Foosball Advice: The very basics for rookie goalies

[Grant]

I am still a rookie but I have gotten a lot of great advice from more experienced players. Below are what I believe are the three most essential ingredients of being a good rookie goalie.

1) Do not let slop in the goal.
This takes experience and practice and even the pros aren’t perfect at this. However, there are some things you can do to minimize slop. Fist of all you should pay attention to where the ball is at all times and position your men to minimize the chance of the ball going into your goal. No sleeping on the job. This is obvious when your opponent has the ball but it is also true when your forward has the ball. Be ready for the ball to come hurling at you at all times. Secondly, when the ball is approaching one of your back corner walls, you need to develop a habit of quickly positioning your goalie man so that the ball won’t slop into your goal behind your goalie man. Watch the good goalies when they play a match and when the ball is flopping around in one of their corners their goalie man instantly snaps into position to prevent the ball from sneaking in behind them.

2) Don’t let the ball enter your area and slip out.
If the foosball hits your back wall then it is your job to gain possession of it. If the foosball hits one of your men then try to absorb so it doesn't bounce back out. Being good at this will win you loads of foosball matches and make your forward happy. If you can’t gain possession of the ball then at least try and get a piece of it so the opposing three rod doesn’t get an easy grab. I good opposing forward will brutalize you if you don’t get good at this.

3) Find an extremely reliable way of clearing the ball from your area.
After you avoid letting slop in your goal and you gain possession of the ball you need to clear the ball from your area so your forward can do their job of winning the match for you. Giving the ball up to the opposing forward should feel like a slap in the face. Getting stuffed/roofed by the opposing forward should feel like a firm backhand.

If you can work to become very proficient at steps 1, 2, and 3 above then you should be on your way to winning lots of matches when you have a good foosball forward. Step 4 would be to improve your blocking skills. Step 5 would be to work on your shots from the back. However, I deemphasize those because they are not important when compared to stopping slop, gaining possession, and clearing the ball.

[Foozkillah]

To best not allow slop in the goal, you must be basically sound in how you approach handling the goalkeeper and the 2bar. You have THINK with your left hand (goalkeeper rod) first. You will learn this the hard way in singles, where the choice of which rod to grab first after the ball passes your 5bar towards your goal, is most important. Most people instinctively either move their feet to goalkeeper position and try to grab both rods. This is a basic rookie blunder. You should hold your feet steady, and REACH & grab the goalkeeper handle first. You get maximum reaction time to do a save by simply reaching over to the goalkeeper and stop the ball in your area. Any foot movement and trying to place your hands on both rods is suicidal. And a reach to the 2bar is almost as bad, leaving you split seconds to react to a bang-bang clear. If you dispute this, then you dispute physics. You may then teleport yourself out of our universe, since you obviously have anti-IQ too, to go with your anti-skill.

How does this relate to not letting slop in the goal? Thinking and moving first with your goalkeeper rod gives you maximum time to place the incoming ball and stopping it correctly. It sure helps to be set with both your men (goal & 2bar) to block all straight-in shots, but once the ball goes wild, especially with power shots from the opposing goalkeeper and the opposing 5bar, you must have total concentration on your goalkeeper position. Think of the 2bar as your shield, with your goalkeeper as your sword or lance, ready to react & jab anything going around your shield. Let me tell you about all the soldiers in history who defended incoming arrows and lances with their swords first, ready to smite afterwards with their shield: their army lost and got raped horribly by the conquering attackers. You see, they hadn't developed a good understanding of physics back then. I kid you not.

[Foozkillah]

Since reacting to a wildly bouncing or deflecting ball entering your goalkeeper area is such a reaction based skill, the best way to get the touch to consistently react & trap that pinball is to play Goalie War.

Goalie war is completely designed to reward and punish the defender depending on whether he or she traps the ball reliably. Any ball that enters your area and leaves is live and can be immediately quickset towards you again. If it dies outside your area after entering, the ball and initiative goes to the opposing goalkeeper. Bad either way.

Goalie war employs mostly power shots and banks, because of the absence of the forward's rods to set up any reliable zone defense. So all those rocketing wild shots keep coming at you, one after another, and this is the only reliable way to consistently practice trapping balls after they hit your men or the walls in your goal area. And remember that a rattling ball must be stopped by your THINKING goalkeeper FIRST, and you can then react with either or both rods to trap the ball. You have to defend first ALWAYS, and any quick adjustments should be made with the goalkeeper first, like switching to either side of the shield trooper or 2bar.

