Finland and Switzerland secured their places in the quarter-finals of the Women’s World Floorball Championships (WFC) 2023 with their respective victories over Norway and Latvia on Monday (4 December). Finland, the WFC 2021 runner-up, overcame a tenacious Norway team 6-3 while Switzerland eased past Latvia with a score of 22-1.

Finland are top of Group A while Switzerland are second. The top two teams each from Group A and Group B qualify directly for the quarter-finals. The remaining teams from Group A and Group B, as well as the top two teams each from Group C and Group D, will compete in the first play-off round for a place in the quarter-finals.

Defending champions Sweden were also in action on Monday, winning 6-1 over Czech Republic. The world No. 1 return to the court tomorrow for their final Group B match against Poland, who fell 3-5 to Slovakia on Monday.

The results from Dec 4 are as follows.

Japan 8-5 USA

Japan’s fine form continued with their 8-5 victory over the USA in their Group D match on Monday. Shiho Morinaga opened the scoring for her team, and goals from Rei Goto, Amake Sasaki, Mahiro Simizu and Rimi Motoki saw Japan race to a 5-0 lead at the end of the first period. The USA scored their first goal early in the second period through teenager Klara Kyrk Gere. Japan’s Yu Abe then extended her side’s lead to 6-1, and their opponents responded by ramping up their attack to net three goals through Suzanne Lindquist, Christine Lindberg and Kyrk Gere. The latter proved her status as USA’s Player of The Match by scoring her third goal of the game to narrow the score to 7-5, but another goal from Japan’s Rei Goto sealed the 8-5 victory. Japan’s next opponents are Estonia, and the USA will next face Denmark.

Says Yui Goto, Japan captain and Player of the Match: “My condition is good today so I am happy to be the Player of the Match. The team’s start was not bad, but the performance was a bit poor in the second period. Regardless, we worked hard. For the match against Estonia, we’ll prepare as usual and we want to win to make it into the play-offs. We want to thank the fans for their support. Please support us again tomorrow.”

Says Marie Häggström, USA Captain: “During the first break, we talked in the locker room about why we’re here in the first place and how great our team actually is when we are playing our best. So, we picked up our game and during the second period, it was an entirely new team. The game plan for Tuesday is to start playing from the first second and play hard and be ready for anything for the game. It means a lot to have the fans with us here. It was perfect. It felt like we had another player in the court with us. It was great. Thank you so much for being here supporting us. You guys are great. We love you.”

Denmark 6-4 Estonia

Denmark earned their first WFC 2023 win after a hard-fought battle with Estonia. Denmark asserted their dominance from the beginning, making 18 attempts and converting four of them to lead 4-0 after 16 minutes. Estonia pulled one back just before the interval before carrying their momentum into the next period, reducing the deficit to just one after 28 minutes. It was the wake-up call Denmark needed as they tightened their defence and went into attack mode, scoring two more goals to widen the gap again. Estonian forward Edith Parnik completed her hat-trick but it was not enough as Estonia suffered their first defeat of the tournament.

Says Frida Josefine Keller, Denmark Player of the Match: “We needed to have more speed in the game and continue to go for the goals. For our next game, we need to be more focused on the whole game and not just at the beginning and at the end. ”

Says Edith Parnik, Estonia: “I’m sad we lost the game but we did a good job and we fought a lot till the end. We’ve made some mistakes in the tournament but we have to learn and do better. We have to improve our defence and then I’m sure we can win the next game (against Japan on Tuesday).”

Poland 3-5 Slovakia

Slovakia have put themselves in the running to reach the last eight of the WFC 2023 with a 5-3 win over Poland. Both teams employed aggressive attacks but it was Slovakia who never took their foot off the pedal. They led 2-0 after the first period and extended their lead to 4-1 before enduring a nervy end to the game when Poland threw everything they had at their opponents. Slovakian goalkeeper Radka Mladenkova starred for her team, preserving her side’s lead with a 92.86 save percentage. Slovakia will be looking to improve on their sixth-place finish at the last WFC but will need to put on a more convincing display against world No. 4 Czech Republic in the final Group B match on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Poland face defending champions and world No. 1 Sweden.

Dominika Buczek, Poland Player of the Match: “During the third period, we saw the need to score goals. We were down by two goals so we knew that last 10 minutes were the most important minutes. I think we played good but not good enough. I feel like a potato and I am not too happy because I think it would have been better if we won the game as a team. The game plan tomorrow is to talk through what we can improve on, watch videos and that is it. It is very nice that our fans flew from Europe to come here. It is nice to play when you have fans cheering for you.”

Says Dominique Schnetzer, Slovakia Player of the Match: “I’m feeling pretty great. The team has really come together and kept fighting for the win to keep it together. So I’m pretty happy about the team effort for the whole 60 minutes. In the last period, we just really wanted to keep the lead and keep the ball away from them. We tried to score some more goals, but also block any shots that they really wanted to score. We made sure not to give them any chances to get any more goals. Tomorrow is going to be another tough game against Czech Republic. We have to do some video review and do what the coach tells us to and it’s going to be fine. We’ll have to guard our players well, block shots and score some goals — that’s how I hope to to win the game tomorrow.”

