Japan Enters Tournament with 1-15 Loss against Slovakia – 02.12.2018

The last time the two teams met was at the World Floorball Championship in 2014 in Gothenburg. It was a great effort then by the Japanese, who scored four goals despite allowing nine. This time it was a much easier win for the Slovaks in a match they controlled from start to finish.

In the very first shift, Lukáš Ujhelyi had a lot of free space in front of the goalie and comfortably opened the score. Confusion in Japan’s defense caused other goals in their net. It was 4-0 after just four minutes. After the first fancy moments the game was getting calmer. But then a slap shot from a distance increased the gap to five goals, a beautiful cross pass made it 6-0 and after Filip Čonka-Skyba’s second goal of the day the score after the first period was 7-0 for Slovakia.

It didn’t take long in the second period before more Slovak goals came, the highlight being Filip Čonka-Skyba’s hat-trick that increased the lead to 9-0. And it still wasn’t everything. The Slovak players were faster everywhere and two more goals before the 30th minute. Then, halfway through the second period, the Japanese defense finally showed some resistance and didn’t concede another goal for the rest of the period.

What is more, early in the third Japan scored their first goal of the tournament after Ichiro Ueda tipped in Maeda’s shot. But that was just a swan song from the Japanese side. Shortly after their consolation goal Lukáš Ujhelyi became the second Slovak player who completed a hat-trick in the match. And with two minutes left on the clock Michal Dudovič became the third one after scoring from an unbelievable shot. It was his sixth point of the game. His goal was the last one of the match that set the final score at 15-1.