Belgrade is buzzing as the EBSC 2016 comes to Serbia’s capital for the weekend.
The start of the Euro Beach Soccer Cup in Belgrade on Friday not only heralds a new era for the sport as a whole but Serbian beach soccer as the nation’s team make their first appearance following months of preparation.
Led by Dejan Knezevic, Serbia will begin their maiden outing in the beach soccer world on Friday evening in the capital against Hungary as part of a stellar competition line-up that also includes Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Russia and Ukraine.
Knezevic has helped oversee his country’s rise to prominence and has been entrusted with moulding a collection of talented players – many with transferable experience in football and futsal – into a team capable of challenging among Europe’s elite.
As excitement cranks up in Belgrade ahead of Friday’s big kick-off, Knezevic spoke to assembled media pitchside this week and explained how the selection process has gone and how, despite an injury to the talented Marko Peric, he “believes in miracles”.
“We made this selection from 70 players and practiced for around one month,” Knezevic explained. “Now we have 16 players and I have a very difficult decision to create a team from just 10 of them.
“The guys trained hard every day and all of them deserve to play but that is not possible and I’m sorry for that. You know some players such as Niko Mijailovic and Nenad Grujic, but Marko Peric – the captain of our national futsal team – is not with us because of a small injury. But he was training with us and I would like to say thank you to him for everything.
“He will be a great support for our team and he said that Hungary has a great team and has very strong players in their national team for almost 10 years in a row. This is a huge event for Belgrade and I would call on all fans in Serbia to come along and support these guys.
“They have trained very hard – in 35 degrees and in rain – and they deserve to have great support in this, the first tournament in their history. Hungary has three or four excellent players and this sport is very different from football or futsal. The ball is always in the air and there are lots of attractive moves.
“We will give our best and I believe that miracles do happen. We are believing in miracles.”
While Serbia have been busy preparing for their debut at the elite level of beach soccer, off-field preparations for the first such event in the country have gone on for months – a build-up befitting one of the most prestigious tournaments in the sport’s calendar.
Aleksandar Radosevic – CEO of Beach Soccer Serbia – has been among those chiefly tasked with putting on a show for the city to be proud of and feels all the hard work put in will come to fruition.
“When people ask me about the organisation of the event I always repeat the same thing – it is hard. But of course it is hard, this is a FIFA competition,” he continued.
“And also this is the first event of this kind in Serbia and sometimes you need to make decisions to start something. Also, I need to say that we have had great support from our Ministry of Sport, the city of Belgrade and the football association of Serbia.
“I am very proud that for these two days we will have this great event – the Euro Beach Soccer Cup – in Belgrade. I was speaking with the people from Beach Soccer Worldwide in Barcelona and they were telling me that this is definitely the strongest competition in Europe this season.
“We have brought amazing players from the national teams and I am sure the spectators will love this event so much.”
The event, which will see some of Europe’s premier beach soccer stars strut their stuff in new territory, has been a long time in the pipeline thanks to ongoing cooperation between organisers in Serbia and Beach Soccer Worldwide.
Alex Soriano, BSWW’s Tournament Director, summed up: “We famously started on a beach in Copacabana 25 years ago and from that moment we have developed beach soccer very fast.
“From 2004 we have been part of FIFA and we are proud to announce that there are now more than 140 countries in the world playing this sport. Beach soccer is played on six continents and every second year we have a World Cup.
“We are very proud to announce that for the first time in the history of such a strong and quality competition, it will be held in Belgrade. This tournament is the first this season and our expectations are huge.
“We hope everything will be very successful and I call all the people of Belgrade to enjoy good entertainment and a great sport all for free entrance.
“Serbia’s national team is in the beginning, I heard that you have some great players with experience in futsal and football. I know that you will need some time to adapt to the sand but I saw how they were playing in training and I saw they were skilled.
“The team has had a great help from Dejan Stankovic, who plays for Switzerland and is one of the best players in beach soccer, he is a great guy to have had as a teacher from the beginning.”
Keep up to date with the action from Belgrade via www.beachsoccer.com throughout the coming days.
