadion in the coming weeks, check out this link for dates.

I am sure you will enjoy yourselves. I did!

Text and photos by Neal McClimon
neal@thehagueonline.com
www.itpphotography.com
 

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