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Archive 45Archive 48Archive 49Archive 50Archive 51Archive 52Archive 55

Amateur Cup Final articles?

New user FootballStatto has created FA Amateur Cup 1973–74, which is good. But they have also created 1974 FA Amateur Cup Final. I'm not so sure that it warrants a stand-alone article. Thoughts? —Half Price 11:52, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

My own view is that if it is OK to have articles on the competition then it is OK to have one on the Final tie and this was the last ever FA Amateur Cup Final.--Egghead06 (talk) 12:26, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes, was just about to mention that it was the last, might give it exclusivity. —Half Price 12:29, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
The Amateur Cup Final was regarded as a notable event and received significant coverage and I would say articles covering individual finals would be justified. Eldumpo (talk) 21:44, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Help!!

Hi there. Can anyone have a look at the page of Nuno Santos (footballer born 1980)? I have improved the article overall, adding several youth clubs in his box (as seen in LINK#3). However, the last two do not display, i have looked and looked and looked for an error, to no avail.

Thanks in advance, keep up the good work - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 22:31, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

The issue is not in the article but in the template code. I encountered the same problem with national teams about a year ago, if memory serves. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about template coding to fix the problem myself, so could someone who does do so? Sir Sputnik (talk) 23:15, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
The template only caters for 5 youth club entries though the documentation indicates up to 20 can be used. Keith D (talk) 00:54, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I've done a dirty fix to show all clubs. Not entirely convinced his 12-year-old playing days are that worthy of a mention, all seems a little vanityfanpage to me.--ClubOranjeT 05:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Jomo Cosmos history

My understanding is that Jomo Cosmos is simply the same club as Highlands Park FC, but with a new name...am I right? If so, is there any need for two seperate articles? GiantSnowman 15:51, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Based on the Highlands Park tribute website ("In 1982, Highlands Park Football Club was sold to Jomo Sono for a sum of R80,000. Two years later, the clubs name was changed to Jomo Midas Cosmos"), it does indeed appeared to be the same club with a different name, so I would support merging the articles. Number 57 16:07, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
I wouldn't. I'd keep them separate, franchise licenses are sold regularly in South Africa but they are different clubs. For example Manning Rangers are the first club to win the PSL title, not Ikapa Sporting. Usually only the rights to participate in the league are sold, not the club themselves.
To emphasise the point Highlands Park were recreated in 1991 despite Jomo Cosmos still being in existence (in fact I seem to remember Jomo Cosmos being relegated and buying the franchise rights from another club to continue playing in the top tier).
Also, Highlands Park plays in the South African third division Vodacom League. TheBigJagielka (talk) 13:38, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
But surely that just means that the Highlands Park of the 1960s/70s was boughy by Sono and renamed Jomo Cosmos; and that the 1991 refounded team is completely seperate? In a similar situation to Wimledon/MK Dons/AFC Wimbledon...? GiantSnowman 16:32, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
It's a different system, unique to South Africa. In South Africa you have to buy the club business AND the club's license to play in the NSL or SAFA organised leagues to carry on as normal. Some businessmen preferred to buy a top division club's league license only and grant it to an amateur team in a more populous area leaving the existing professional club to fend for itself with it's financial problems and no league to play in (sometimes teams swapped licenses for cash). This practise was later ruled out by FIFA. It's what we'd called asset stripping. Both the 1991 and 2003 Highlands Park clubs both claim to have the history of 1960 Highlands Park club. South African Football Association never comment on which clubs hold the historical rights to which honours but I'd agree with you that they should be (at least) three different clubs in the eyes of SAFA. TheBigJagielka (talk) 17:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
The discussion above made me curious to take a further look at the history of Highlands Park FC. After I browsed through the last 30 years of RSSSF results for South Africa, I indeed found several examples of what TheBigJagielka explained above as "asset strip". After also reading through all the material in the source posted by Number 57 -The Highlands Park tribute site-, I found more details about both the sell-out in 1983 and the subsequent phoenix clubs. I made an edit of those details into the wikipedia article here today. To say it short, Jomo Sono bought both the NSL license and professional side of the club in 1983 -renaming it to Dion Cosmos in 1983 and then Jomo Cosmos in 1984-, while he left the remainings of Highlands Park FC (the senior amateur club "Belfour Park" and the "Belfour Park Juniors"), to play as an independent organisation -entirely seperate from his own new club. The two subsequent phoenix clubs (1990-1992 and 2003-current), were born as a new professional unit on top of the good old amateur club "Belfour Park". On the bottom line, I would therefore consider the two new phoenix clubs to be more entitled to claim the past history of 60s/70s Highlands Park, rather than Jomo Cosmos. And so far I find it appropriate that we only have one wikipedia article to deal both the original club and the two phoenix clubs, as all three of them happened to be born from the same amatuer "mother club".
I can not recall to have experienced the same kind of club split in Denmark -where only the professional part of the club is purchased and the amatuer department left alone in the dark. Yet we have several times had a club going bankrupt, and in those cases the national federation only "delete" the entire professional structure of the club, but of course let the amateur department surrive, who then typicly next season will spin off a new professional phoenix club, to start competing in our amateur league -known as the Denmark Series. Whenever this happen, we in Denmark consider the reborn phoenix club, as basicly being entitled to claim the past club history of the club that went into bankruptcy. Despite not dealing with the exact same situation for Highlands Park FC, I think we have a quiet similair case. And thats why I think its OK, that the wikipedia article also hand over the list with historic results of "Highlands Park FC" from 60s/70s, to be affiliated with the new phonix club named "Highlands Park FC". Danish Expert (talk) 19:09, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I redirected this article to 2007 South American Under-17 Football Championship but it was reverted, I don't think it meets the requirements for a standalone article at present it is just a collection of links. Am I correct in my belief that it is not notable? Mo ainm~Talk 13:16, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Don't redirect it. It's notable. Digirami (talk) 22:37, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply on what grounds is it notable? Mo ainm~Talk 09:19, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure, exactly. But it is standard to include a complete squad list for these tournaments in a separate article to not make the main article excessively large in size. Digirami (talk) 09:01, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Copy edit?

