The board of the Finnish Floorball Federation have chosen Andreas Harnesk from Sweden as the new head coach of the women’s national team. Harnesk has been the head coach of the Sweden’s best league teams and also participated in coaching the Swedish national teams. He is also the first foreign coach of the Finnish national team.
The new head coach’s contract will be a 2+2 year deal, and after the 2025 World Floorball Championships in the Czech Republic, the big goal will be the 2027 WFC in Turku, Finland. Harnesk will take up his post on the 1st of April 2024.
Andreas Harnesk, who will be the first foreign head coach of the Finnish national team, has won the Swedish Super League championship as head coach of both the men’s and women’s teams – women’s championship 2017 at IKSU and men’s championship 2019 at Storvreta. He has been named coach of the year for women’s teams in Sweden three times.
Andreas Harnesk has experience in club coaching in the Swedish Women’s League with two different top organisations (IKSU and Rönnby IBK). He has also worked as head coach at Swedish clubs. In addition, he has experience as assistant coach of the Swedish men’s national team 2017 – 2018 and as scout for the women’s national team at the 2013 World Floorball Championships. Harnesk will not be involved in club coaching in Sweden after this season.
— The process started with discussions about previous national team projects and the Singapore WFC with those involved. Around half of the players who played in the tournament, the team management and the coaching staff were all present to share their thoughts and future directions, says Petri Kettunen, the Finnish Floorball Federation’s top sports director, explaining the background to the selection.
— The next step was to identify potential head coach candidates from Finland and around the world. In total, I contacted eight different coaches from different countries, and in the final stage, which involved preliminary tasks and interviews, there were three hard-core professionals. It was nice to see that there was widespread interest and interest in the position of Finnish women’s head coach. The next step is to start putting together the rest of the coaching team now that the head coach selection has been finalised.
Kettunen believes that the selection will give everyone a chance to indulge in a slightly different culture of doing things.
— Andreas Harnesk is a highly educated coach with a passion for coaching and developing both players and himself, and he has a good understanding of the state of the Finnish team and clear, structured ideas for its development. The national team will have a demanding coach, as was Lasse Kurronen and his team, and I dare say that Andreas Harnesk is one of the most respected coaches of top women’s teams in the world.
The question of time and travel inevitably arises with a foreign head coach.
— The overall structure has been agreed so that, in addition to the actual national team events, there are certain time slots during which the head coach is in Finland for club meetings and player observation. The language of coaching for the national team has been agreed to be English, but of course many of the players who have played in Sweden and other national team players are also fluent in Swedish, which will certainly make cooperation even easier.
— It’s a great challenge to become the head coach of Finland. My dream is to be part of winning Finland’s first world championship in a long time and to help Finland on its way to becoming the best floorball country in the world, says Andreas Harnesk himself.
— I have already been impressed with the Finnish team, which has done a lot of smart things and the coaching team has done a good job so far. We will continue to build on that and do a good job, and at the same time I have new ideas on what we can bring to the game, to preparation and to the development of the players as individuals. My goal is that all players develop on an individual level and that will drive the success of the whole national team.
It is easy to guess that Harnesk will bring to the Finnish team strengths familiar from Swedish team sports.
— I consider myself a competent coach who wants to help both the team as a whole and the players as individuals to develop. For me, it is important that we look for and dig out every single percent of the potential for development, which creates the best chance of winning. I am a coach who loves to work with the team to create a winning culture full of confidence, development and belief in the future.
The new head coach reveals that he started player scouting even before signing the contract.
— I’ve already watched twenty matches online so far, which is a great opportunity. In the future, I intend to visit Finland regularly to watch matches and meet players and coaches. My attention will be focused on both individual players and teams, Harnesk concludes.
