“To be good at floorball, you have to do far more than only practice with your team”

Agnieszka Kozanecka is a defender from team Poland. The upcoming WFC will be her third one.

We spoke to Kozanecka about the start of her career, how it’s like to live in Sweden and what her expectations towards the World Floorball Championships 2019 are.

How and when did you start playing floorball?

I started at preschool, on coincidence really. My teacher had decided to build a team and I joined only because I was good at every sport. I’m from a small village and at a young age I didn’t have a lot of alternatives on how to spend my free time.

What do you do when you’re not playing floorball?

Since I live in Sweden I discovered that to be good at floorball you have to do far more than only practice with your team at the sports hall. You have to do some extra trainings, work at the gym and analyze games and it takes a lot of time.

Just now I already started my first work in Sweden and I’m trying to build a professional career as an engineer in Logistics.

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When did you join the national team?

WFC in 2012 was my first one as an U19 national team player. I joined our adult national team in 2014.

It’ll be your third WFC, do you have any specific goals?

Of course, I have! As a quite experienced player, I don’t want to be only a part of the team, but I’m aiming to give something extra and I don’t mean only playing.

I want to put some focus to make our team as good as possible and use some of my experience from Sweden to build the best collective, both inside and outside the pitch!

So you’re currently living and playing in Sweden, how is the season going so far?

As a team, we have a lot of ups and downs but we have a lot of extremely great, hardworking and talented players so I strongly believe that we will be glad after the last game of this season.

For me personally it’s going well. I’ve had a good start in the new team and I feel that I fit in with our tactics quite well. Most importantly: here in Gothenburg, I feel that I develop as a player so I’m extremely satisfied with that.

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What are the main differences between playing in Sweden compared to Poland?

If we would go through floorball in Poland and Sweden we would notice differences everywhere: the money around the sport, the number of players, the way how people in both countries practice…

If would have to pick the biggest difference, then I’d say the competition inside the team. In Poland, it was obvious for me that I would play the whole next game – including powerplay and box play – but now I have to show at every single training that I deserve to play and that I have better performance than other great players.

How is your preparation for the WFC, as it might be hard to practice with the full squad when you’re living in Sweden.

I haven’t participated in every team camp but I put a lot of focus to the WFC during my training routines in Sweden and of course, what is the most important, I’m in touch with players in Poland and our coach so I’m well prepared!

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In the group stage, you face home squad Switzerland, Finland, and Germany. What are your goals?

We play against great teams but it’s like that during every WFC. We want to put the focus on us, not opponents. Reaching at least the third place in this group is our plan.

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Daniël Nicolai Member since May 17, 2016

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COFOUNDER - Passionate about (playing and watching) floorball. Working on social media and match reports. Always looking for new ideas, improvements and creative ways to spread floorball. You'll read about it!