Topic: A nice read from Dave Hopsinger about his World Cup Experience

[BradLaurine]

Written by, Dave Hopfinger, US Senior team member for World Cup 2012
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                                               kahn pahr leh pro-shahn ah-vee-yohn
                                                          ITSF World Cup 2013!

The World Cup 2012 was a spectacular Foosball experience.

Yes, the ITSF World Cup is a great event! It all takes me back to the glory years of Tournament Soccer. This has to go down as one of the best Foosball experiences of my entire Foosball life.

There is no prize money, Zero. However, never have I seen a happier group of Players. The intensity was phenomenal; everyone is firm in representing his or her Country! After the battle of intense match play is over, it is not as you see in politics and here on TV. All Country Foosers give the impression they like each other, Foosball is more important than stupid politics. Everyone was trading their Jerseys for other countries branded Jerseys. There is a lot of chanting, media and large load crowds. Most teams have the same solid line up year to year.

The French people were nice to us. The whole city (pop. 252029), seemed to know we were there. Electronic billboards throughout the city flashed the Foosball World Cup Emblem. I got lost trying to find the players party, found myself talking to French locals at a bar who understood what I was trying to say and started showing me Foosball fliers and giving me directions in French.

We had our USA Jackets on at Buffalo Bills and when we left the French where repeatedly screaming in the parking lot as we left, WE LOVE YOU! They weren’t even Foosball players.

Farid Lounas ITSF President invited us, the USA senior team into the Euro Sport Production Van to watch the live feed. There were 12 live feeds and they were switching back and forth to Jim Stevens Live. It is interesting how it comes together. Over one million people watched life in over 41 countries.

I am sure you all want to hear about the playing Foos part. The USA Senior Team ended up 5th. We tied with Italy, lost to France and Germany.

We had beaten the French the day before; we must have pissed them off. They were all fired up and they hit us with some awesome alien looking front toe ½ spin-pokes. Pass and Hack, Five-Man precision hacks. Even AKD would have been in quite impressed with the French style of play.

Playing on 5 tables that we have not yet refined our games on, gave them a slight advantage. The Germans love the Lionheart Table. We played the famous German players Hans-Friedrich Kircher and Ulrich Stoeple. Yes, they are Foosball animals starving for competition. They are Foosball Legends in their home Country. Hans invited the Jet Shot.

Once we lost on Fireball and won on Bonzini, a table I haven’t played on, Italians love Bonzini, to me it seemed like a toy. On Garlando when I tried a bank-shot, it immediately flew off the table. So there was no reason to try it anymore unless you were aiming for someone in the stands.

Roberto Sport was interesting but I don’t know what to say about it. I zoned in on an assortment of exploding banks, it freak a lot of them out. Most the time they had never seen a bank series so defense was a little unaware. In return, euros are doing options off the front toe we haven’t thought of yet.

Fireball is our home table now, so we might as well have a very big welcome party. Tornado was our homme. They may have a International Tour! Warrior is coming out with a new and improved Table.


A Special Thank You!
Brendan Flaherty for Sponsorship, Event Shirts personalized, and dinner at an authentic French Restaurant. Then Saturday Night drinks for everyone at a French bar (40 straight shot at a time) too much to be able to put into words, Wow, again! It was a great time for all!
Thanks also goes to Umbro for the uniforms.
Thanks, USTSF, ITSF, Fireball, Nike and Euro Sport 2 Television.

Jim Stevens of Inside Foos Productions.

French Airlines for Special rates for ITSF World Cup Players.

Thanks, Pat Ryan and the entire US Team,

Thanks, Mike Holbert, Kathy Brainard, Jeep, Tim Normandin, Charlie Mackintosh, Spirit Mollice, Dillon Flaherty, Shelly Langley, Mike Donaldson, Brad Laurine, George Bonar (AKD), and Pat Mandin.

In addition, Thanks to special foos friends Rich Fosner, Duane Roberts, Craig Switzer, Ken Oda and James Hirai for keeping me playing and talking about Foos. Thanks to all NW players!
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Nice story Dave!

