My host company has a strict foosball policy – everyone must be good at it. Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. Some people choose to not even play foosball… but others (myself included) take it very seriously. And my competitive bent along with the jovial nature of my colleagues has inspired me to become a much better foosball player. In fact, on more than one occasion my five bar has been called “a wall”–quite the foosball compliment. And yet, I am still firmly camped in Division 2. So, in honor of our upcoming Foosball Tournament, I’d like to take this moment to research and consolidate foosball tips, tricks, and best practices. After all, regular office breaks have been shown to increase productivity!

First off, evidently I’ve been serving wrong. It seems serving the foosball is just as much a part of the strategy as other moves in game play. And it’s okay to serve the ball to yourself!! Here I was trying to seem unbiased and get it centered when I serve. Or throwing it to my opponent’s side every now and then when I feel bad because I think it crossed to my side too much. No more!

When playing foosball, I’ve discovered that once you learn your opponent’s tendencies it’s much easier to defend against them, which led me to assume the best player can pull a wide variety of shots at any time. This tactic seems up for debate with foosballsoccer.com advocating that you develop expertise in a particular shot instead of being a jack-of-all-trades.

One thing I know I struggle with is passing the ball from my five-bar to my three-bar to set up a shot on goal. Usually I just hit the ball really hard with my 5 and it ends up in my defensive opponent’s possession. It seems I need to learn the “Brush” Pass, where I basically push the ball through a gap in my opponent’s defenses instead of trying to smack it as hard as I can. Will work on that.

Defensive strategy–the position I significantly lack skills in–is obviously very different from playing offense. Instead of summarizing this entire page, all I can say is, it was pretty much all new to me. I need to practice my D. Side note, why are they foosball “men”? I prefer the title foosball players.

Well, clearly I have some strategies to solidify. So over the next few weeks, you will likely find me spending a portion of my lunch break happily foosing away. But for now, why not ruminate on this impressive shot?