Playing table football to win: how to practice shooting

Kick-off for the World Cup is drawing ever closer, and the according interest in our table football games is showing no signs of slowing down either! Our RS2 Outdoor Table Football appears to be a particular favourite – understandable, given the glorious weather! You may have already seen our recent post on how to practice your control on table football games, so if you’re ready to step up your game, we’ve got a couple of handy tips on how to drive home those goals, too!

1. The Five Bar Hack

We talked in our last post about the importance of passing. It’s just as important as the full-scale game! You’ve got to utilise the full playing space of the board, rather than limit yourself to a couple of unpredictable shots. Now obviously, when you’re defending against an opponent, your 5-bar players are quite literally your first line of defence, so when they get possession, make sure to make the most of it!

The 5-bar hack is a very specific shooting technique. It involves passing rapidly from side to side, then suddenly firing forward with a quick snap of the wrist. Remember, you don’t necessarily want to go straight down the middle, as that’s the easiest to anticipate and therefore defend against. Instead, you might want to try shooting using your players on either the far left or the far right. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but generally they’re a lot trickier to predict!

2. Practice Long Pull Shots with your Two-Man

We appreciate that it sounds a little rude, but what we’re talking about here is simply making shots with your rearmost defenders, closest to the goalkeeper. Making a shot from here is particularly hard to defend against, because there’s so much space to monitor between them and the goal. In order to do that, you’ll need to raise all your players in between, so that you don’t block your own shot. Obviously that’s going to give your opponent a few seconds of warning, so you’ll need to practice doing that as quickly and methodically as possible in your own time – almost as an automatic reaction when you decide to make a 2-man shot. And of course…

3. Don’t forget your 3-bar

Now, this is where most of your goals will come from. And that means it’s where you can often expect most of your opponents to shoot from, too! You’ll want to practice your quick back-and-forth passes between your 3-bar players, much the same as we’ve advised for your 5-bar above. This will open you up for flick shots, push shots, and pull shots. If you’re not sure what those are, don’t worry – we’ll go into more specific techniques in later posts!

Remember, at all times your core goal should be to stay unpredictable. As well as the basic techniques we’ve outlined above, try to expand your knowledge of specific shots. Keep your repertoire as varied as possible and try to avoid developing a distinct playstyle, if you can. That way, it’s harder for other players to ‘read’ you – and therefore, to defend against you!

And of course, if you’re looking for a table on which to practice for your games room at home or in the office, we’ve got no shortage of options right here at the Games Room Company! If you’re looking for a robust practice table, you might want to look at our ex competition Tornado table – and if you’re looking to make a design statement, you can count on our supremely beautiful Teckell table football to always be turning heads! Feel free to give us a call on 01932 282 123, or take a trip down to our Weybridge showroom to see what we’ve got on display!