2015–16 CERH European League

2015–16 CERH European League

The Pavilhão Fidelidade in Lisbon hosted the Final Four.
Tournament details
Dates	24 October 2015 – 15 May 2016
Teams	16 (from 6 associations)
Final positions
Champions	Benfica (2nd title)
Runners-up	Oliveirense
Tournament statistics
Matches played	59
Goals scored	528 (8.95 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Pedro Gil (21 goals)

The 2015–16 CERH European League is the 51st season of Europe's premier club roller hockey tournament organised by CERH, and the 19th season since it was renamed from European Champion Clubs' Cup to CERH Champions League/European League.

Barcelona were the defending champions, but they were eliminated in semi-finals by the eventual winners Benfica, who became European champions for a second time.

Teams

League positions of the previous season shown in parentheses (TH: Title holders, CW: Cup winners, LSF: Losing semi-finalists, LQF: Losing quarter-finalists). Bold means seeded teams.

Group stage
BarcelonaTH (1st)	Benfica (1st)	Forte dei Marmi (1st)	Dinan Quévert (1st)
Liceo La Coruña (2nd)	Porto (2nd)	Viareggio (2nd)	Mérignac (2nd)
Vic (CW)	Oliveirense (3rd)	Breganze (LSF)	Iserlohn (1st)
Vendrell (3rd)	Valongo (4th)	Bassano (LQF)	Basel (1st)

Round dates

The schedule of the competition is as follows (draw held at CERH headquarters in Lisbon, Portugal, on 6 September 2015).

Phase	Round	First leg	Second leg
Group stage	Matchday 1	24 October 2015
	Matchday 2	7 November 2015
	Matchday 3	28 November 2015
	Matchday 4	12 December 2015
	Matchday 5	16 January 2016
	Matchday 6	6 February 2016
Knockout phase	Quarter-finals	5 March 2016	2 April 2016
	Semi-finals	14 May 2016
	Final	15 May 2016

Group stage

The draw for the group stage was held on 6 September 2015, 11:00, in Luso, Portugal. The 16 teams were allocated into four pots, with the title holders Barcelona being automatically placed in pot 1. Liceo La Coruña, Benfica and Forte dei Marmi were the other three seeded teams. The remaining teams were then drawn into four groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same group. In each group, teams play against each other in a home-and-away round-robin format, with the top two teams advancing to the knockout stage.

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		POR	BAR	BRE	ISE
1	Porto	6	6	0	0	46	8	+38	18	Advanced to knockout phase		—	1–0	13–4	21–1
2	Barcelona	6	4	0	2	34	12	+22	12			1–2	—	5–2	7–2
3	Breganze	6	1	1	4	24	34	−10	4			1–2	4–6	—	7–2
4	Iserlohn	6	0	1	5	13	63	−50	1			1–7	1–15	6–6	—

Source: CERH

Group B

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		BEN	VIC	BAS	MER
1	Benfica	6	5	0	1	41	18	+23	15	Advanced to knockout phase		—	5–1	9–6	8–0
2	Vic	6	5	0	1	36	17	+19	15			7–6	—	8–0	9–0
3	Bassano	6	1	0	5	24	43	−19	3			2–8	5–8	—	7–5
4	Mérignac	6	1	0	5	13	36	−23	3			2–5	1–3	5–4	—

Source: CERH

Group C

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		FOR	VEN	VAL	QUE
1	Forte dei Marmi	6	4	2	0	39	24	+15	14	Advanced to knockout phase		—	6–2	8–7	9–1
2	Vendrell	6	3	1	2	27	24	+3	10			6–6	—	5–1	8–4
3	Valongo	6	2	1	3	26	27	−1	7			5–5	5–3	—	5–1
4	Dinan Quévert	6	1	0	5	16	33	−17	3			3–5	2–3	5–3	—

Source: CERH

Group D

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification		LIC	OLI	VIA	BAS
1	Liceo La Coruña	6	5	0	1	37	15	+22	15	Advanced to knockout phase		—	5–3	7–2	13–1
2	Oliveirense	6	5	0	1	35	22	+13	15			4–2	—	5–3	10–5
3	Viareggio	6	2	0	4	26	32	−6	6			2–5	5–7	—	8–4
4	Basel	6	0	0	6	19	48	−29	0			3–5	2–6	4–6	—

Source: CERH

Knockout phase

The knockout phase comprises a quarter-final round and the final four tournament. In the quarter-finals, group stage winners play against group stage runners-up, the latter hosting the first of two legs. The winners qualify for the final four, which will take place at the ground of one of the four finalists.

Quarter-finals

The first-leg matches were played on 5 March, and the second-leg matches were played on 2 April 2016.

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Oliveirense	8–6	Porto	4–3	4–3
Vendrell	8–10	Benfica	3–5	5–5
Vic	7–8	Forte dei Marmi	2–1	5–7
Barcelona	8–2	Liceo La Coruña	6–0	2–2

Final four

The final four tournament took place on 14 and 15 May 2016. It was hosted by Benfica at the Pavilhão Fidelidade in Lisbon, Portugal.

	Semi-finals				Final
	14 May 2016 – Lisbon
	Oliveirense	3
					15 May 2016 – Lisbon
	Forte dei Marmi	2
					Oliveirense	3
	14 May 2016 – Lisbon
					Benfica	5
	Benfica (pen.)	1 (2)
	Barcelona	1 (1)

All times listed below are local time (UTC+01:00).

Semi-finals

14 May 2016

15:00

Benfica	1–1 (a.e.t.)	Barcelona
Marc Torra 47'	Report	Pablo Álvarez 34'
Penalties
João Rodrigues Jordi Adroher Marc Torra Carlos Nicolía	2–1	Xavier Barroso Matías Pascual Xavi Costa Sergi Panadero Lucas Ordóñez

Pavilhão Fidelidade, Lisbon

Referee: Alessandro Da Prato, Alessandro Eccelsi (Italy)

14 May 2016

18:30

Oliveirense	3–2	Forte dei Marmi
Ricardo Barreiros 12', 20', 43'	Report	Pedro Gil 16', 26'

Pavilhão Fidelidade, Lisbon

Referee: Óscar Valverde, Francisco Garcia (Spain)

Final

15 May 2016

14:00

Oliveirense	3–5	Benfica
João Souto 16', 19' Ricardo Oliveira 18'	Report	Diogo Rafael 14', 17' Jordi Adroher 33', 46' Carlos Nicolía 38'

Pavilhão Fidelidade, Lisbon

Referee: Arnauld Esoli, Xavier Bleuzen (France)

2015–16 CERH European League winners
Benfica 2nd title

See also

• 2015 CERH Continental Cup
• 2015 FIRS Intercontinental Cup

External links

• Official website