Playing foosball with your friends and family is a time well spent, but if you want to avoid and discussions and confusions about foosball rules, then I suggest you put them somewhere where they can be seen. Now, I am not talking about official foosball rules, I am talking about table football rules which aren’t as strict as the official ones and they are there to keep the entertainment level high. So, we in the Kick have gathered basic foosball rules you can use as a guideline when you are playing with your friends and family.
Those rules will show you how to start the game, pause it and even what to do when someone scores the goal. But, we want to remind you that the most important rule of all is to have fun so relax and let the games begin.
Basic Table Football Rules
1. Before you start the game you can toss a coin and choose head or tail. The one that guessed correctly can choose to start first (the ball) or choose the side where he wants to play.
2. You can’t just toss the ball in the field, both sides of the table must be ready for that. When you release the ball, let it touch two players and roll for 1 second, then start playing.
3. When someone scores, they have the serve for continuing the match.
4. If you hit the wall of the cabinet and the ball returns in the playing field, the match continues like nothing happened.
5. If the ball flies of the table is it considered a dead ball the moment it touches something outside of the foosball table – floor, shelf, ceiling…..
6. If the ball is flying, you mustn’t touch it, it has to land on some surface so you can tell if it is a dead ball or not.
7. There are two options when you can call dead ball. The moment when the ball touches something outside the foosball table and when it stops moving completely in the field.
8. The dead ball is the only ball you can pick up and serve again. The same team who served before serves now.
9. The ball can sometimes spin in one place without moving. You mustn’t touch the ball because it is not considered a dead ball. The only way you can touch it is when it stops moving completely.
10. Every ball made by your players is considered a goal. It means that even if the ball entered and exited the goal, it is still a goal.
11. The only criteria for scoring the goal is that the shoot must be legal.
12. The last rule is tied to the foosball rules spinning. Completely spinning the rod over 360° is considered an illegal move and you mustn’t do it.
13. Every player can score the goal, including the goalies. If you score your own goal, it is considered as the goal was scored by the other team.
14. Don’t curse or go wild, keep the atmosphere positive.
15. Do not break the table, rods or the players and clean the entire area when you are done playing.
Thanks for this great post, I find it very interesting and very well thought out and put together. I look forward to reading your work in the future.
I really appreciated that you explained that, if the ball gets out of the table while you are playing, it will be considered a dead ball if it touches anything else. My friend told me that now that I remodeled my basement I should consider turning it into a sort of arcade for my kids. Something he said was that I should look online for a non-coin operated foosball table online, and I wanted to check out the rules first.