By ALISHA J. RICARDI

During past sand soccer championships, beach-goers may have mistaken the Virginia Beach Oceanfront's white sand for the green grass of the World Cup.

Or confused its soft floor with the firm clay of Roland Garros .

Today, will they think they're stepping into the rings of Greece or Rome?

It's hard to say.

But there's no question that the introduction of beach wrestling to the North American Sand Soccer Championships' collection of side events this year will bring a medley of wrestling styles from across the world to the largest sand soccer festival on the planet.

Beach wrestling, a mix of sumo, scholastic, Greco-Roman and freestyle forms , is a stand-up bout in which competitors attempt to knock each other out of a 20-foot circle.

Unlike other events at NASSC - sand soccer, beach tennis, beach flag football, footvolley and co-ed beach kickball all return - beach wrestling is not scored with points. Split into groups by age and gender, each competitor must complete a "maneuver" to move an opponent out of the circle.

Two maneuvers wins the match, unless one competitor is pinned on his back, ending the match .

And no, wrestlers don't have to use their feet.

"Its uniqueness is that it's very quick, ," said Frank Lipoli, director of the North American Beach Wrestling Championships. He said it's a natural sand sport because people horse around at the beach all the time, and the techniques are simple.

"A guy at a bar can do it because you can just push people out of bounds and flip them over."

Beach wrestling is the latest in a string of additions to the sand soccer tournament . Where once the event featured amateur soccer play only , the soccer has gotten more competitive and fringe sports have found their way into the mix.

Since its first event in 1994, NASSC added a pro-am cash division in 1999, an international Pro Beach Soccer exhibition between the U.S. and Canadian national teams in 2001 and the world's first pro/am women's venue in 2003.

The U.S. National Finals of the top men's pro-am teams was also marked as a U.S. Open and national championship in 2003.

This weekend, fans can watch last year's top four professional sand soccer teams - including 2005 champions Team Rio - battle it out in quest of a national title and berth to the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup in Rio de Janeiro this fall.

The biggest change, however, is in the festival's enrollment: The NASSC has grown from 26 teams to 740 - another 126 were turned away because of a lack of room this year.

The tournament will feature 7,500 players and 52 divisions, covering 50 fields on the beach.

Beach wrestling registration continues today, and the new sports is expected to drive the typical crowd of 25,000 even higher this year. "I would think (beach wrestling) would draw pretty well down here because it is such a wrestling hotbed," said NASSC director Dick Whalen, who anticipates 300-500 wrestlers to compete in the eight arena-like pits at 27th street. "Nobody in this area, I think, has had any sand wrestling experience, so interested people are just coming out." So, what will be next year's newest attraction?

Lacrosse caught Whalen's eye last summer. The sport, he said, would be ideal because of its growing popularity. The sand version would be played four on four, including a goalie, and use a lightweight ball.

But Whalen said working out the logistics of sand lacrosse could prove difficult, so he's looking at Ultimate Frisbee as a possible expansion target.

"It's just a great, big sand festival," Whalen said, "so we're always trying to ramp up the atmosphere to make it more attractive."