hahs..yar.

so now i have decided to post an interesting post today, which is "getting tips about foosball from tze wei". lol. ok,most ppl who have came over my place and played foosball with me would know that this is rather rare opportunity to hear from the pro himself. LOL. jkjk. so anyway, let me give you guys some tips about playing foosball, so that more ppl can enjoy the game in sch (since a foosball table suddenly appeared at the sch atrium), as well as me having better challengers. hahahha..ok so here goes,

firstly, you must rmber one rule. nver spin the stick. not only does this prevent you from improving in terms of skill, as it merely requires one to spin and not to aim, it also endangers anyone playing the game, as the ball may fly out anytime anywhere at anyone. ppl usually spin the stick as they do not know the proper technique. so this leads to my second point.

2nd, is the way u shld hold the bar. i have seen lots of humourous ways of ppl holding the foosball bar. ranging from the double-handed hold, to the super tight grip hold which makes it almost impossible to hit the ball as ur shoulder would be too stiff. so the proper way of holding the bar would be just to loosen ur grip, and pretend that it is just a light handshake. this is especially useful during 1-on-1 as it will allow you to swiftly let go of one bar and grab another bar during the gameplay. loosely holding the bar does not neccessarily mean that you cannot whack the ball hard. i can prove to you i can if u come over. LOL.

thirdly would be the hitting of the ball. try to hit the ball right dead centre. this will not only allow u to maximise ur power in contact with the ball, it will also enable u to aim rather accurately. u will need rather good hand-eye coordination too for this. after u have cleared this stage, let me know and i will go onto stage 2 where u hit the ball at a certain angle so as to angle the path of the ball. hahs.

fourthly, is the position of the bar before or during the game. it may sound rather complicated so i have uploaded a picture as 'a picture speaks a thousand words':

ok. so take for example i am the blue team. (this would be during a 1-on-1 match-up) i would first let my 3 strikers be up in the air (as shown in the diagram) this is to allow me more opportunities for my 5 midfielders to score straight away without any of my strikers obstructing. similarly, once the ball is in possession of the red team's defender or keeper, i would immediately place my striker down again so that it may provide an obstruction between the defenders and his other outfielding players.

fifth, is man-marking. this sounds simple yet, it is the most crucial in the game. man-marking prevent goals, steals possession and create chances for urself. once u noe how to man-mark, it would be harder for the opponents to score. (if they are noobs, it is almost impossible to score as they will only know how to hit straight and they will eventually hit straight into ur defenders. however if they are pros, they would also encounter several problems for scoring and would have to resort to scoring using the angle ball or long-range shots.

number 6, would be using the defenders to a great extent. ok, i have mentioned previously about man-marking. after u have man-marked ur opponents and got possession of the ball, it would be time to clear the ball to ur outfield player. this is tip number 6 is a counter to tip number 4 where i stated "once the ball is in possession of the red team's defender or keeper, i would immediately place my striker down again so that it may provide an obstruction between the defenders and his other outfielding players." to avoid this kind of problem is easy. just purposely mis-hit the ball. yep. u heard me correct. this is due to the fact that the opponent strikers would be intentionall marking ur defenders by lining themselves up directly in front of ur defenders. so to get the ball away from this area, mis-hit the ball and they would definitely not be able to guess where the ball be heading. so this would allow to ball to be cleared.

last of all, would be the secret to my success (sounds damn like the english biography haha..). stay calm. stay calm. stay calm. in case u missed the first 3 times, its to stay calm. lol. staying calm would allow u to control the ball marvellously as well as allowing u to man-mark ur opponents skillfully. if u are those really kan-chiong ppl, foosball would definitely not be ur game. u would lose control of the ball once u lose ur cool. and once u lose control u would lose the game. xD

so yup, thats all for now and i would probably be posting more tips about foosball, including the jump ball, the backheel-shoot tactics, passing between players in the same bar as well as the fake shot and the step-over. hahahhha.

hopefully u would have learnt much about playing foosball from reading this post and come and challenge me one day once u are rdy. lolz. cya!

tze