3rd February
The WFC qualifications also started in Poland
Four matches were played in Poland on Wednesday and the winners of the first day were France, Belgium and Austria. Poland and Denmark ended up with a tie.
France took surprising 3-2 victory over Hungary
The day in Babimost started with the match between Hungary and France. In the beginning the impression was that Hungary will achieve an easy victory. Before 5 minutes were played Hungary already had the lead of 2-0, goals scored by Norbert Duro and Philip Kapetz. Nevertheless the back bone of France was not broken.
In the last minutes of the second period France scored it´s first goal by Beat Glauser and only 48 seconds later Simon Riihelä scored an other one for the French team. The tight battle was about to start.
The third period was fast, physical and entertaining floorball with penalties, penalty shots and with the one significant shot, when France scored its third goal at the time 54:06, while playing the power play. In the end Hungary tried without the goalkeeper, but this time the Team France kept the lead and won 3-2.
Austria started with victory
In the second match played in Babimost Austria won Serbia with result 5-1 after a fast and physical match. Mathias Rohm, who scored two goals for Austria and the skillful serbian defender Robert Gocic were awarded as best players.
Magnusson brothers secured victory for Belgium
The match between Belgium and Great Britain opened the tournament in Zbaszyn arena. Great Britain started the scoring with a goal executed by Jamie Black, but after that Belgium took charge of the match. The Belgian victory was secured by the strong play of Magnusson brothers, Joachim Magnusson scored 2+2 and Michael Magnusson 0+2. The final result of the match 5-2 and the best players were Thomas Cook and Maarten Michiels.
Top match of group A ended with a tie
The second match was played between the highest ranked teams of the group, when Denmark and Poland met. The intensive match was played for the full house and after very exciting events Denmark and Poland ended up with a tie 3-3. The best players of the match were Steffen Jensen (DEN) and Piotr Kostela (POL) who scored two goals in the match.
4th February
Denmark´s victory over Great Britain, Hungary showed what they are made of.
In Zbaszyn the day started with the match between Denmark and Great Britain. The British performed a gallant fight, but there were not much to be done against the Danish floorball “machine”. After the first period it was already 9-2 and in the beginning of the second period the match was tight for a while, but in the second half of the second period the match was controlled by the Danes. The third period was merely a formality and the final result end up to be 22-2 .
The best player of Great Britain was Jim Bridger. He was rewarded by the Chairman of Municipal of Zboszyn Mr. Stanislaw Chlebowski and the IFF jury member Mr. Michael Lachenmaier. The best player of the Danish team was Stefan Hedorf . He scored 6 goals and also assisted six goals.The award was handed to him by the mayor of Zboszyn Mr. Tomasz Kurasinski and the IFF office coordinator Mr. Veli Halonen.
At the same time in Babimost the team Hungary showed the Austrian team what they can do. After the Hungarians were defeated by France yesterday, they could now perform better match til the end of the game. The match got excited though and the Austrians were able to fight in the end of the 3rd period while Hungary got two penalties in 5 minutes time. But unfortunately for the Hungarians they couldn´t score a goal during the power play. Eventually Hungary turned out as the winner of the game by result 3-1.
The most expected game of the day for the home audience point of view was naturally Belgium vs. Poland. We had a full house and the crowd was living every moment of the match. The match started very tight and Belgium scored the first goal and soon the Polish team made their first one. Belgium took the lead again and the spectators were wittnessing a very hard and severe battle between the two countries. The full house was there due to a good reason.
In the second period the Polish team started to take over but Belgium still fought back with a very good attitude. Soon the game turned and Poland took the control of the game. Belgium still stroke back and the match stayed interesting for the whole 60 minutes. In the end Poland turned out to be better and the final result was 10-2 for Poland. In the awarding ceremony the Polish captain Mattias Mikulski gave a big credit for the opponent and not without a reason. The team Belgium made the match to be a match with capitol M. As a detail Tomasz Gaicki from the Polish team scored a hat trick in the match.
5th February
France surprising winner of Group B
Before the tournament France was one of the lower ranked teams, but the Gallian team solved the group without losses and advanced to the qualification finals as a group winner.
The qualification finals in WFCQ Europe 1 will be 11:00 Denmark – Hungary and 14:00 France – Poland. The 5th place of the tournament will be decided between Belgium and Austria, as the battle for the 7th place will be between Serbia and Great Britain.
A thrilling match secured the victory of group B for France
There was a lot at stake in a match between France and Austria. By winning the match with two goal difference Austria would have advanced to the qualification finals. This result would have dropped France out of the qualification finals.
The match was really even and the cat-mouse chase described the events. The pattern was so that Austria took the lead and France equalized. Five minutes before the end Joel Bale took 6-5 lead to Austria and only one goal separated the team from the qualification finals. The last goal was however scored by Raphael Schubenel of team France and therefore the match ended with a draw 6-6. The draw secured the 1st place of the group for the Gallian team.
In the other match in Babimost Hungary won Serbia 6-4 and earned the other place in the qualifying finals.
Big victories for Denmark and Poland in group A
In the match between Belgium and Denmark, Belgium gained a flash start by scoring only after 22 seconds and the goal was scored by Jonathan Chiau and that was very elegant individual performance. However Denmark got even after 6 minutes and after that the game was Danish ruling. After the first period Denmark was leading 5-1 and the match ended 17-3 for Denmark and with this winning team Denmark won the group A. Jesper Pettersen scored 4+3 for Denmark.
In the other match of group A, Poland won Great Britain 12-0 and secured the other place in the qualification finals.
6th February
Poland and Denmark will play in the WFC Final round
Denmark defeated Hungary in the WFC Q Europe 1 Qualification final 1 with 9-2. Poland had a tougher match in the Qualification final 2 against France, but settled the game in the last period and won with 4-2.
Denmark was able to get into a 3-0 lead with after 10 minutes of play. The young and talented Mathias Christoffersen was involved in two of the three goals with 1+1. Hungary reduced the Danish lead twice, first to 3-1 and then to 4-2, but Denmark was ahead of their opponents in the level of play and settled the match in the end of the second period.
Jesper Petersen was the most effective player as he collected 1+3 in the Qualification final. Jacob Andersen and Dennis Schmidt were elected as best players.
Denmark will play in the group A in the WFC final round with Finland, Russia and Canada or USA.
Poland will play in the group B in the WFC Final
France took an early lead with Samuel Antoine´s goal, which they could hang on to for over half of the match. Poland was however not lacking chances to score, but they had trouble in getting the ball into the net. One of the reasons being Alexandre Lang in the French goal. Finally it was Piotr Kostela that was able to even the score to 1-1.
Only two minutes later Simon Riihelä took France to a one goal lead again, but then Poland scored the next three goals and the home crowd could celebrate Poland´s spot in the WFC final round.
The French goalie, Alexandre Lang and Artur Kasperek were awarded as best players.
Poland will meet Switzerland, Latvia and the winner of the AOFC Qualification (Japan or Singapore) in the WFC Final round group B.
