Anssi Karjalainen
The Finland of huge reform grew enormously during the week-long wrinkle, writes Anssi Karjalainen from Malmö.
Head coach Niklas Nordén is leaving Sweden. The relationship between the national team and the federation has been inflamed in recent weeks. EPA / AOP
The return of the Finnish floor bandy men to the gold standard is an amazingly hard performance. World champion player Esa Jussila is now a world champion coach. The team, which experienced a huge reformation, grew enormously during the week-long training session.
The starting points did not allow such a thing to happen – so many question marks were hanging in the air both regarding the game and the material. For Jussila, the head coaching job was the first in his career at the national team level.
In the end, Sweden, the clear champion favorite, fell twice. Sweden needs to look in the mirror.
The Swedish Floorball Federation caused an unnecessary commotion shortly before the start of the Games. Head coaches Niklas Nordén and Thomas Brottman were told that their coaching will not continue after the Games.
Explanations and justifications went to wasteand it created friction between the team and the union. Speculation also immediately started as to who will take over the national team after Nordén and Brottman, who reaped success.
After the silver games, speculation begins as to how the team will be reformed. The hero section will now be removed.
The mother country of the species seems to be even a little confused. In the Swedish Superliga, many clubs have struggled with severe financial problems. These include, among others, the enduring successes Storvreta and Falun.
A Swedish journalist reflected that at the moment top floorball doesn’t seem to be going anywhere in Sweden. The general public has not been made as enthusiastic about the sport as was hoped. Floorball stories don’t get significantly more readers than other less popular sports.
He was surprised to hear that the situation in Finland is very similar.
– That’s pretty worryingthat this is the situation in the two great countries of the sport, he said.
In Malmö’s street scene, the games were very little visible. Sure, there were ads here and there, but the arena wasn’t filled to capacity even in the final. Falling below 100,000 total viewers is a terrible flop for Sweden.