Sigi Schmid could use look from someone who is not familiar with the subject. It is at FAN but the prose need to be a little better to get it over the threshold.Cptnono (talk) 04:42, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Follow-up: Don't make me beg! OK fine, I will beg: please please please? :) Cptnono (talk) 23:30, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

New layout and maintainance procedure - for the WikiProject Football member list

Five days ago, I made an effort to improve the layout and maintainance procedure for our WikiProject Football member list. The layout improvements for the member list table include:

  1. Sortable coloumns.
  2. Hided all surplus nomenclature attached to club names when not being needed -like ie. FC/City/Town/United.
  3. Deleted all data in the previous "Status" coloumn, and added a new wiki-link to check "latest activity".
  4. New title for the last coloumn -to also show each members additional membership of a taskforce within the WikiProject Football field.

Beside of implementing these changes to the table, I also found the need to write a new short Introduction chaper, where all members are now:

  1. Encouraged to also consider membership of a taskforce.
  2. Encouraged to promote their membership of WikiProject Football with the Userbox template.
  3. Kindly asked to help keeping the "Active member list" updated (and remove themself if they become inactive).

In regards of my further work to improve the member list, I finaly also suggested at the talk page, that we soon:

  1. Transform the last coloumn to solely showing the members addional membership of a taskforce/sub-project.
    (And delete the data showing support for secondary clubs -or move it to the club support coloumn)
  2. Start running a regular "activity check" of all members in the member list, one time every second month.
    (And automaticly remove those who fail to post any edits during the last 12 months, to the "Inactive members list")

You can find my entire reasoning behind implementing all these changes, described in full detail at the talk page. If any of you have objection or a counter proposal, in regards of the last two improvement tasks, being mentioned above as "further work", I set up December 7 as deadline for you to chime in, with a comment on the talk page.

Danish Expert (talk) 10:17, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Think you've gone a bit too far on removing "surplus nomenclature" from editors' clubs supported: Dundee United and Dundee are two different major Scottish clubs; Bradford doesn't imply Bradford City; Sutton United is one of several clubs which could be known as Sutton...
In general, you're correct that the FC or equivalent wouldn't normally be displayed, but we don't remove City/Town/United or equivalent when presenting club names in tables or on first use in prose. The Commonname guideline (which deals specifically with article titles, but the same idea applies to general use of proper names) suggests we use the entity's common name, to "be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources". We're writing for the general reader, not for football experts, and the style we use, particularly in an infobox where the basic career info is summed up for quick and easy access, should be helpful to that reader. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, Dundee United F.C. certainly shouldn't be piped to simply "Dundee". Curiously, Manchester United F.C. has been left as "Manchester United".......... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:34, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, my purpose was in no way to suggest a new standard of how we should list club names in the Wikipedia articles. Of course we need to continue with "full names" except "FC" in them. I also admit it perhaps was a bad idea, that I went on to hide the surname of many clubs in the member list. My aim was only to show the "surname of the club" when I thought it was truely needed to avoid disambiguation -but ok I made a couple of mistakes in the process. To also let our member-list comply with the naming guideline, I will of course re-add all hidden surnames again. In regards of cleaning up the Active member list by removing all "inactive users", the automatic tool is currently not available -due to the needed Wikipedia server being out of order since Nov.10. So it might take some time, before I get to that. For sure I will not forget. Cheers, Danish Expert (talk) 19:48, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Due to the pretty big problem regarding inappropriate pipes, for the time being I've undone the changes to the table layout (and the piping), and made some other tweaks to clean the styling up. Still, the majority of your proposed chances look like good additions, and we should certainly work on getting them readded in future. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 16:00, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Here's a thought - the membership list has nearly 500 names, but many of those editors are inactive. Why don't we remove ALL the names, and request everyone to re-add themselves, so we have a comprehensive up-to-date list? GiantSnowman 16:08, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I'd like to flag this issue that got no answers so far. Thanks --JккКGB 17:14, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I have been bold and changed it back to Recife, as that is what the references indicate. GiantSnowman 18:19, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

