Austria and the United States will play for the 2024 IFAF Flag Football World Championships gold medal at the Lahti Sports Centre in Finland at 6.15 pm CET Friday, August 30.
USA will look to retain their title and claim a fifth successive gold medal, but Austria, who are ranked fourth in the world and won silver at the European Championships last year, will have other ideas. The two nations met in the 2018 final in Panama with the Americans claiming a narrow win by six points.
In Thursday’s semifinals, USA was too strong for giantkillers Switzerland – who had previously knocked out higher-ranked opponents Panama, Japan and Canada – in a 45-6 win in the semifinals. Austria denied a repeat of last year’s final as their defense stood strong to preserve a narrow 36-32 victory over Mexico.
Watch live. IFAF Flag Football WC Men Championship Day: Aug. 30, 07:00 CET (7 am, 1 am EDT)
The Bronze Medal Game at 3.45 pm CET at Lahti Stadium will feature Mexico and Switzerland, with the Europeans looking to win a first-ever medal on the world stage.
Earlier on Thursday, Switzerland’s success story and contempt for the world rankings continued as they edged Canada in the quarterfinals. Claudio Ferrari returned an interception for a late game-winning touchdown to spark wild celebrations as the Swiss earned the right to at least play for a medal on Friday.
Their semifinal opponents the United States went toe to toe with Italy in a thrilling repeat of the 2022 World Games gold medal game before the Americans raced ahead. Italy struck first with a touchdown from Vinny Papale, cheered on from the stands by his father, the former Philadelphia Eagles receiver Vince Papale, whose unique NFL story is told in the movie Invincible. But it is USA who are proving tough to overcome and their disruptive defense and precision offense earned a 46-21 win.
Mexico advanced from the last four with a 10-point victory over France and the resurgence of Denmark, once the all-conquering team across Europe, was halted by Austria.
All the placement games start at 7 am CET with the Bronze and Gold medal games set for 3:45 and 6:15 pm CET respectively.
All game scores, statistics, standings and a schedule of upcoming games can be found at the official tournament website.