Portugal proves to be the strongest team in 2019 and beat the up and coming Italian team in the men’s final in Lucerne, Switzerland. This marks the end of the European Footvolley League 2019 and we can look back at four amazing events in Austria, Germany, Portugal and Switzerland.
The men’s finalists
Miguel Pinheiro is a well known name for those who follow European footvolley. He has now won the European Footvolley Championship two times, in four attempts, and been in the final all four times. In 2017 he won at home when the championship was held in Albufeira, Portugal. In 2016, 2017 and 2018 he played with Nelson Pereira, but this year he teamed up with the great technician Filipe Santos. They began the season in the second qualification tournament in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany, followed by the third qualification tournament in Albufeira, Portugal - winning both of them.
The Italian team played very well in the three qualification tournaments, but had to replace Luca Marcaccini with Alain Faccini in the championship. This turned out to be a good replacement and it took Italy all the way to the final - for the first time since the start of European Footvolley League in 2016. Federico Iacopucci and Alain Faccini became more and more tuned in as the tournament progressed. They had a long journey to the finals and had to go through three sets against Norway, Spain and Israel. Beating Israel was a big surprise, but well deserved. Also; Alain Faccini has only played footvolley for two years, but already proving to be at a top European level - and maybe the player with the most shark attacks in the whole tournament? Federico Iacopucci, the second youngest in the tournament (born in 1999), has taken great steps the last couple of years and he was awarded the MVP of the championship. Well deserved.
The final game
The final stage of the Footvolley League 2019 were held in the beautiful Swiss mountains of Lucerne and ended with a final between Portugal and Italy. In the first set the teams followed each other all the way up to 9-8 before Portugal started picking more and more important points. They actually scored eight points in a row and had a set point at 17-8. The young Italians tried to get back into the set with a nice shark attack by Alain to make it 17-9. But it was too late and on the next ball Filipe made a very nice short ball and sealed the first set with a score of 18-9.
In the second set Portugal came out early with a couple of points lead and kept it like that for the rest of the set. The Italians managed to return to 16-14 and had a golden opportunity to catch up. Unfortunately for Italy Filipe scored the next point with his specialty; the short ball. And then we were ready for the match ball and Filipe did the same thing as in the first set an scored the point with a beautifull long diagonal that barely touched the line. Portugal wins comfortably in two sets and they are once again on the top of the podium.
In the final we saw Alain Faccini attempt an amazing 13 shark attacks. Unfortunately for him, and Italy, it only resulted in a point four times. The last couple of years we have seen more teams being able to defend shark attacks and this means that the shark attack is not always the best weapon to use. A guy that never attempts a shark attack, at least we have never seen it, is Filipe Santos. He plays a very technical kind of footvolley with a lot of variations. His repertoire has both short balls and long balls and he always seem to put it where the opponent is not. His statistics show us that he scores equally on short balls and long balls - and makes few errors.
Miguel Pinheiro and Federico Iacopucci are considered stronger attackers than their partners, and therefore they receive very few serves during a game. The same happened in the final and for that reason we did not see a lot of attacks from them. Still, it is important that they play well in defense and that they set up the balls good.
Watch the whole final in the video below.
# See all the scores from the European Footvolley Championship.
# See the European Footvolley Rankings.
The European Footvolley League 2019
The European Footvolley League is proud to finish the season with an incredible match between two teams with such great talent. But even though Portugal and Italy played the final and have many more top players, there are a lot more teams knocking on the door. When will we see the full potential of Israel? Ron Ben Ishay and Oren Tzuberry showed great craftsmanship and the potential to jump all the way to the top. Is Germany ready to step up next year? Injuries of Mo Obeid and Joel Nisslein caused the young German players to knock on the door with Jakob Domke and Lukas Kircherer playing the final in Albufeira. Two times European Champions with two different teams France is always strong. Their ranking after the national championship in October shows great promise. Can we expect them to be back on top in 2020? Spain has the most footvolley players in all of Europe and we are excited to see what they can bring to the table. Although we’re going to miss Sergio Antolinos a lot. After winning the first stage in Graz together with his partner Juan Lopez Sergio announced his retirement from the international scene. Furthermore Austria was unlucky when an injury broke up the rise of their top team Jacky and (please stop playing football) Klemens Hofmann-Wellenhof..
The 2019 season was the first year with three qualification tournaments and a final European Championship. In total 87 players played a little less than 200 games in 12 days of competition and entertainment. The already excellent level keeps rising and our new competition format seems to accelerate this trend.. The atmosphere in and around the stadiums is amazing. With about 50.000 live spectators in 4 countries and more than 150.000 views on Laola TV and our joined social media channels, we feel blessed and we can’t wait to bring you European Footvolley League 2020.
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