National/official football teams

I redirected some national teams to official teams, but how is the rule here? I think teams who don't represent a nation/country should be official team or something like that. These are all the pages: Alderney official football team, Aragon official football team, Åland Islands official football team, Basque Country official football team, Bonaire official football team, Catalonia official football team, Corsica national football team, Galicia official football team, Guernsey official football team, Jersey official football team, Sint Eustatius official football team, Tobago official football team, and to autonomous: Crimean Tatars autonomous football team. Which of these are nations and what do we call a nation? All football team articles should be checked. --Pelmeen10 (talk) 18:23, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

By what authority are they considered to be official? Who do they represent? Kevin McE (talk) 19:49, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
I redirected according to the first sentence. Example: "The Sint Eustatius national football team is the official football team for Sint Eustatius, Netherlands Antilles." - So it's not national team, they don't represent a nation. --Pelmeen10 (talk) 21:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Also, on what basis are you determining that they don't represent a 'nation'? Teams that are not officially in FIFA? I would say a number of those still represent a nation in a wider sense so why can't they still be called national team and the fact that they're not in FIFA etc can be explained in the article? Eldumpo (talk) 20:39, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
For example article of Saaremaa official football team used to be Saaremaa national football team (they don't represent a nation). There's also Orkney official football team and many others. Maybe I made some mistakes but an extra sentence is definitely necessary on those articles. Sark national football team represents a nation? --Pelmeen10 (talk) 21:04, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Sooo...does England national football team represent a nation? ;-) Madcynic (talk) 22:33, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Yea, I thought about that country thing also. England is a country and is a member of FIFA, these are not. But London national football team would sound weird, right? Pelmeen10 (talk) 15:43, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
England is a national football team because it represents a nation, albeit one that is not a sovereign state. England is an official team because it represents a recognised national football association. I don't know whether the Saaremaaians (?) are considered a nation within Estonia: the Sercquiais and Orcadians are not nationalities, the Corsicans would consider themselves to be. But what association nominates the team management and administration of these teams, and what recognotion do such associations have? If none, then the team cannot claim any title to be representative, and if it has no recognition, does it have any claim to inclusion in an encyclopaedia. Kevin McE (talk) 18:55, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the problem here is that our present convention for national team names is simply a personal contrivance. England's national side is not, to the best of my knowledge, officially titled as the "England national football team": we simply picked that as a consistent format for all of the national sides. It may be worth restarting the debate over exactly how we should refer to these sides in general. In the end, it might be best going for the most basic option possible: England (football team).

As for the argument that we need only concern ourselves with "true" national sides, whether a side has played in a FIFA-approved tournament or not is not our sole inclusion criteria. Galicia played a friendly against the "official" Iran national side not that long ago IIRC, and I found out about it through coverage on the BBC.

Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:48, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd be happy to keep 'national' for all FIFA (and confederation) affiliated teams, with the understanding that 'national' here is a specific term in relation to football, associated with 'national associations' and not any political definition of nation. Whilst FIFA is not the sole-arbiter of sport, or of nationality, it is also a convenient standardisation on which we can hang our collective hat. This isn't the place to begin to distinguish between nation/state/nation-state/diaspora/ethnic nation/linguistic nation/civic nation etc.
There is, however, a need to go through all non-FIFA national/official team articles and check their naming - as well as, broadly, their format, claims and style. One suggestions would be to simply remove any of the national/official descriptions and run with ...football team, ...soccer team, ... association football team, depending on national variants of English. Of course I recognise the issue in noting this problem but not volunteering to clear it! Pretty Green (talk) 16:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
There are, by the way, currently 59 articles in the sub-categories of Category:National and official selection-teams not affiliated to FIFA --Pretty Green (talk) 17:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Regular season / Playoffs

I think it's really important to stress the difference between the matches played in the playoffs and in the regular season of some football championships.

