Who should have won the WFC final game? | Analysis 1:2

Did you watch the final at the World Floorball Championships in Malmö, and wondered who deserved the win? Let us dig deeper on that topic.

Welcome to xProgress. This type of analytic text will be behind a pay wall down the road. But I would want to give you a taste of what this site can offer you as an interested floorball person.

All videos in the post are from the IFF broadcast.

This is the first of two posts about the WFC final between Sweden and Finland. In this one, let us figure out the deserve-to-win-o-meter for the WFC final game between Sweden and Finland. In the other one, I will look at some interesting tactical situations (individual and team), that I picked up from the game.

Just a short disclaimer before we start.

I have way too much respect for the craft and the people coaching these games, to be overly critical from a far perspectice. To judge their actions, you would have to be there in pre-camp and during the tournament. Sit on staff meetings and get the reasoning behind the lineups and tactical decisions.

What I can do, however, is to tell you what I saw. And my take on the actual floorball that played out in front of our eyes. I will give you the explanations from a tactical and numerical standpoint. And speculate on player's and coaches' behaviour in pressure situations. I have coached six WFC:s myself, four of the with a team within the top 4 (Switzerland 2016-2022). I think I am in a good position to teach you a thing or two about the sport, and to give as well educated messages as possible across.

The first half of the game was a very low event game in terms of scoring chances. And honestly a pretty boring game as well. Though that is of course not a very big concern when you have qualified to play a WFC final game.

After 30 minutes of play, the game had only had two high danger scoring chances, both for Sweden.

The Swedes got rewarded early, and were able to coast the first 30 minutes without using too much energy. Mostly because of the Finns being very weak while playing with the ball. Let us have a look at how the first 30 minutes were played, in the video player below.

From a storytelling perspective, the turnaround in the game seems to come when Akola draws a penalty on Ahrén after trying to run past him close to the boards.

After this play, they score a pretty random PP goal in the dying seconds of the Ahrén penalty. On the five-on-five play afterwards, they also start establishing some zone time in the Swedish zone, from which they create some scoring chances. In the last four minutes of the second period, they create four mid scoring chances through zone offense. Which should be compared to them having had only two chances through zone offense in the entire game until this point.

It felt like a real game after these minutes, that I think had a lot to do with the final outcome.

Sweden has five high danger chances in the entire game - three of them are in the final four minutes of regulation. Sweden has four mid-high danger chances in the game - two of them in the final four minutes of regulation.

They really could have won the game in the dying minutes. Look at the chances here.

Zone entries

I have realized, that the number on scoring chances on zone entries, is something that matters a lot to me, in terms of how I will appreciate a certain game. I just love the chess aspects of finding weaknesses in the opponent's defense system, and trying to expose them.

In this type of high-intense games with so much at stake (it is after all a WFC final between the two powerhouses of floorball!), it honestly does not matter at all to me. The suspense is enough.

I still think it is worth mentioning, that this game did not have a lot of firework from entries, which normally is a big factor in these international games with the best players in the world on the court.

Looking at my tracking of the game, Sweden has five scoring chances from entries, and Finland only has one. And three of Sweden's five chances came from the Ulriksson/Lundmark scramble in front of the net in the end of the third period, that I covered in the video above. It is worth mentioning here, that I credit also the two rebounds here to entries, despite them just being an indirect product of the entry. But without the entry from Sweden, those chances would not have been there. And they are not a product of an organized counter-press or something like that, that would have made me change to another game situation as the origin of the scoring chance.

Zone exits

But there was another game situation, that played a bigger role in this game in terms of result. One that might not be as obvious or talked about from the casual fan. I am talking about one team playing counter-press to win the ball back after having lost it in the offensive zone. This puts the team getting pressured in the zone exit game situation, trying to beat the other team's counter-press, like I mentioned in one of the videos above.

Three of the game's goals were scored on beating the other team's counter-press with exits, so it definitely played a big role in the outcome of the game. As often, balance is a huge factor to these big games.

Remember - feeling confused about what counter-press and zone exits actually are? Look here for an explanation.

The deserve-to-win-o-meter

This game is basically a coin-toss - which the actual result also tells us. Both teams could have won it, and it would not have been a very big surprise, the way the game played itself out.

Sweden has one more high danger chance, but Finland has slightly more mid-high and mid danger scoring chances. The shot share for all attempts (Corsi) and all unblocked attempts (Fenwick) are pretty similar.

The xProgress-xG value (xPxG) shows a slight advantage to Sweden as well. If you want to know more about how this works, look here. In short words - my model for what the end result should have been (on five-on-five play), would be 3,6 goals for Sweden and 3,5 for Finland.

Now – who should be happy with the game being more or less a draw in high and mid-high danger chances? That will be the main point for me – so let us dig deeper into the perspective of the two teams.

The Sweden perspective

Who has the best team on paper? I am pretty sure, that after taking truth serum, players, staff and fans would agree pretty clearly, that Sweden is the superior team on paper.

After the second period, Sweden has two high danger scoring chances, and one mid-high danger scoring chance. Finland does not have a single high-danger chance. That is is not a lot. It is actually one of the lowest numbers I have seen in an international game among the top 4 nations, over ten years of time.

Obviously, the score being 4-0 to Sweden pretty early in the second period, might have something to do with Sweden not pushing the pedal to the metal.

I have a pretty straight forward theory about the best team on paper benefiting from a high-event game - since they are the best team, and will have more chances to actually make a difference, in a high-event game. While the inferior opponent on paper, will want to keep the game low-event.

This is where I feel Sweden could have had another approach.

Then again, the cluster of high and mid-high chances in the end of the game, easily could have been enough. And if the Finns had not gotten the pretty cheap Iiskola goal (1-4) and the random PP goal (2-4) it probably would have been enough for Sweden.

The Finland perspective

I am pretty certain, that the Finns came in to the game with a gameplan of trying to slow down and frustrate the Swedes. Though looking at the first period, it seemed to slow them selves down to the level of them hardly managing to play a zone entry with quality into the Swedish zone, and it nearly cost them the game. And once they did go forward, they suffered from poor decision making.

After 40 minutes, the Finns had 0 (zero) high danger scoring chances. They did not have a very strong start to the game, but still found a way to get back into it.

Obviously, this shows a lot of character and is more often than not a sign of a tight-knit group. I know Esa Jussila personally through having him as my assistant coach for seven years with the Swiss men's team, and he is a fantastic floorball coach and an even better person. I have no doubt in my mind, that the players believed (which was the Ted Lasso inspired tag line for their WFC campaign) they could do it.

Though there is also no doubt in my mind, that they would have wanted to be better with the ball in the first 30+ minutes of the game, and not only play the passive possession style of floorball that they ended up with. Mounting this type of comeback will not always work out.

Thanks to both teams for a very interesting floorball game, that came down to the wire. I will soon be back with another analysis of this game, from a more tactical angle. In that post, I look at the potential tactical takeaways from the game.

"Where is the analysis of the winning goal?", you might wonder. That will also be in that aforementioned second analysis of the game.

Do you have any questions on this post? Let me know in the comments below.

/David
david@xprogress.se