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 enter straight into the group stage.
12 different nations are 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
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:
Group stage
The group stage fixtures were announced on 16 May.
All times are local, WEST (UTC+1).
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
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.