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  • Scott Radley, The Hamilton Spectator
  • Thu Dec 22 2011
  • 4

There really is a World Cup in foosball …

… and Hamilton's Nhu Tran is heading to France to take part in the fun and games

Kaz Novak/The Hamilton...
Heading to France
Thirty-four-year-old website designer Nhu Tran is so good at foosball he’s heading to France early in the new year to represent Canada in the World Cup.

Standing across the foosball table from him, you know he’ll beat you. He’s one of the best players in Canada, after all. Even so, you figure maybe you can score a couple times to keep things respectable.

Except, once he gets his hands on the handles, it takes about three seconds to lower your expectations to the point where you’re simply hoping to get a single shot away. Then, once you’ve realized even that’s too lofty a goal, you begin hoping you might merely graze the ball with one of your men to salvage even a shred of your pride and dignity.

Playing table soccer with Nhu Tran is not advised for those seeking to boost their self-esteem. Think of it instead like painting at an easel next to one of the Group of Seven or competing in a weird-fashion contest with Lady Gaga. The 34-year-old website designer is so good at the game he’s heading to France early in the new year to represent Canada in the World Cup.

Yes, there is a World Cup.

In Europe, the sport is a big deal. Tournaments are televised. The biggest stars make serious money. It makes sense that people who love soccer would gravitate to the game in all its various forms.

“In Europe, you can get a lot of girls doing this,” he laughs.

By his own admission, it’s a little less sexy in North America. He certainly didn’t start playing for any fringe benefits. Years ago, when he tried it for the first time as a student at Sir John A. Macdonald, it was simply an inexpensive way to spend an evening at the local pool hall.

Then he started getting good. So good that when he heard there was a foosball tour, he signed up. His first tournament was a disaster, getting knocked out without winning a game. But, a year later, he returned and won the thing.

That’s because he had begun a training regimen that sounds nothing like what you would expect for a game most people associate with a bar and a pitcher of beer or two. He does cardio. He lifts weights. He practises nearly every day in his basement, usually by himself just refining his technique.

Then, every Friday, he drives to Toronto to meet up with some other top players and goes at it for five, six, seven hours at a time, occasionally until four in the morning.

“To me, this is not a sport like hockey where you have to be athletic,” he says. “It’s sleight of hand and mind games. It’s strategy.”

His description makes it sound more like chess.

“It is like chess,” he says. “It’s positioning yourself, remembering what the person did, predicting what they’ll do next and baiting them into doing what you want. You can’t just react.”

The concept fits. Because, truthfully, he looks a little more like a chess player than an elite athlete. Yet his game isn’t just mental. The things he can do with the jawbreaker-sized ball are remarkable. When he shoots using a variety of techniques that involve both his hands and wrists on the handles, the ball moves at roughly the speed of Clark Griswold on his sled in Christmas Vacation. You simply can’t see the thing, giving you absolutely no chance to react.

More impressive even, he passes to himself nearly as hard yet somehow manages to keep it under control. And the tricks and spins he can generate are baffling.

He hopes it will all help in France. From Jan. 5 to 8, he’ll be playing both singles and doubles in Canadian colours. It will be fun but it will also be a brutal, gruelling schedule.

Admittedly, gruelling and brutal aren’t words you’d probably expect to be thrown into a story about foosball. At least until you consider competitors can play as many as 50 matches in a week with many taking 90 minutes to finish. Repetitive strain injuries in wrists are common. Standing all that time kills backs. Players’ eyes and heads hurt from trying to follow a tiny ball around the table for that long.

That’s not all. While being slaughtered, a victim realizes there are other ways to get hurt doing this.

A while ago, a wayward shot Tran fired got airborne, hit an opponent in the face and shattered his glasses. That’s bad. Worse? Those unforgiving metal rods are at a perfect height to neuter an average man and regularly come blasting toward one’s delicates at frightening velocity.

“There are people who have serious injuries in this game,” he says.

All for nothing more than glory. He’s paying his own way over to France and stands to win no money. Which is the same as always.

But maybe he can return with something, nonetheless. Right now he’s ranked 185th in the world. Meaning, incredibly, someone thinks there are 184 players out there who are better than him.

Standing across the table from him watching him perform magic, that’s almost impossible to believe.

A good result at the World Cup would prove as much.

sradley@thespec.com

905-526-2440

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