Czech Republic 1-6 Sweden

Defending champions Sweden survived an early scare to prevail 6-1 over Czech Republic in their Group B clash. The fourth-ranked Czech Republic drew first blood through Karolina Klubalová, only for their opponents to equalise less than two minutes later after Cajsa Elm scored. With the score locked at 1-1 entering the second period, both teams continued to pressure each other until Sweden edged ahead with Amanda Delgado Johansson scoring a goal in the 26th minute. Johansson later flicked a corner pass to a waiting Emelle Wibron, who swatted it firmly to give Sweden a 3-1 advantage. There was no looking back for the world No. 1 team, who consolidated their lead and tightened their defence to secure their second win of the WFC 2023. Sweden face Poland in their final group stage match on Tuesday, while Czech Republic take on Slovakia.

Says Karolina Klubalova, Czech Republic: “We had a really good game, we were equal with the opponents but we have some mistakes that we need to fix for our future games. I’m really happy I scored and that we led but it’s just a pity that we couldn’t lead the entire time. When we conceded, we felt a bit more pressure but on the other hand, we also know that we could’ve handled it better and won the game. We will prepare for our next match like every other game and go for the win.”

Says Ida Sundberg, Sweden captain: “It was quite a tight game from the beginning and the first period was really tight. It was a tough game, but we did follow our game plan and trust the process. We knew we were going to score and that it would take some time. We didn’t do much adjustments to our game plan, we just talked about being really tight in defence and in offence, we needed to be more straight on goal and get the ball into the goal. We knew the Czech team are really good and if they got one goal, they could get more. But we just trusted our process and kept on fighting.”

Finland 6-3 Norway

Finland defeated Norway 6-3 to finish top in Group A and clinch a spot in the quarter-finals. But their unbeaten run in the group stage was not without contest, as the 2021 WFC runner-up had to fend off a gutsy challenge from Norway on Monday. Finland concluded the first period with a 3-1 lead thanks to goals from Player of the Match Sofia Leino, Veera Kauppi and Laura Rantanen, but their opponents fired back in the second period with Tone Einstulen scoring. A goal from Meri-Helmi Hoynala gave Finland the chance to move further ahead, but Norway’s Rikke Ingebrigtsli Hansen scored 43 seconds into the third period to narrow the gap again. Still, Finland remained unfazed and relentless in their attack, and they were rewarded with two more goals from Emilia Pietila and Miisa Turunen.

Says Sofia Leino, Finland Player of the Match: “It (winning) was our goal, so that’s good. We have been doing a lot of work and we just have to do all we can. We can win, we believe in that. The supporters are so important, it’s lovely to have them and thank you for your support.”

Says Marie Wolf, Norway Player of the Match: “I think we played a tremendous match; 6-3 against Finland who are one of the top nations in the world – I’m so proud of my team. We did the best job we could have done, and we would have hoped for some more goals but we were in the match and locked in, so it was really cool. You always hope for a tight match when you meet a better team, but we weren’t expecting that good of a match, honestly. So when it was 4-3, the goal was just to hang tight in defence and when we get the ball, to be strong enough to hold it and not lose it too fast. We have a good offence, we just have to be brave enough to actually do it.”

Latvia 1-22 Switzerland

Switzerland secured their quarter-final spot with an emphatic trouncing of Latvia in the final Group A match. They took just 78 seconds to get going and ran riot to amass a 7-0 lead after the first period before extending it to 12-0 at the next interval. A solid defence saw them limiting Latvia to just one attempt in the first two periods. Despite the big score line, WFC 2021 bronze medallists Switzerland did not let up, racking up the scoreboard and finishing with a flourish with two goals in the last 10 seconds. The Swiss are second with four points behind the unbeaten Finland (six points), followed by Czech Republic (two) and Latvia (zero). For a chance to reach the last eight, Czech Republic and Latvia will face the top two teams of Group D in the play-offs on Wednesday.

Says Eliza Elizabete Berzina, Latvia captain: “It was a tough game and a tough loss. That’s all I have to say about it. I told them to never give up and fight till the last second. We have a rest day tomorrow so we’ll definitely rest re-focus, analyse our previous games and hopefully look at some videos of our next opponents so we can prepare for the next one.”

Says Isabelle Gerig, Switzerland captain: “I didn’t expect such a win, but it was really important for us to give a reaction after the loss yesterday. I think that was a good game from our side today. We are happy to have reached the quarter-finals. Now we have three days to recover before the tournament starts again from zero, and it’s win or die so I’m really looking forward to that. We’re taking it game by game. First, we have the quarter-finals to win and then let’s see which teams are waiting in the semis. We are fighting every minute. Our goal is clear — we want to win every game we play.”

Photo Credit: Women’s World Floorball Championships 2023

The Women’s World Floorball Championship 2023 will take place from 2nd to 10th December at the OCBC Arena and the Singapore Indoor Stadium. Full schedule, more information and event updates available here