Button football or button soccer is an association football simulation game played on a tabletop, using concave buttons or special-made disks to represent players on the pitch (field), often with a larger rectangular block as the goalkeeper piece. Board dimensions, markings, and rules of play are modeled to simulate standard football. It is popular in Brazil, as well as various countries in Europe, including Hungary, Georgia and Slovenia. The term "button football" or "buttonball" is an imperfect translation, as there is no standard name for the game in English. In Portuguese, it is known as either ('table football', which would commonly be confused with table football also known as foosball), or as (button football). In Hungarian, it is called , , or . In Georgian, it is called ghilburti (). In Slovenia it is called knofkanje. History The origins of button football are likely derived from any number of games played with tabs, bottle caps, or coins. The invention of the game using 11 pieces per side with rules simulating football is unclear, though a 6-piece version is known to have originated in eastern Europe. In Brazil, the patron of button football is widely accepted as Geraldo Décourt. He began playing in 1922 as a schoolboy, using buttons removed from his clothing as pieces. Décourt published the first known rule and guide book in 1930. He named the game “Celotex”, after the material which covered the tables on which it was played. Décourt continued to promote the game and organize tournaments on and off for the rest of his life. In 1962 the Federação Paulista de Futebol de Mesa (Paulista Federation of Button Football) was formed. There are dozens of formalized button football clubs and leagues throughout Brazil, and recently in the US, in Houston, Texas, and the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Likewise in Hungary, button football can be traced back to the early 1900s, with schoolboys taking the buttons off their coats to play. Hungarian button football is played everywhere from organized leagues and tournaments, to home-made football tables and at playgrounds. Button football continued to grow in popularity, especially during the early 1950s. In that era, various materials were used for linesmen, some industrial, some hand-made. Industrial buttons could be ten-piece sets, uniform in size and color, or sold as individual pieces, varying in size according to function (larger ones for defenders, mid-sized ones for midfielders,