The 15th men's floorball world championship begins in Malmö on Saturday. (symbolic picture)
Image: Keystone
The Swiss floorball national team, seen here at the 2022 World Championships in Zurich, will compete in Sweden without several longstanding team mainstays and with twelve debutants
Image: Keystone
Patrick Mendelin is one of only a few veterans left in the Swiss World Championship team
Image: Keystone
Noël Seiler has become captain of the national team at the age of 23
Image: Keystone
The Swiss only made it as far as the semi-finals at their home World Cup in 2022
Image: Keystone
The 15th men's floorball world championship begins in Malmö on Saturday. (symbolic picture)
Image: Keystone
The Swiss floorball national team, seen here at the 2022 World Championships in Zurich, will compete in Sweden without several longstanding team mainstays and with twelve debutants
Image: Keystone
Patrick Mendelin is one of only a few veterans left in the Swiss World Championship team
Image: Keystone
Noël Seiler has become captain of the national team at the age of 23
Image: Keystone
The Swiss only made it as far as the semi-finals at their home World Cup in 2022
Image: Keystone
On Sunday, the Swiss national floorball team will start the World Championships in Malmö with their first group match against Germany. The omens have changed. Bronze would now also be a success.
08.12.2024, 05:01
08.12.2024, 08:52
SDA
Twice recently, the Swiss men had to settle for 4th place at the World Championships. They flirted with reaching the final, but the tournaments ended with two defeats each time. As expected, Sweden were too strong in the semi-finals in Helsinki in 2021 (1:6), and in 2022 they lost 3:11 to the Czech Republic at the home World Championships in Zurich.
The home tournament should have been the crowning glory. The aim of the years of effort under coach David Jansson was to close the gap to the top teams at the home World Cup and trigger a snowball effect with a resounding success. Instead, it became apparent that the Czech Republic had overtaken Switzerland and Sweden and Finland had slipped further away. Switzerland has also been pushed down to 4th place in the eternal medal table by the Czech Republic's second silver in Zurich.
With a golden generation, the Czechs are currently reaping the rewards of intensified investment in young talent. With the U19 World Championship titles in 2019 and 2021, the current high was virtually announced. Now the Czechs are no longer aiming to finish ahead of Switzerland. They want the title and could feel the pressure that caused the Swiss to fail when they thought they had the chance.
Swedish know-how even after Jansson
Switzerland, for their part, are probably undergoing even greater upheaval than after Matthias Hofbauer retired from the national team at the end of 2018. The personnel changes since the World Cup two years ago are not only significant on the pitch. David Jansson's departure from the Swiss association marked the end of an era shortly before the start of the 2024 World Cup. The smart Swede was the men's national coach from 2015 to 2022, held an overarching position as "Swiss Way Coach" for two years and enjoyed a high standing. But the hoped-for success failed to materialize.
Swedish know-how is still welcome, however. For the past two and a half years, Johan Schönbeck, another expert from the country of the record-breaking world champion, has been in charge of the men's national team. The task of the 53-year-old former champion coach of Wiler-Ersigen and cup winner with Langnau is not an easy one: he is supposed to lead Switzerland back into the top 3 and at the same time has to moderate something like a new beginning.
In Malmö, where Schönbeck is making his World Championship debut and is relying a little more on water displacement than Jansson did in his day, the national team will line up with twelve debutants. "We have a very inexperienced squad for a World Cup," says the coach. His 20-man World Cup team is "a mix of youth and experience", and both the debutants and the World Cup veterans are "not a homogeneous group". This is another reason why the focus in preparation was increasingly on defense and the transition game, the foundation of a new construct that first has to grow.
Without pressure and with a handful of veterans
Patrick Mendelin, at 37 the most experienced player in the Swiss team and about to make his seventh World Cup appearance, sees welcome advantages in the role of outsider among the top four: "We have less pressure. That's certainly not a bad thing for the young team." The pressure that Switzerland used to have is now on the Czech Republic, says the striker and soon to be father of three, who in recent years has led his home club Basel Regio to the top league as both player and official.
As with Basel Regio, Mendelin will not be competing with the national team in Malmö with title ambitions for once. "Of course you always want a medal. But it would be presumptuous to say you're not the underdog in the top four," he says. Mendelin's experience is particularly in demand under these circumstances. The veteran from Basel is the longest-serving player in Swiss floorball, he is about to compete in his seventh World Championship and has gone through several generations in the process. Mendelin played his first title matches from 2008 onwards alongside luminaries such as Matthias Hofbauer.
With Jan Bürki, Manuel Maurer, Jan Zaugg and Nicola Bischofberger, who has just returned from a meniscus injury, four other players have joined Mendelin in the new national team since 2018. They and 23-year-old captain Noël Seiler will shoulder the majority of the responsibility in Malmö.
