As students played basketball in the middle court in the intramural gym of the University Recreation Center, other university students started playing a new sport in a red and blue inflatable arena.

University students faced off in an intramural human foosball tournament Friday. The tournament marked the first time human foosball made an appearance on campus.

Andrew Moore, a freshman biology and Spanish double major and member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon team, said he only had a slight idea of what human foosball would be like when he signed up to play in the tournament.

“I was expecting to be somehow tied in to something,” he said. “We’d have a ball and some teams and a goalie, kind of like soccer, but with, like, boundaries and some ropes maybe.”

The teams, including the goalkeeper, were secured into Velcro harnesses that were attached to ropes across the arena. Although there was not anyone pulling on the ends of the strings like in table foosball, team members could not move away from the rope they were attached to. The rules were very much like soccer, including no handballs.

Players found that the sport was more physical than they might have first thought.

“It’s way more intense than I expected; my legs are pretty bruised up right now,” Moore said after playing in his team’s first game.

For others, human foosball might have proved to be too intense.

Adam Holden, a junior pre-law major and member of the Pi Kappa Phi team, said he didn’t think he would play again because of the physical aspect of the game.

“It was awful,” he said. “I got kicked a lot, and it was terrible.”

Moore and Holden’s teams, along with the other three teams, played twice because the tournament was double-elimination.

Dalton Goodier, intramural supervisor and member of the Pi Kappa Phi team, said he hoped the sport would catch on in Campus Recreation.

“As we publicize it more, and as we are able to do this more and more times, you’re going to have people that did this when they were freshmen and look forward to doing it next year, so that it kind of catches on on campus,” he said.