Just as in hockey or soccer, a properly placed defender between the goal and the attacker simplifies the job of the goalkeeper because he knows the ball must go around either side of wherever the fullback or near defenseman is. Trapping the ball on the rebound is secondary and can be learned as a "touch" skill by repetition. Thus Goalie Wars.

A bank or other powershot that rockets to the goal is bad, but a trickler that falls in, or a lost rebound to the opposing forward that gets stuffed back in is very very depressing. So poke around afterwards with that goalkeeper! Poking around with your two bar is only good after the ball bounces out quickly.

[Foozkillah]

To clear reliably, one has to find the lanes through the defense. Many good defenses use an agreed upon zone defense. Most of these good zone defenses use basic precepts:

1. The forward must position and shuffle his 3bar to prevent quicksets right at the goal. He must position his 5bar to force the open lanes to lead directly to where the goalkeeper is blocking. This way, if the clear is made, the goalkeeper will hopefully block and also trap the ball. Same as forcing the opponent's goalie to shoot where it is just a loss of possesion to the other team.

2. If the forward is more comfortable with a moving 5bar shuffle, the goalie must anticipate the moving lanes and jump in front of them as the shot or clear is executed.

3. Observation shows most opposing goalkeeper's shots on goal (85% or more)will go through your forward's two insided 5bar lanes: the 54-53 or the 53-52. The goalkeeper must protect the near lane and jump, NOT SLIDE, to the other lane the moment a quick shot doesn't go through the first nearest lane.

So how do you attack the lanes? First you must be willing to along the side lanes or even directly to your forward's 33 or 31 men if the inside lanes are blocked as they are in a good zone setup. You have to practice tick tacking the ball and laterally moving the ball back&forth in your goal area to force the opposing defense to continuously adjust. This opens up the lanes. One great way is to have a flashlight you can position on the table pointing towards the opponents' goal area. You can then see by adjusting the opposing forward's and goalkeeper's men which lanes are open if you shoot a spray to the goal or to one of the 3bar men for a pass. For example, if you set up for a goalkeeper pull near the away wall or at the big white goalkeeper box, use the flashlight to find the open spray lanes and open square or perpendicular lanes. You have to memorize which arrangements result in what types of open lanes, whether they be angled spray lanes, square lanes to the goal, & square lanes to either the 33 or 31.

This is where the flashlight comes in handy, so you can memorize and remember which lanes are open, just by looking at the tops of the men and practicing how to shoot or clear smoothly through whichever lanes they have opened up. Tick tacking usually opens up the defense and can give you a shot through the defense's 54-53 or 53-52 lanes. Smooth tick-tacking and pushing of the balls at either end WITHOUT A BACKSWING will naturally result in a simple spray out to the 33 or 31 lane or wall.

So figure out where the lanes are and practice shooting & passing with whatever shot or clear is required by the open lanes. Keep the option of passing open and shoot quickly through the middle lanes. There are only certain basic positionings the opponents' team can use, so it isn't that hard to spot the lanes. Learning to shoot or clear quickly wihout any high backswings to give the shot or pass away is highly needed.

[Grant]

I like the Foozkillah flashlight idea. It really helps to have a table at my place now so I can practice this type of stuff without having to wonder what the people at a bar are thinking (i.e. doesn't that guy have a life?). Regardless, I'm sure some of the promasters did this kind of stuff at some point in their careers. Anyway, I was thinking about cutting a long rectangular piece of wood about a ball width and a half wide and letting that help me find and memorize lanes. I'll try the flashlight too.

I am also going to try working on passing with a very low backswing. Thanks Foozkillah.

[Foozkillah]

Grant,

IF you notice something about Cheryl's passing, which for all its deliberateness is remarkably effective against rookies and even semipros, you'll notice the same principle.. low, hard-to-notice backswing and continuous followthrough to make the ball accelerate instead of go through at a steady pace. Just like a basketball player about to drive, one slows down and get the opponent to match your speed slowly at first and then just accelerate past him.

Get the short stubby 2AA flashlights from a Dollar Tree or Walmart... they are perfect for mounting on that very same pieces of wood.