The product was packaged well and had sturdy corners protecting the long pieces. There are several boxes containing separate parts inside the main box. There are not too many pieces to keep track of and you feel like you can do this when it comes to building it since there isn't a lot of little wooden pieces. Basically 4 sides. The poles are packed in 2's. 2 sets or 3 holes, 1 set of 5 holes, 1 set of 2 holes. This would make it easier except that for the goalie you are left wondering where the poles with 1 hole are. There is no explanation to this. You will have to guess and use the 3 hole pole and figure out the picture means there are "dummies" that go in the extra holes. These are unlabeled pieces that resemble other possibilities that could be the unlabeled piece that goes there. (Also, getting that screw through the dummy and into the bar, ugh! You can't hold it in place over the bar's hole and then you can't see the hole you are attempting to screw into, it's a process of screwing/unscrewing, manipulating the little plastic piece, holding it in place, barely moving it and missing the hole in the bar again.) That being said, the instructions are as basic as they can possibly be without being user friendly. They are bad. You are going to wing it here, a lot. My suggestion, lay it all out in order and pull out the pieces unlabeled and compare them to pictures (which are so basic, you won't be able to tell which one they mean) and use your brain to put it together first. I am not a builder and still figured it out. Just not without hiccups to fix and some real thinking and holding of breath. You put the guys together first. I had read other reviews and knew to make sure the guys faced the right way. We really focused on that. And then figured out, that's not what people meant. Putting the guys on facing the same way on the pole is a piece of cake, putting them the right way in the game is tricky. That being said, not all of the screws go in all the way, no matter how many times I tried. There are probably 5 with screws not in quite all the way. It doesn't affect play at all. I am not a builder and haven't played foosball since I was a kid. Remembering how the guys go was not easy. I put everybody in on one side and we quickly figured that was wrong. After trudging along and getting it done only to find you put the guys in wrong was defeating, but actually not too hard to fix. You do have to remove a guy (which is just one screw) and the handles. Then when we started to play, we were spinning the opposite direction than what you are use to and seemed to be playing backwards. I figured out that we had put the rubber handles on the wrong ends, so we had to switch all of those handles and rubber stoppers. Not hard to do, but it takes muscle to push the ends on and take them off and put them on. Then once we had all the guys going the right direction and play was running smoothly, you realize that there are spots you can't reach or block the ball. So we had to pull the rubber handles back off the pole a bit in order to give full movement to the guys. Another thing to mention, build it where you want it. Now that it is together, it will live in the kitchen because it is too wide to go down the hallway or through a door. When we finally get to bring it downstairs, we will have to...you guessed it...take off the guys again. You have to remove a guy or two to take the poles out. Also, we couldn't get the last screw into the last side of putting the end on the table. The "field" didn't want to fit in just right and we had to back track and redo the ends of the table to get all the holes to line up and finally fit together. This was the only real hang up in the building progression. Several people helped with the trouble shooting on that one. Another thing, someone hand wrote the labels on the screw bags and pieces. The handwriting was not easy to read. H1 and H5 and H7 looked like the same number. I ended up comparing to the directions and attempting to decipher and then laying them in order on the table so I wouldn't have to keep guessing which bag I needed. And then the person who labeled the H1-7 pieces must have gotten tired because he or she didn't label the C pieces. More guessing, comparing, finger crossing. The pictures in the directions do not help with the deciphering. You would think it would be easy, but ha! Not so much. And as I read before, there are no predrilled holes for the score piece to be attached, so they aren't. The supports under the field are tricky. One is veneered, one is not. So you want to put it in correctly, but there is nothing to tell you which is the right way. It doesn't matter. I am thinking they built these out of scrap. You can't see them. The little pieces that go into the holes have no directions for inserting. You cannot see if they are the right way while you are attempting to screw them in, so you will do this a few times. You can't turn them since the groove isn't deep enough. You have to figure out to insert them correctly and screw them in without twisting the plastic piece in the process. Tricky, but doable. Better directions and graphics would go a long way here. The table looks good. It is MDF so not as sturdy as solid wood but seems strong and we will put this table to the test with the amount of kids and ages of kids we have to play with it. The table is nice and level from the get go. The ball settles dead center when you let it roll in there. The corners rock it back into play. The ball comes right down into the opening to retrieve it after you score, I proved this over and over by scoring on the kids a lot! It seems a bit small, but again, I was a kid when I played in the past. The kids love it and we've played almost nonstop since we put it together. It is a good table and a great price. You will need a phillips screwdriver plus the tool they provide and a drill for the score keeper (ironically there are predrilled holes for the cupholder, but that will be the first thing the kids break so we are not putting them on). The kids helped me build a bit (5 & 6 year old). At one point, 3 adults were working on the corner. An 10 year old helped with the legs. You could do it yourself, but help is nice especially with the field insertion. It isn't so heavy that you can't pick it up yourself and flip it up for building, again help is nice. If it lasts through all of our wear and tear, I will give it another star. This table is going to get a workout. If they want a better review, get better directions. These are really bad. It is worth the $83. Give yourself a good hour to get it built. I would give it 3 stars for the directions, but I did win the first several games, making me the champion, so an extra star for that!