Tornado replaces Head Coach - gives the reins to Joakim Eriksson


05 November 2009



Tornado Luxembourg announced today that Joakim Eriksson replaces Karl Kuhnen with immediate effect as Head Coach of its first team and of the National team.

Joakim, a Swedish National, has been himself an elite player, spending 4 years in the highest Swedish League with Frölunda (http://www.frolundaindians.com) and ending his active career in 1990 when his son Markus was born.

He arrived in Luxembourg 11 years ago and got involved straight away with coaching both at the junior and senior level for the Huskies and Tornado while actively playing a couple of seasons with the Tornado team himself.

Joakim has done a great job with the Huskies junior teams and has led the U18 team to the playoff finals a couple of years ago where they unfortunately lost to Epinal.

His son Markus has been a Tornado player until recently and scored 2 goals in the team’s opener against Chalons in September after which he left for university studies in England. Markus’ younger brother Niclas is still a member of the U18 Huskies squad.

“I am thrilled and I am highly motivated to help Tornado get back on track,” coach Joakim Eriksson said, “the current standing of the team in the league does not reflect the level of skills that the team and its players have and it’s very unfortunate that Tornado is at the bottom of the standings without a point after 4 games. The team definitely deserves better than that!”

Tornado has high hopes that the already at the junior level successful Eriksson – the U18 team is second in the league – will help jump-start Luxembourg’s #1 team so that it finds back its motivation and its confidence to climb up in the standings of the Division 3 of the French Ligue de l'Est.