Games : Foosball

University Popularity

Foosball, as the game of table football is referred to in every school of higher-learning in the United States, is a widely popular sport and hobby. From schools such as Purdue University and University of Michigan, students are known to play well into the early morning hours and for cash and prizes as well.

Table Football

This is about the game using players on rods. Table football/soccer is also a generic term of the game known colloquially as Subbuteo.

Table football (Bonzini style table).

Table football, better known as foosball in America (from German Fußball, "football") and many other names, is a table-top game and sport that is loosely based on association football (soccer).

History

Although patents for similar games may exist from as far back as the 1890s, the game of Table Football as we know it today was first invented by Harold Searles Thorton in 1922 and patented in 1923. The concept was conceived after Harold had been to a Spurs football match (he was an avid supporter). He wanted to provide a game that replicated football that could be played at home. The inspiration came from a box of matches; by laying the matches across the box he had formed the basis of his game. His uncle (United States resident Louis P. Thornton, who lived in Portland, Oregon) visited Harold and took the inspiration back to the States where it was patented in 1927.  The patent eventually expired.

In 2002, the International Table Soccer Federation (ITSF) was established in France with the mission of promoting the sport of Table Soccer as an organizing sports body, regulating international competitions, and establishing the game with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and General Association of International Sport Federation (GAISF).

The Sport - A Goalkeeper

To begin the game, the ball is served through a hole at the side of the table, or simply placed by hand at the feet of a figure in the center of the table. The initial serving side is decided with by coin toss. Players attempt to use figures mounted on rotating bars to kick the ball into the opposing goal. Expert players have been known to move balls at speeds up to 56 kmh (35 mph) in competition.

Ball Control

Rules consider "360-degree shots" or "spinning" (using the palm of the hand to swiftly spin the bar all around, instead of using wrist strokes to kick the ball with a bar-mounted figure) to be illegal. However, shots short of a full 360-degree rotation are legal. The winner is determined when one team scores a predetermined number of goals, typically five, ten, or eleven in competition. When playing Bonzini competitions the target numbers of goal is seven.

Table football tables can vary in size, but a typical table is about 120 cm (4 ft.) long and 61 cm (2 ft.) wide. The table usually contains 8 rows of foos men, which are plastic, metal, wooden, or sometimes carbon-fiber figures mounted on horizontal metal bars. Each team of 1, 2, or 3 human players controls 4 rows of foos men.

The arrangement is standard. Looking from left to right on one side of the table, the configuration is as follows:

Row 1 Goalkeeper    1 foosman (sometimes 2 or 3)

Row 2 Defense          2 foosman (sometimes 3)

Row 3 Opponent's attack     3 foosman (sometimes 2)

Row 4 Midfield          5 foosman (sometimes 4 or 6)

Row 5 Opponent's midfield 5 foosman (sometimes 4 or 6)

Row 6 Attack 3 foosman (sometimes 2)

Row 7 Opponent's defense  2 foosman (sometimes 3)

Row 8 Opponent's goalkeeper        1 foosman (sometimes 2 or 3)

Table football can also be played with four people in "doubles" style, in which there are teams of two people on either side. In this scenario, one player can control the two defensive rows and the other team member uses the midfield and attack rows. In informal matches, three or four players per side are also common.

Competition

Table Football on Tornado in New York

Table football is often played for fun in pubs, bars, workplaces, schools, and clubs with few rules. Table football is also played in official competitions organized by a number of national organizations, with highly evolved rules and regulations. Organized competition can be traced back to the 1940s and 1950s in Europe. But the professional tours and big-time money events began when the founding father of modern professional table soccer, Lee Peppard of Seattle, Washington, United States announced a "quarter million dollar tour" in 1975. Peppard went on to award several million dollars in prize monies and, ever since his Tournament Soccer Organization went out of business in 1981, several organizations and promoters have continued holding large purse professional table soccer events worldwide. The ITSF regulates International events including the yearly World Championships and the World Cup held to coincide with the FIFA World Cup every four years. In 2006, Austria, Germany and Belgium took the Gold, Silver and Bronze respectively. Every year, Heineken invites employees from offices across the globe to compete in HitFC - The Heineken Champions League Table Football Competition. The format follows that of the Champions League, with regional league winners and runners up going into the knockout rounds. The ultimate winners then travel to Amsterdam for the World Finals where they will compete to become the undisputed Heineken World Fussball Champions.

