Foosball Challenge

My friend Kin had recently purchased a nice full-sized foosball table from ebay. I had mentioned this to another friend, John. John then said that he has been playing foosball for years and that he is really good at it. Well I couldn’t let him continue boasting after the last time when he told me he was really good at soccer and the reality wasn’t quite the same. When he came and played indoor soccer with my team, he was, how should I say it, less than good. He blamed his lack of fitness and said he hadn’t played for many years. So this time, I pulled him up on his boast and challenged him to a few foosball games. He said since foosball didn’t require too much physical fitness, he could easily beat me. I said that since I have only started playing for like a week, I needed some time to practice. His reply was that I would need 600 hours in a day to practice and be good enough to beat him. Well, I don’t need 600 hours, just a couple of weeks.

So on Friday night when I had already planned on going to Kin’s house and playing foosball anyway, we decided to learn how to play better. When Kin first bought the table, we just played like crazy people and were jumping around and spinning any rods as hard as we can. That was fun and still is fun. However, Kin put his foot down and said that we should play by the rules. I was like “What rules?” Apparently there are world standard foosball rules, the most primary of which is that the rods can’t spin more than 360 degrees. I said that Kin was being a foosball Nazi and taking all the fun out of it initially. However, having since played by the rules, I have to admit that I was wrong and that it’s a much more tactical and skilful game when you play by the rules. We now do passes between our own players and set plays up and do angled shots etc. It’s still fun, in fact maybe even more fun, especially when you get the satisfaction of doing a really good play and know you meant it. We still jump around and shout like crazy people when we score though.

We played many many games that night and I was getting a lot better. I remained undefeated in solo battles all night against Kin, Jo and Paul. Even when it was 2 on 1, I still managed to win. The only game I lost that night was when Paul and I were teamed up, so hence I’m going to fully blame him hahahaha. :-) Anyway, after one night of practice, I think I have improved substantially. By two weeks time, I think I will be ready for the foosball challenge and hopefully beat John, or at least be competitive.

Above: Kin and I battling it out on the foosball table