Experience: I’m a world champion foosball player

I was 12 years old when I first played foosball – table football – in the summer of 1975 in Beirut. My home city was under siege, split by civil war. School was cancelled and roads were closed. We couldn’t get to the beach and the only place to go was the amusement arcade. Luckily for me, it was across the road.

Alongside billiard tables and games machines were a couple of foosball tables. I watched older kids play for hours, mesmerised by a game where you could outsmart an opponent two feet away, then celebrate in their face. You needed 20 pence, or qurush in Lebanese money, to play: 10 pence for the table and 10 pence for the winner. Money was scarce, so I made a deal with the guy who owned the place – if I cleaned the tables, I could play for free. With machine guns rattling on the nearby green line, which divided the east and west of the city, I’d stuff a towel inside the goal and practise until I was confident enough to play. I got really good. By the following summer, I was winning 10 games in a row.

When I became a teenager, foosball made way for girlfriends, wine, cigarettes and a job in a casino. Then I met a British woman and we got married. In 1986, with the war ongoing, we left Lebanon to set up home in Manchester. We had a son, a daughter and a foosball table in the kitchen. It remained a hobby until 2004 when I was managing the city’s Hard Rock Casino and bought a table for customers, with a sign: “Beat the manager”. Our weekly challenge had 30 competitors, but I always won.

One day, a gentleman called Khalid Sharif walked in. He said: “I’m the UK foosball No 1 – I’ve heard about you.” We played and I won 10-0. The next week, he brought members of Britfoos, the British Foosball Association; I won again and they asked me to join their team. The scene was well organised, with hundreds of players, tournaments abroad, cash prizes and a World Cup. At this level, it was always teams of two – a striker and a goalie, rather than the one-on-ones I had been playing. Khalid and I travelled the UK as a team in official games, with me as striker and him as goalie.

In 2012, I’d left casinos to open a Lebanese restaurant, Zaytoon, in Manchester, when Team GB invited me to the World Cup in Hamburg as substitute. More than 35 countries competed in a huge hall set up with 200 tables and big screens. There were junior teams, ladies, mens and seniors, with everyone in national kit, singing their national anthems. It was incredible. In 2018 I got to play at the ITSF world series in St Pölten, Austria. We played Germany in the final; it went to penalties, we thrashed them and won gold. A year later, our team went to the World Cup in Murcia, Spain. We headed into the knockout stages against Portugal, then USA – 20-time world champions and favourites, alongside Germany – in the quarter-final. It was a hot day and we were the underdogs. The whole arena cheered for us. The format was 10 games, four points each. We won all 40 points. It felt electric. We met the Netherlands in the semi-final, tying 39-39 until I shoved the last point into the net, then on to the final: Germany, again. They beat us 40-24, but silver and second in the world felt good enough.

Foosball has taken me all over the world, to places such as Vegas, Rome and Germany. On Friday nights, we have a team practice in Manchester. The game has given me an international family, friends, and enemies – one of the German players is my nemesis; he’s won hundreds of games, but still shakes with nerves when we compete. Then, afterwards, we’ll get a drink together. It’s an atmosphere of mutual respect.

Khalid is still my best mate; I’d never have known about the professional game without him. And my son, George, travels the world playing with me now. He’s a talented goalie. He’s a personal trainer who works with me three times a week and also helps rehabilitate my shoulder from foosball injuries. At 62, I have to keep my stamina up.

I still run my restaurant, and I have my foosball medals on display. Now, I’m preparing for the next World Cup in 2028. I play hypothetical games in my mind while I cook, memorise patterns of play, and rewatch footage of opponents if I can’t sleep. In foosball, gameplan is vital – and in the next World Cup, I want gold.

As told to Deborah Linton

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