Tables

A Garlando-style table with a game in progress

An 11-per-side Leonhart table football game in Berlin

A vast number of different tables exist. The table brands used on the world tour and official ITSF tournaments are "French-style" Bonzini, "American-style" Tornado, "Italian-style" Roberto Sport and Garlando, "German-style" Tecball. Other major brands include Fireball, Kicker, Deutscher Meister, Rosengart, Jupiter Goldstar, Eurosoccer, Löwen-Soccer, Warrior, Lehmacher, Leonhart, and Smoby. There was also a 7-meter table created by artist Maurizio Cattelan for a piece called Stadium. It takes 11 players to a side. Another unique table football set is the Opus Table created by the Eleven forty Company. Each table is hand-crafted, and each foosman is made to resemble his on-field counterpart.

Differences in the table types have great influence on the playing styles. Most tables have one goalie whose movements are restricted to the goal area. On some of these tables the goalie becomes unable to get the ball once it is stuck out of reach in the corner; others have sloped corners to return the ball. Other tables have three goalies; one in the center and one in each corner to reach the ball so sloped corners are not needed. Another major difference is found in the balls, which can be made of cork, plastic, wood or even marble and metal, varying the speed of shots a great deal, as well as the "grip" between the man and the ball.

One of the newest additions to the foosball table family, the Fireball table, is manufactured in China. It has recently become an officially-recognized ITSF table.

Names

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and former coach of the Polish national team Leo Beenhakker play table football. The most common English names are table football, footzy, bar football and foosball, though table soccer is also used. Among French-style players it is known as baby-foot [2]. Foosball can also be spelled "foozeball", "fooseball", "Fussball" or "Fußball" (German for football), and (though rarely) "fuseball". In the German town Hanover, table soccer is also referred to as "Krökeln".

The foosball handbook tells us that we cannot hit a ball when it is in the air

Robotic Players

Robots designed to play table soccer by roboticists at the University of Freiburg are claimed to be able to beat 85 percent of casual players. They use a camera from below a transparent table base to track the ball, and an electronic control system to control high torque motors to rotate and move the foosmen. Currently an expert player can beat the robot 10 games to 1. Another table football robot, Foosbot, is claimed to have never been beaten by a human, but has not been tested against expert players. Yet another table football robot is under development by two students at the Technical University of Denmark. The robot uses a camera mounted above an ordinary table.

Featured in Literature, Art, and Entertainment

Table football figures prominently as a Scottish bar sport in the short story "Kingdom of Fife" by Irvine Welsh. There have also been several instructional books on table football, including The Complete Book of Foosball, and Zen and the Art of Foosball.

Table football has been the subject of movies such as Foos: Be the Greatest and Longshot. The German movie Absolute Giganten features a table football game on film. In the award-winning Italian movie Il Postino, which is set in the 1950’s, the eponymous character of Mario Ruoppolo fell in love at first sight with Beatrice Russo while playing table football. In the classic 1993 movie Dazed and Confused (film), the entrance scene at the Emporium takes Mitch, Pink, and Wooderson through to find Pickford who is playing table football - a great scene set to the sound of Hurricane by Bob Dylan.

Television shows have also featured table football. The characters Joey Tribbiani and Chandler Bing from the Friends TV show (1994-2004, USA) often play table football. The sitcom featured a Dynamo table in earlier seasons, and later a Tornado (Valley) brand table, each of which were central to many episodes. It was destroyed in The Last One by Monica, when Joey's pets (a chick and duck) are stuck inside. In House and in Zoey 101, table football is played by characters in leisure settings. In an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Dr. Forrester and Frank told how they took a table football table, caulked it, filled it with water, and turned it into a water polo game.

The cover of the 1979 Sides album by former Genesis guitarist Anthony Phillips features a Peter Cross painting depicting a Foosball table in which the foosmen all resemble Phillips.

In the Xbox version of The Sims 2, the player is required to beat the NPC Torin in a game of table football in order to move to the next house.

Shot Types

"Pull Shot" - Pulling the rod to direct the ball to another man for a shot

"Push Shot" - Pushing the rod to direct the ball to another man for a shot

"Bank Shot" - Intentionally aiming at a side wall to 'bank' the ball towards the net

"Snake Shot" - When the ball is behind the man, rotating the rod 360 degrees to hit the ball forwards

"Wrist Shot" - Feigning a Push or Pull shot but instead shooting with the 'passer'

"Foos Shot" - Shooting the ball right back at a defender who is trying to clear it out. This shot takes great reflexes and is often used by the forward attackers against the opponent's goalie.