Day 1: Italy and Latvia start with convincing wins
World Floorball Championships Qualification tournament in Valmiera, Latvia started today. On the first day both pre-match favourites Italy and Latvia celebrated convincing victories.
Italy showed very dominant performance against Liechtenstein (8:2). Match was over after the first period which ended 5:0 in favor of Italy. Italy totally dominated the game in ball control and scoring chances for the first two periods. Liechtenstein had some good moments in counter attacks, but the team remained scoreless for 50 minutes. In the final segment of the match Liechtenstein showed better floorball and was able to win the 3rd period, but it was too little, too late to hope for positive result at the end. Best players of the match were Noah Zeltner (Liechtenstein) and Davide Petrini (Italy).
Liechtenstein – Italy highlights and interviews can be found here.
Home team Latvia started the tournament with comfortable win over Hungary (9:2). For the first 10 minutes Hungary was able to withstand the pressure from Latvia with some great defending and a bit of luck. The tipping point of the game came in the second part of the first period when Latvians scored 4 goals in 101 seconds. In the second period hosts of the tournament continued to develop the result in their favor and removed any doubts about the winner of the match. Last 20 minutes were not that eventful and the match finished without any surprises. Best players of the match were Aigars Belasovs (Latvia) and Arpad Illyes (Hungary).
Hungary – Latvia highlights and interviews can be found here.
After the first day Latvia and Italy with 2 points each have taken the lead in EUR4 qualification group. The highest ranked team of this group – Norway will play the first match tomorrow. Full standings can be found here.
Scoring leaders after Day 1 are Gianluca Amstutz (Italy) with 4 points (1+3), Ingus Laivins (Latvia) with 3 points (2+1) and Artis Savins (Latvia) with 3 points (1+2). Full player statistics can be found here.
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