2008 Rink Hockey European Championship

Campeonato de Europa de Hockey sobre Patines, Oviedo 2008
Tournament details
Host country	Spain
Dates	July 21–26, 2008
Teams	8
Venue(s)	1 (in 1 host city)
Final positions
Champions	Spain (14th title)
Runners-up	Portugal
Third place	Italy
Fourth place	France
Tournament statistics
Matches played	24
Goals scored	138 (5.75 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Ricardo Barreiros (10)

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.

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.

Group A

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	Pts
Spain	3	3	0	0	17	3	9
Italy	3	2	0	1	6	4	6
France	3	1	0	2	11	8	3
Netherlands	3	0	0	3	1	20	0

July 21, 2008 16:30 CET
	Italy	2–0	France	Palacio de los Deportes, Oviedo
	Juan Travasino Mattia Cocco	Report
	Umpires: Jordi Vidal (ESP) & Joaquim Carpelho (POR)

July 21, 2008 20:50 CET
	Spain	7–1	Netherlands	Palacio de los Deportes, Oviedo
	Jordi Bargallo (2) Sergi Panadero Josep Ordeig Marc Torra Marc Gual Pedro Gil	Report	Arjan van Gerven
	Umpires: Mark Lewis (SUI) & Thomas Ullrich (GER)

July 22, 2008 16:30 CET
	Netherlands	0–3	Italy	Palacio de los Deportes, Oviedo
		Report	Juan Travasino Mattia Cocco Leonardo Squeo
	Umpires: Oscar Valverde (ESP) & Xavier Jacquart (FRA)

July 22, 2008 20:11 CET
	France	1–6	Spain	Palacio de los Deportes, Oviedo
	Rémi Lasnier	Report	Josep Ordeig (3) Sergi Panadero Marc Gual Pedro Gil
	Umpires: Massimiliano Carmazzi (ITA) & Thomas Ullrich (GER)

July 23, 2008 14:51 CET
	Netherlands	0–10	France	Palacio de los Deportes, Oviedo
		Report	Sébastien Landrin (5) Frédéric Hamon (2) Rémi Lasnier Olivier Lesca Nicolas Guilbert
	Umpires: Mark Lewis (SUI) & Thomas Ullrich (GER)

July 23, 2008 20:12 CET
	Spain	4–1	Italy	Palacio de los Deportes, Oviedo
	Lluis Teixido (2) Marc Gual (2)	Report	Juan Travasino
	Umpires: Joaquim Carpelho (POR) & Xavier Jacquart (FRA)

Group B

Knockout phase

	Quarter-finals				Semi-finals				Final
	July 24 — 17:30 CET (Match 16)
	England	0
					July 25 — 18:30 CET (Match 19)
	Italy	5
					Italy	0
	July 24 — 19:00 CET (Match 17)
					Portugal	5
	Netherlands	1
									July 26 — 21:00 CET (Match 22)
	Portugal	10
									Portugal	0
	July 24 — 21:00 CET (Match 18)
									Spain	1
	Spain	9
					July 25 — 21:00 CET (Match 20)
	Germany	1
					Spain	3
	July 24 — 15:45 CET (Match 15)
					France	0			Third place
	Switzerland	2
									July 26 — 18:30 CET (Match 21)
	France	3
									Italy	4
									France	3

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Final

Classification

5th–8th

Third place

Final ranking

Plc	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	Diff
1	Spain	6	6	0	0	30	4	+26
2	Portugal	6	5	0	1	32	6	+26
3	Italy	6	4	0	2	15	12	+3
4	France	6	2	0	4	17	17	0
5	Switzerland	6	3	1	2	15	16	−1
6	England	6	1	2	3	9	16	−7
7	Germany	6	1	1	4	16	21	−5
8	Netherlands	6	0	0	6	4	46	−42

Goalscorers

Below is a list of all the tournament goalscorers by decreasing number of goals scored:^[1]

Squads

Spain

Portugal

France