Foosball or Subsoccer
Table football or Subsoccer

As you probably already know, the table football game, which is called by several names, for example, foosball, table football or table soccer, is a very different game from the Subsoccer – benchs soccer game.

Story of Foosball

The original foosball or table soccer is an old invention invented at the end of the 19th century in Spain or the beginning of the 20th century in the USA.

Patents for similar table games date back as early as the 1890s in Spain, Europe. However, foosball’s origins go back to 1921, when Harold Searles Thornton from the United Kingdom patented the game as “Apparatus for playing a game of table football”.

Thornton invented a football game that people could play in their homes due to the Popularity of association football in Europe. The game adopted the name foosball in the United States via German imports that called it “tischfußball” (lit. “table football”). Its design inspiration came from a box of matches.

The history of Subsoccer
Story of Subsoccer

The Subsoccer – bench soccer game was invented by Finn Jarno Saarinen and his daughter Emma Saarinen in Spain in 2008. Subsoccer is also a table football game and way closer to real football than other foosball games because it is played with the feet, and you try to score a goal for another player, like in real football.

There are also different names for subsoccer, such as bolzbox, which is used in Germany. Still, the Subsoccer name identifies the genuine Subsoccer – bench football game , which is also a registered trademark, and the game’s structure is patented.

Other differences in the game are that Subsoccer needs less space than a traditional foosball table. Although the foosball table is smaller in terms of physical dimensions, it needs space in two directions. The subsoccer game, on the other hand, can be placed against the wall because the game is played from the chairs at either end, and when the game is not being played, some subsoccer game models work as tables.

In Finland, for example, 10 percent of the schools have Subsoccer games that work either as games during recess or as additional tables, depending on the need.

Subsoccer in schools

The flagship models of Subsoccer games are made in Finland at the Subsoccer studio in Helsinki. A large part of the games are personalized for customers, including the world’s biggest sports brands, Nike, Adidas, Puma, and many others; in addition, Subsoccer games have been ordered by many big football teams from the Premier League, Bundesliga, MLS league and so on.

Subsoccer PUMA setup
Subsoccer Ivan Raktic

Subsoccer games have been sold to private homes. The customers are famous football players such as Ivan Rakitic, Edin Džeko, Andy Caroll, etc. At the time of writing this blog, the games have been sold to 64 countries and more than 30 states in the US.

The original reason Subsoccer was developed was to find something else for children to do than have their noses stuck to the screen. So today, Subsoccer is played by everyone from children to adults and on all continents.

You can choose any version of foosball, table soccer, table football game, foosball, Teqball, futmesa, Subsoccer or even one of the dozens of versions of soccer that do not use a table to play the ball. We wish you good gaming moments.