Top dogs

Easter weekend in Hamburg and, at a large kulturhaus called Kampnagel, one of the more inclusive football tournaments is starting.

- Si Hawkins

Inside, attention is swiftly drawn to the foyer’s fabulous centrepiece: an 11-a-side football table, with 22 handles, all of which are grabbed seconds after its unveiling. “That combination shows what the game stands for,” says Hannes Thiekler, who helped run the 2017 Table Soccer World Cup. “One side was nearly completely occupied by the Chinese juniors team. On the other side, the half with the keeper was taken by the Iranian women’s team. And on the strikers’ half, there were some British men playing.

That was so awesome.” Many people may be unaware that there actually is a Table Soccer World Cup, as that quasi-sport – widely known as foosball – is not taken hugely seriously here, but it is a significant event. It involves 150 volunteers, 41 nations and 800 players and Thiekler, a fulltime enthusiast, sounds particularly thrilled to have welcomed “all of the top USA players, who are kind of legends in foosball”.