The 9th Men´s U19 World Floorball Championships will be played in May 2017 in Växjö, Sweden. All of the teams for A-division and four teams in B-division have already qualified, but there are still four spots up for grabs in B-division that will be decided in regional qualification events in Europe & Asia.
The first of the qualifications is being held in Celano, Italy this week with 10 teams competing. The teams are divided into two groups of five and the winner of each group will qualify for the Final Round.
On Day 1 of competition, the winners in Group A were Hungary & Austria, while in Group B Netherlands & Spain took the points.
Hungary against Belgium was a close match with never more than two goals separating the teams. Hungary fell behind on the scoreboard early but once they got the lead they never went behind again. The teams were well-matched and the opening game provided an exciting start to the event. The game was in the balance up until the final minutes when Bence David´s strong shot from out wide and near the halfway line found its way through the traffic and into the net to secure the Hungarian win, 7-5.
The Austria v Great Britain game was a more one-sided affair, with Austria dominating their lower-ranked and far less experienced opponents. Lewis Hubbard surprised the Austrians a little with an early score at 01:38, but they had no trouble turning the scoring around and won 12-3. No single player dominated the Austrian scoring, but rather the goals and assists were shared amongst many, which would be pleasing for the coaching staff.
France made their international U19 debut when they faced Netherlands and they definitely didn´t start quite as they would´ve liked, allowing the Dutch to open the scoring after just 17 seconds when Kasper van den Hark collected a high ball from his defender and put it around the goalkeeper. Another to van den Hark just 2 minutes later and it seemed like it was going to be a bad day for the French, but they gathered their composure and by the end of the period were well in the game. Their historic first goal was scored by Leo Vallar. The second period and half of the third were very tightly contested but whenever France was able to draw equal, the Dutch would quickly move back into the lead. Two players in particular proved very difficult for France to stop – van den Hark (4+3) & Max Molander (3+3).
The final game of the day saw an enthusiastic crowd doing their best to get their home team, Italy, over the line against Spain. However, in what was a very physical game played with some good southern European passion, it was the Spaniards who prevailed, taking the win 4-1.
For all of the match results & statistics visit the IFF Event page. All of the matches are being streamed live and replays of the games can be watched on IFF YouTube Channel 1 and photos can be viewed on IFF Flickr.
