Participants of the World Floorball Championships 2014 will be decided in qualifications at the end of January. 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 second participant we introduce – Team Liechtenstein.

 

Liechtenstein is currently ranked 28th in the IFF Rankings which are based on standings in two previous World Floorball Championships (WFC). Team didn’t play in WFC 2012 Qualifications. In WFC 2008 Liechtenstein reached 7th place in C-Division, but in 2010 failed to qualify for the WFC Final Round finishing 7th out of eight teams in the qualification group. Team hasn’t played official matches for almost 4 years, but in few weeks Liechtenstein will be back on international floorball stage.

 

Team Manager of Liechtenstein Franz Maurer: “The aim of our team this time is to win at least one game. Since the registration for the WFCQ 2014 we had 5 training sessions and one training camp in Austria last September (3 days). We also played 3 friendly games. Since our last WFCQ (2010 in Spain) 6 players have left the National team and 9 players have joined. We still have the same coaches.”

 

There is only one floorball club in Liechtenstein – “UHC Schaan”, which has 9 players on the National team. “UHC Schaan” men’s team is playing in Switzerland’s 3rd division. Remaining 7 players on the team are coming from other lower division clubs in Switzerland.

 

Another interesting fact is that Liechtenstein is bringing a father-son duo to the tournament – 38 years old Claudio Hartmann and 16 years old Dominik Hartmann are both on the team.

 

Team roster:

 

Number	Player	Position	Club
1	Alexander Nascher	Goalkeeper	UHC Schaan
6	Simon Zueger	Forward	UHC Schaan
7	Noah Zeltner	Forward	UHC Winterthur United (SUI)
8	Rainer Buechel	Forward	UHC Jump Dübendorf (SUI)
9	Markus Ledergerber	Forward	UHC Sarganserland (SUI)
11	Simon Felder	Forward	UHC Schaan
17	Dominik Hartmann	Forward	UHC Schaan
18	Fabian Kramer	Forward	UHC Rangers Grabs-Werdenberg (SUI)
22	Kevin Frick	Defender	UHC Elch Wangen-Bruttiselen (SUI)
24	Thomas Inhelder	Defender	UHC Jump Dubendorf (SUI)
31	David Gassner	Goalkeeper	UHC Schaan
49	Valentin Vogt	Forward	UHC Schaan
69	Andreas Good	Defender	UHC Schaan
73	Oliver Schlumpf	Defender	UHC Schaan
77	Claudio Hartmann	Defender	UHC Schaan
86	Mathias Inhelder	Forward	UHC Jump Dübendorf (SUI)

 

Head Coach: Yves Kempf

Coach: Reto Voneschen

Physiotherapist: Nadia Nascher

Team Manager: Franz Maurer

 

Liechtenstein will play the opening match on 28.01. against Italy. 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.