Some say it foosball some say its table football, whatever the name is that doesn’t make you a pro player. Some might say achieving skills and play style like professionals can only be gained by playing with them. Which is why you want to play with a pro player, they don’t count you as a player.
Sometimes they make fun of you sometimes, they humiliate you. These things happen for every kind of game, but the difference between foosball and other game is, foosball can you pro if only you practice it yourself. Now the biggest question comes, how to practice foosball by yourself?
Best way to start practicing foosball is to know about the variates of foosball tips and tricks. Doing practice without knowing where you should improve, can’t be a good idea. That’s why we are here to discuss particular skills you must improve and how to prepare your mentality for practice, training alone sounds pretty dull.
Skills That You Need To Acquire To Establish Yourself As A Pro
First of all, if any intermediate or professional players give you suggestions about the skills you need to improve and other things, do not forget to strengthen them by practicing. Here we’ll tell you about some foosball training tutorials that generally work for amateur players. Let’s get started.
Correct Posture
This is not a skill, this for everybody to know before playing foosball. Posture or stance is essential due to achieve the best possible reaction time and reflection. You’ve already perceived foosball is a game of hand-eye coordination. The fast your mind can command your hand, and the short your can hand can do the job entirely depends on the posture. That’s why there have some simple steps to follow-
- Bend your knees to a small extent.
- Lean your body slightly.
- Put your wrist lose on the handles.
- Track the ball less and more the opponent’s hand.
Practicing 5-bar Passes
After getting a comfortable posture, the first thing you should focus on is the passes on 5-bar. You’ll see advanced players can pass back and forth, roll over the ball, keep horizontal control of the ball, and skipping over players. After that, they decide to advance the ball by a short pass. Yeah, short pass, because it is so difficult to go for a clean shot from 5-bar. So better is if you advance the ball to 3-men.
Here comes the important thing, it is essential to learn side by side passes than forwarding passes. By side by side passes, you can confuse the opponent 5-bar men also. After receiving the ball practice side by side pass to find a way toward 3-bar strikers. There have some tips, such as
- It would help if you thought you are trying to flummox the opponent’s defense.
- Take time, find the vacant way to pass.
- Delays help to find the gap between difference. It is a harsh truth.
- Skip 2-3 players horizontally by passing back and forth.
- Practicing wall assisted passes.
Practicing In A Snooker Manner
In this training, you will need some different colors of the ball. For this practice first, you need 10/15 red balls. Now set them randomly on the foosball table. Then place the white one in front of your keeper. Now push all the red balls to the opponent’s goal striking by the white ball.
You will lose if the white one goes in or any red-ball goes into your goal. Some play with harder rules. If any red ball touches your players means you have lost. Question is what will be the benefit of this foosball tutorial. If you are a pool lover and research the best way to practice pool by yourself, you’ll find this training session. What I want to say is this will increase your passing accuracy.
5-Bar Hack
Not a typical complex hacking process, in foosball term shooting from 5-bar, is known as a hack. When the opposition is sure about you that you are going to pass the ball. But you will take as a shot. This 5-bar hack sounds so tricky, but believe me, it is way hard to defend than passes. Before hacking, you must keep the ball some time by passing side by side. Also, some other things you have to keep in mind-
- Do not try to hit the ball without passing side by side. Because side by side passing will open up the gap for you.
- Shooting from the middle man seems more comfortable. Shooting with an angle is a tough job to be done. My suggestion is to advance the ball forward if you never got a chance to shoot from the middle.
Defensive Tactics
We’ve talked about more offense already, now its time to talk about some defensive skills. Now practicing passing and shooting alone is not a problem. But how can you practice to cut a pass or shoot? For practicing, first off, all there have so many videos on YouTube. On defensive formation, which generally helps to cut down passes and shoot. Seeing them, you can gain the theoretical idea of defense.
There is no way to practice defense fruitfully like the offense. But getting an idea about how to cut down different shots can remind it during matches. After playing matches, you’ll get a perfect picture.
Speeding Up your play
After practicing all the training we’ve talked about, you’ll get a sluggish feeling. All your steps will seem slower and hesitant than others. Do not get angry with yourself, and do not bother. Slowly increase the speed of your play is the perfect way to speeding up.
For speeding up the play quickly, you can practice fast passing and receiving and again passing the ball back where it came from. Try this over and over and practice side by side, giving regularly. Theses will make you the fast player you want to see yourself. Remember one thing all foosball strategy depends on foosball control. So, practice quick play and take control over the ball.
How Much Time Do You Need for practicing?
Foosball practice drills have no specific time. Everyone will tell you to practice as much as possible. But the key is to maintain the attention all the time. If you feel tired, take rest and wait for when you do feel better. Also, you can make a practice schedule. Then it can be three times a day, two times a day and a single time a day. It all depends on your activeness.
Some players feel good in short time practice and some feel-good on long. But the average time is 2 hours a day. You should practice 2 hours a day 5-6 days a week if you want quick progress.
How Can You Rate Your Progress?
The best way to know your progress to practice a match with a good player. But if that is not possible for you, then better you judge it yourself. If you bring a person who knows nothing about foosball, can say good or don’t know. But these won’t help you to become a good player.
A better solution is to note down how many passes and shots you have done accurately and again next week to make this same type of note. There you will see your actual progress. Also, you can record your practice in video with a camera. From there you can improve the mistakes.
These solutions are telling you that you are progressing or not. But this progress is not a measurement of your match skills. Match skill depends on experience. So without playing matches, you can’t really tell about actual progress.
The Frequently Asked Questions
Does a goalie shot in foosball offer 2 points?
Sometimes players claim that there is an official rule of 2 points if we score from goalie shot. But they officially stated that there is no difference between getting one point per goal or two points per goal. Because it’s the same for both players. But officially there is no rule about 2 points if a goalie short scored. It is the rule that is made by my casual player for fun.
What is 5-bar hacking?
Not a typical complex hacking process, in foosball term shooting from 5-bar, is known as a hack. When opposition will sure about you are going pass the ball, at that time a long-distance shoot can them obtuse. This 5-bar hack sounds so tricky, but believe me, it is way hard to defend than passes.
Final Verdict
Practicing foosball by yourself is not like practicing chase or practicing table tennis. Prating alone for fuse ball works. Yeah, nothing comparable to match practice. But gaining the skill and passing and shooting is the first condition to become a great player. So why you’ll depend on other players to tech you practically, do it yourself and feel the confidence.
