Less than two weeks left until the start of Men’s World Floorball Championships Qualifications. One of the six regional qualification tournaments will be played in Valmiera, Latvia on 28th January – 1st February 2014. Five teams will take part in this tournament – Norway, Latvia, Hungary, Italy and Liechtenstein. As the first participant we introduce – Team Italy.

 

Italy is currently ranked 18th in the IFF Rankings which are based on standings in two previous World Floorball Championships (WFC). Historically Italy’s best result came in WFC 2006 – 8th place. Since then the results have been declining and in 2012 Italy failed to qualify for WFC Final Round, finishing 5th in their qualification group. In 2014 Italy is ready to bounce back with their new coach Daniel Costa and renewed roster.

 

Team Manager of Italy Roland De Conno Pobitzer: “Since WFCQ 2012 in Podcetrtek our team has changed a lot. Coach Daniel Costa leads a team of young players mixed with experienced ones to create a whole new playing system. Our preparation for the WFCQ started in September 2012. Since then, we met 9 times to work with the team. We played a lot of friendly games in Switzerland against 1st Division teams. The best results came in the last 3 Nations Cup in Villach (November 2013). We won the tournament beating Slovenia and Austria. Our only objective in this tournament is to qualify for the Final Round in Gothenburg.”

 

Only two players on the team are playing in Italy. 15 players are coming from lower division clubs in Switzerland. Clubs from Sweden, Finland and Austria each have one representative on the team.

 

Team roster:

 

Number	Player	Position	Club
3	Emanuel Bruno	Defender	Verbano Unihockey (SUI)
6	Markus Widner	Defender	UF Gargazon Liftex
7	Marcello Cucinotta	Defender	SB Vaasa (FIN)
8	Sandro Boggia	Defender	Ticino Unihockey (SUI)
10	Gianluca Amstutz	Forward	AD Astra Sarnen (SUI)
11	Daniel Tonegatti	Forward	TVZ Wikings Zell am See (AUT)
12	Simone Marinelli	Defender	Verbano Unihockey (SUI)
13	Yannik Franchini	Forward	UHC Laupen (SUI)
14	Tobias Mores	Forward	FBC Bozen
15	Sandro Ludolini	Forward	TSV Unihockey Deitingen (SUI)
16	Manuel Fassler	Forward	GC Unihockey U21 (SUI)
17	Diego Casagrande	Forward	Floorball Thurgau (SUI)
19	Luca Franchini	Forward	UHC Laupen (SUI)
20	Alessio Bresciani	Forward	Balrog (SWE)
21	Sandro Hauser	Forward	Floorball Koeniz U21 (SUI)
22	Thomas Ilmer	Forward	Iron Marmot Davos (SUI)
23	Davide Petrini	Defender	Waldkirch St.Gallen (SUI)
25	Simone Pellegrini	Forward	Verbano Unihockey (SUI)
29	Marco Mangia	Goalkeeper	Jona Uznach Flames (SUI)
30	Ronny Horn	Goalkeeper	Iron Marmot Davos (SUI)

 

Head Coach: Daniel Costa

Coach: Marcel Knup

Team Manager: Roland De Conno Pobitzer

Physiotherapist: Elisa Petrolli

Physiotherapist: Lukas Zenger

Material Keeper: Sergio Caputo

 

Italy will play the opening match on 28.01. against Liechtenstein. Full game schedule can be found here.

 

In each qualification group teams play each other once. In 4 European groups two best teams from each qualification group and the two best 3rd placed teams will qualify for the Final Round played in Gothenburg, Sweden on 5th -14th December 2014.