Host country Spain Teams 8 Champions Spain (14th title) | Dates July 21–26, 2008 Venue(s) 1 (in 1 host city) Runners-up Portugal | |
The 2008 Rink Hockey European Championship was the 48th edition of the Rink Hockey European Championship—the biennial rink hockey competition for European national teams, supervised by CERH—that took place in the Spanish city of Oviedo, at the local arena Palacio de los Deportes (English: Sports Palace), on July 21–26, 2008. In a final against long-time rivals, Portugal, the hosts and holders Spain won their fifth consecutive European title.
Contents
Format
The tournament consists of two distinct phases: a single round-robin group phase and a knockout phase. In the first phase, the eight finalist teams are divided into two groups of four teams. Within each group, every team plays one match against all the other teams, to decide the group classification. Unlike previous editions, all participating teams advance to the quarterfinals phase, whatever their final placing in the group phase. In the quarterfinals, each group winner and the runner-up teams will play the third and fourth placed teams of the other group, respectively, for a place in the semifinals. The four losing teams will play one last game to decide their final ranking in the tournament. The quarterfinal winning sides progress to the semifinals and the two winners meet in the title-awarding final. A game deciding the third and fourth place will be held between the semifinal losing sides.
Group phase
The group phase was contested on July 21–23, with two matches per group, each day. Group A was composed by France, Italy, Netherlands and hosts Spain; Group B included Germany, England, Portugal and Switzerland.
Goalscorers
Below is a list of all the tournament goalscorers by decreasing number of goals scored: