Nilsberth: World´s best defender?

Defender Robin Nilsberth was the biggest name of Sweden’s silly season this year. His move from his native Granlo to Uppsala giant Storvreta brought two hungry ones together. Three-time World Champion Nilsberth is still looking for his first Swedish title where Storvreta burn to climb back to the top after a disappointing season.

Already in February, rumours about Granlo’s top defender were bubbling in Swedish press. With World Champion and Svenska Superligan’s top-scoring defenseman playing for a club struggling against relegation and economic problems they could not be avoided. Both Warberg and Pixbo were interested, we read, but so was Storvreta who got to publish Nilsberth’s contract in May. He signed for three years.

“I’ve missed the play-offs for several times in a row and making them is obviously my goal for the coming season. Storvreta had a tough season last year and both the club and the city are packed with lust for revenge. We have lots of talent in the team and I know we’ll be a nightmare to meet for all the teams this year”, Robin Nilsberth says. One of the Swedish top teams never had a real chance to sign him, though. An avid Djurgården (football) fan like Nilsberth could never represent Djurgården’s arch rival AIK.

_{Robin Nilsberth}

Football and floorbal, like everybody else...
In Sweden, sport´s tradition is never far away. Nlsberth´s grandmother was the head coach of cross country skiing distance team in the Nagano Olympic Games in 1998. Robin became an athlete and a top floorball player following the path that so many others did as well. “I started with floorball and football at the age of seven. All my classmates at school started so it was an easy choice to make. It did not take me long to seriously fall for it. Athletics, jiu-jitsu, ice hockey and other sports were there, too, but football and floorball were always my main sports.” In Robin Nilsberth’s junior years in Sundsvall in the 1990’s floorball was already growing fast but not fast enough to make floorball players his early idols. “It was always the hockey player Mats Sundin and the football player Steven Gerrard who were my favourites.”

To the top with help of clever coaches
At 15, Nilsberth made his choice. Football was left aside after an injury-ridden season and he decided to focus on floorball.  Being admitted to Sweden’s official floorball gymnasium in Umeå topped it all. “From then on, I put all my effort into becoming as good a floorball player as possible.” The move to Umeå also took Nilsberth from his native club to IBK Dalen, where he played five full season making the final in 2012 and scoring more and more every season. “Certainly there is some talent involved in my development but the most important thing of all is the will to practice a lot and always become better.” Those things combined with my winner mentality have made me the player that I am today,” Nilsberth says. “I see myself as a player who knows all the aspects of floorball, my shot and my eye for the game being my top qualities,” analyses Nilsberth his storng sides. He is well aware that there were some important personalities and coaches, who help him to reach his nowadays level. “Magnus Näsman who coached me in the juniors and later in Granlo, Dalen’s Urban Karlsson who gave me lots of responsibility despite of my young age. And then Ulf Hallstensson who challenged me like no one before and got me to take the next step to a new level," expresses Nilsberth his gratitude.

_{Robin Nilsberth scored the important 2:2 goal in the WFC final in 2014.}

Two straight gold medals are no coincidence.
Robin Nilsberth was a member of the Swedish juniors’ national team that won the World Championship title in 2007 in Switzerland. It would take time to make the men’s national team, though. “In Sweden, the competition is really tough and it is a big jump from juniors to men’s level. I just had to have patience to keep on developing and try to take my place in the men’s team.” With Granlo making it back to Svenska Superligan in 2012, it was time for Robin Nilsberth to come home. The same year he made his debut in the men’s national team and it was all success from there on. World Champion in 2012 and in 2014 when he scored the big 2-2 equalizer in a power play in the second period. The hard shot whizzed just over Finnish goal Eero Kosonen’s leg ending up right by the far post and exploding the sold-out Gothenburg Scandinavium.

“Right now we are a great generation of players born in the end of the 80’s and in the beginning of the 90’s. We play quite entertaining floorball packed with speed and power. Many of us have played together for four years and we know each other completely. Yet the margin are small and the Finns got close to winning last time. But I think we showed our mental strength in the WFC finals.” The base of success is, of course, laid below national team level. “We have the most licensed players which gives us more breadth and our league has more good teams which gives us a chance to meet better opposition every week.”

_{Robin Nilsberth will work 70%, while playing for Storvreta. Civil career is crusial to him.}

Ambitions in sports as well as in civil career
For a Swedish top player like Robin Nilsberth, floorball is not his profession but yet it is a lot more than just a hobby. “We practice at five in the afternoons and twice a week in the morning. With the games added, floorball is a big part of the week. Besides playing, I have always also worked 100% but after moving to Uppsala I will be able to cut that down to 70%. Still I think it is important to also have a job and I want to succeed in my civil career as well as in floorball. There is still time for the other good things in life, though. “I spend a lot of my time with my girlfriend and our dog, friends and family, too. And I am quite a football fan following my favourites Djurgården and Liverpool.”

Robin Nilsberth has so far played his whole career in Sweden. A move abroad is never out of the question, though. “There have been offers and I have thought about them. As I work in banking and financing, it would be interesting to try combining that with floorball in Switzerland some day. Right now my complete focus is in Storvreta’s success but you never know what will happen in the future,” Nilsberth hints.