Floorball: S'pore upset 9-4 by the Philippines at the Men's World C'ship

SINGAPORE - The Singapore men's team slumped to their second defeat at the Men's World Floorball Championship (WFC) in Finland on Sunday (Dec 5), losing 9-4 to a lower-ranked Philippines side.

The Philippines, who are 19 rungs below world No. 16 Singapore in the world rankings, dominated proceedings against their South-east Asian counterparts at the Helsinki Ice Hall.

Head coach Lim Jin Quan said: "We were lacklustre in the first period and gave team Philippines a huge head start. Defensively we were not aggressive enough and moments of lapse (in concentration) were capitalised on by the opponents.

"Even though we played better in the second and third period, the early mistakes were just too costly."

Philippines broke the deadlock through Melvin Alm Mendoza in the fifth minute, before captain Lucas Oijvall Perez swiftly doubled their lead seconds later.

The Filipinos grew in confidence and with Singapore struggling to get into the game, they scored another three goals - two by Mendoza and one by Ryan Hallden Cater - to go 5-0 ahead in the first period, during which they registered 17 shots on goals in contrast to the Republic's seven.

Forward Hafiz Zubir scored Singapore's first goal of the match in the 29th minute, but Mendoza swept in his fourth a minute later to restore Philippine's five-goal lead.

A more energised Singapore returned to the court in the third period and within four minutes, Lee Chee Yong found the net from distance to narrow the gap.

Perez scored two minutes later, only for Thaddeus Tan to pull another one back for Singapore almost instantly.

National captain R. Suria then scored in the 58th minute to make it 7-4 during a power play, but the imperious Mendoza struck again to put the Philippines 8-4 up.

With the clock ticking, Singapore made the tactical decision to switch the goalkeeper for a field player, but things did not pan out as they had hoped as Kim Varga Franz dispossessed Lee and had no trouble putting the ball into the unguarded net to make it 9-4 for the World Championship debutants.

The Philippines and Estonia were included in the World Championships to fill the spots vacated by Australia and Japan, who withdrew owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Singapore will take on world No. 10 Estonia in the final Group D game on Monday.

Lim was not surprised by the Philippines' technical superiority given that they have a number of players plying their trade at Swedish clubs, including Franz (IBF Falun Utveckling), Perez (FBC Nykoping) and Mendoza (IBK Uppsala Teknologer).

Despite the loss, Lim praised the team's fighting spirit, saying: "Regardless of the outcome we continued to fight.

"We will look through the videos and iron out the defensive errors that we made in the first period."