Table football

Table football, also called foosball or table soccer in North America, is a tabletop game loosely based on association football. Players score by moving a ball into the opponent’s goal using rods that hold small figures shaped like football players. While casual rules vary by country and region, competitive play follows a single, unified code. The earliest patents for similar games appeared in Germany and France in the 1890s.

History

In 1921, Harold Searles Thornton patented a version in the United Kingdom, calling it an “Apparatus for playing a game of table football.” He got the idea from a box of matches. In 1979, a Belgian magazine claimed that French inventor Lucien Rosengart created the game in the 1930s to entertain his grandchildren during winter, naming it babyfoot. Around the same time, Galician inventor Alejandro Finisterre patented his own version, futbolín, in Madrid in 1937.

His design is the basis for modern tables. The game reached the United States in the 1950s thanks to Lawrence Patterson, and it peaked in popularity there during the 1970s, often found in bars and pool halls. The name “foosball” came from German imports labeled tischfußball.

The game

In 2002, the International Table Soccer Federation (ITSF) was founded in France to promote the game, regulate international competitions, and seek recognition from the International Olympic Committee and the General Association of International Sport Federations. A typical adult table is about 150 cm long and 90 cm wide, with smaller tables for children. It has eight rows of figures—made of plastic, metal, wood, or carbon fiber—mounted on metal bars. Each team of one or two players controls four rows: goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders, and strikers.

Players spin or push the rods to hold, pass, or kick the ball. The game starts when the ball is served through a side hole or placed by hand at a center figure’s feet. A coin toss decides who serves first. If the ball goes out or stops out of reach (a “dead ball”), the team that last scored gets the serve.

In competition, expert players can move the ball at speeds up to 56 km/h. Spinning the bar a full 360 degrees before or after hitting the ball is forbidden, except if the spin sends the ball into the spinner’s own goal, which counts as an own goal. A rod spun by the ball’s impact is allowed.