Switzerland defeated the reigning World Champions Finland in the first The World Games semi-final. The Swiss will meet either Sweden or Czech Republic in tomorrow´s historic final.
Both teams started with full enthusiasm into the first The World Games semi-final. It didn’t take too long until the teams started to shoot from any positions. In particular, Peter Kotilainen from Finland and Paolo Riedi from Switzerland put a lot of effort into their shots. It was in the 9th minute where Juha Kivilehto was a tick too late and needed a foul to stop the attacking Swiss. The penalty shot was successfully converted by Paolo Riedi. Just three minutes later Riedi got another chance to score from a second penalty shot. But this time he miss with applying almost the same move as in his first successful attempt. Afterwards both teams weren’t able to score further goals in this first period.
Switzerland continued to display an entertaining floorball style. Their quick and precise passing created several occasions to score. Two of those possibilities were put away into the Finnish net. Manuel Engel was the red hot player in the second period; he scored the 2nd Swiss goal and orchestrated the third goal with an awesome move and look-away pass from behind the Finnish goal. The Finnish team seemed to lack some inspiration in their attacking game plan.
The 3rd period began with Finland having a lot more ball possession than the Swiss Team. But it took until the 37th minute when Tatu Väänänen scored with a distance shot. But Switzerland had an immediate answer to that goal with Manuel Engels shot and goal. For the last seven minutes Finland was pressing for further goals with six field players. However, they only managed to score one additional goal by Eemeli Salin. With an empty netter it was Matthias Hofbauer who scored the final goal of the game and secured Switzerland’s spot in the gold medal match tomorrow.
Best players:
#56 Krister Savonen (FIN)
#23 Manuel Engel (SUI)
Watch the post-game interview with the head coaches Petteri Nykky (FIN) and David Jansson (SUI) below:
