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What is Foosball?

Foosball is a tabletop adaptation for the game of soccer where miniature players are fixed to rows of rods that can spin to kick the ball into the opponent's goal. The name derives from the German word foot plus ball "Fussball" that was adapted into the name "Foos-ball" when the game was brought to the United States by Larry Patterson in 1962. While the sport has the more formal name of table soccer, to the American players who love it, it's foosball, or just foos. Our website name is dedicated to serve both origin names for the game. Larry Patterson coined the term when he decided to partner with a Germany factory and brought the first "Foosball Match" table to Americans. He is now recognized as the founding father of coin-operated table soccer in America. Learn more about the rich history of foosball from the invention to the modern era.

How to Play Foosball

The game consists of 4 rows of rods on each side of the table that you push, pull, and turn to make the men that are mounted on them kick the ball. Much like soccer, the object of foosball is to score the ball in the opponent's goal. The most challenging thing about the game is you can only move the rod side to side, making a great deal of strategy involved in using your rows together to pass and shoot the ball. The game can be played as 1 on 1 or teams of 2 on each side of the table. Tournament and bar foosball is played with a total of 9 balls and the first team to 5 goals wins the game.

Similar to how soccer positions work, each row on the table has a certain number of men to simulate the formation of the players. The very back defensive zone will have a 1 or 3 man goalie rod followed by the 2 bar defensive rod. Then you have a midfield row or 5 bar because there are always 5 men mounted on this rod followed by the final offensive rod with 3 men.

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FOOSBALL 101
From learning the rules to ball control, the basics of foosball are critical to being a well-rounded player. If you simply skip ahead to only learning how to play offense, you will lack some of the basic techniques that you will need down the road it will be difficult to overcome players that master their ball control. In this section you will learn the proper stance, how to grip the handle, effective passing and defensive sides of the game you will need to become a great player.

MASTER YOUR SHOTS
At the end of the day, you are only as good as the number of points you can score on your opponent. You can have the best defense and ball control skills in the world but you must master a single shot to win games. This section will teach you the full spectrum of different offensive shots you can take, but we ultimately recommend you master the Pull Shot or Snake Shot as those two have the highest percentage of success and are used by the professionals of the sport.

WATCH VIDEOS
Videos give you the step by step instructions along with a visual for how to practice and improve your game. You can learn subtle things from watching videos that you would never pick up on reading our articles so we highly recommend you spend some time here. Plus, you get a teacher that has years of experience playing in different situations and opponents that you can learn from.

Foosball Table Research

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