The Finnish men’s national floorball team advanced to the next games as group winners, when it defeated host Sweden 5–2 in the final match of the first group.
The Men’s Floorball World Championships will be played in Malmö, Sweden, from December 7 to 15. shows all matches in Finland on its channels. The broadcast of Finland’s quarter-final against either Denmark or Norway starts on Friday the 13th on TV2 at 20:00.
Sweden went into Tuesday’s preliminary series final match as a giant early favorite: the reigning world champion had never lost a match at home.
Finland, on the other hand, had fumbled in the World Cup opener against Latvia, and even after the victorious Slovakia match there were still question marks in the air. Nevertheless Esa Jussilan the protégés left the rink as group winners after a 5–2 win.
In the Swedish camp, the defeat was received heavily. Especially Jesper Sankell beat himself up for the loss: when he watched from the ice at the beginning of the third period, how Joona Rantala moved Finland to a 3–1 run away. From there, the competition hosts did not rise again.
– It (the ice from the protest) became insanely expensive. We received a message from the International Floorball Federation before the tournament that spontaneous reactions to the referee’s decisions are not allowed. It’s hard to play without emotions, but I should have known better, Sankell commented in an interview with SVT.
– I need to be ashamed and heal. Now I can apologize to the team for not thinking further.
Sweden’s head coach with Niklas Norden less surprisingly had his say from the referee’s line.
– It was quite difficult for the players to adapt. It was challenging to understand certain things, Norden commented to SVT.
“Overdrive”
Swedish newspaper Expressen called Finland’s victory “overtime” and wrote that Finland shocked Sweden. Hero defender Robin Nilsberth on the other hand, was sad that the team stopped playing after 20 minutes.
– It was not a good day at work, Nilsberth acknowledged to SVT.
Another Swedish head coach Thomas Brottman commented to Innebandymagazinet that Finland took more singles matches and wanted to win more.
– Today we maybe took a couple of cold snaps, which cost us not only energy but also goals. Small things make the difference in tight matches.
However, the Swedish pilot was not worried about the situation.
– The World Cup is all about winning real matches. We still have matches to win and Finland to lose, Brottman commented.