Brad Laurine

[alaskan thunder]

Interesting read for sure

[FOOZUL]

Great experience, loved reading it, but let's get one thing straight please, Bonzini's not a TOY...I'm sure many here would agree.

[alaris]

Interesting... That's what my son says about the Tornado table. lolol

[SilentSam]

Great experience, loved reading it, but let's get one thing straight please, Bonzini's not a TOY...I'm sure many here would agree.

While I do agree, Bonzini has 2 characteristics that all the other tournament tables do not that could be taken as toy-like:
- The telescopic rods when pulled to their full extend have an EXTREME amount of flex/give
- The playfield itself has quite a bit of give, and out of all the tables I've played on, is the most prone to the bowling effect

Everything else about the table is extremely solid, and of obvious quality.

[alaris]

My son said that when I first got my Tornado table. He is used to metal men and he thought that plastic was for kids. Kids, they so funny.

[Anderson]

Great experience, loved reading it, but let's get one thing straight please, Bonzini's not a TOY...I'm sure many here would agree.

While I do agree, Bonzini has 2 characteristics that all the other tournament tables do not that could be taken as toy-like:
- The telescopic rods when pulled to their full extend have an EXTREME amount of flex/give
- The playfield itself has quite a bit of give, and out of all the tables I've played on, is the most prone to the bowling effect

Everything else about the table is extremely solid, and of obvious quality.

Anybody who knows anything about Bonzini would understand that the qualities which most Tornado players hate about Bonzini, the two that you mentioned, is precisely what gives the table its unique characteristics and what makes it quite loved by us Bonzini-toy players. The give between the rod-man-ball-table allows for some quite interesting possibilities. The table might not have as much grip without the give in both rod and surface, and that give can be played to create unique timings for cut shots and the like. It's exactly this give which makes playing on other tables so unforgiving. It's quite difficult for me to play my Bonzini game on any other table. I have less options on other tables and therefore less fun. I'm not against working on shots that I can shoot on all tables, but I still truly enjoy playing on Bonzini most.

[Tyler Foos]

Good read from Dave, thanks for posting Brad.

I have to chuckle whenever I hear a Tornado vs. Bonzini discussion. When in high school and college, I played competitive tennis. I was actually pretty good, and was ranked for a couple of years in college. We played on hardcourts, they were the standard that existed and they were mandatory for all competitive matches. After I graduated, half of the courts available for me to play on were clay courts. Man, what a difference. On hard courts there was no sliding into shots or you'd twist your ankle. You had to be good at abrupt changes in direction expecting no 'give' in the surface. Your serve had consistent bounces and there was no slowing of your groundstrokes unless you used some backspin. Getting used to clay courts involved a different approach. In some situations, you had to anticipate and get good at sliding your feet because the inability to make aprupt stops/change of directions would force you to. Your serve had a fair margin of error as weird bounces were relatively common. When you hit a groundstroke with a lot of backspin, it would not bounce as high as a similar shot on hard courts, and if stroked correctly it would almost die where it landed. Both experiences were tennis, but just like foosball, the playing surface dictates to some degree what works well and is more natural, and what doesn't/isn't.

So when you compare Tornado to Bonzini, there is a great deal of what you're used to as being your standard expectation, compared with noticing all the differences when you play on the other table. On Tornado, I set up my pull shot about 5-10 degrees behind the rod because you get extra power from that pinching effect. Do that on Bonzini and you stub your shot, you need to set up even with or slightly in front of the rod. On Tornado when using a front pin, that ball needs to be pretty close if not right on the center point of the foot or it will squirt away from you. On Bonzini, the ball can be 80% off the center of the foot yet it can still be finessed to where you want it to go. Grippy vs slick. Heavy ball vs light ball. Metal men vs plastic men. Counter balance vs non counter balance. Very different experiences but both high quality FOOSBALL!!

Tyler