For instance, in Spain, there is a playoff competition in every division (except La Liga), and players can play in the vicinity of 10 games in that stage. It seems unfair, however, that it appears in the statistics for only some players, as not all reach the playoffs. Some "similarities" with American sports come to mind...

User:Mega60 (he is Spanish) is quite adamant about this stuff, and does not allow ANYONE to insert stats in box that contain only regular season figures. Any additional thoughts folks? Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 04:20, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I've never seen the need to say that infoboxes should always include regular season league games only. Especially in countries where the playoffs are an integral part of the league season (e.g. Australia, Korea, USA, Mexico) it does seem a bit perverse to not include playoffs, given that full stats information will be available for all players. I'm not sure whether Spanish lower leagues come into this category, but perhaps the key point is what do the stats websites and other sources say - do they roll up the playoffs into the other league appearances or not? Eldumpo (talk) 09:33, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
Even in leagues which have playoffs that are an integral part of their seasons, I would recommend leaving such matches out of the infobox. These matches can certainly be described in the text or "statistics" sections within the body of the article. Jogurney (talk) 16:03, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Answering Eldumpo's question, if you see the two major sites of Spanish football (www.lfp.es and www.bdfutbol.com), they only contain regular season stats, no playoffs. Continuing "downwards", i agree 100% with Jogurney's approach, in cases where a CLUB STATISTICS chart is included in a player's article, then we could insert playoff numbers there, if available. --Vasco Amaral (talk) 17:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Some more inputs would be nice, please, lest no consensus is reached. I have messaged two users mentioned here (Mega60 and one guy he edit-warred with over this issue), they both declined to: 1 - insert opinion here; 2 - even answer my message, why do i still bother? - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 15:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I would personally only include league games in the infobox, for consistency's sake. As mentioned above, other matches can simply be included in the statistics section. J Mo 101 (talk) 17:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

The Crystal Palace Baltimore issue

Now that Crystal Palace Baltimore have announced that they will sitting out a season, changing their name and kit colours. Is this effectively a new club in 2011 for a new article or a continuation of the existing one? TheBigJagielka (talk) 02:18, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh the joys of franchises. Assuming that the new club is seen as a continuation of the former in some capacity by reliable sources, we should treat it as such. If reliable sources do not regard the "new" club as a continuation of the old, neither should we. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 15:51, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
The source that BigJagielka has provided talks of "rebranding" - from that, I would infer that it is a continuation of the old club, simply with a new name and kit. GiantSnowman 16:00, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
Agreed with GiantSnowman. The club will be essentially the same club as CPB in terms of its history, but will have a new look and name (as per other US examples such as Sporting Kansas City/Kansas City Wizards, New York Red Bulls/Metrostars, FC Dallas/Dallas Burn). Also, as the team won't be returning until 2012 we can change the CPB article to say that it is spending a year on hiatus prior to the rebrand. --JonBroxton (talk) 18:28, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Can an admin protect this article for a while to allow Newcastle United fans to calm down - all manner of comments keep being added by anonimous editors on the assumption that Pardew is about to become the Magpies' manager. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 13:11, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protected for 3 days. Depending on whether he's actually confirmed and the subsequent media coverage it may need protecting for longer, but this should at least allow the initial period of speculation, vandalism, and attacks to die down. Certainly got pretty chaotic there. ~ mazca talk 13:26, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Can we also have protection for Alex Beam please? He is an American journalist who recently woke up one morning and decided that he would like to have the city of Liverpool out for his blood by insulting them for mourning the Hillsborough disaster.--EchetusXe 15:07, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Also semi'd for three days, 24 hours of regular vandalism certainly warrants it. ~ mazca talk 18:15, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Page protection needed

According to rumors Robert Prosinečki is set to sign for Red Star Belgrade as their new manager. The thing is not yet official and even the club chairman said on Wednesday that the managing board will discuss this on Thursday (e.g. even if it turns out to be true it will not be made official until Thursday afternoon). Since this will be the fist time that a Croat will manage a Serbian team since the breakup of Yugoslavia, this is seen as controversial by parts of the media, and the Croatian tabloid Jutarnji list even published a short news item based on our Red Star Belgrade article which was prematurely edited to state that the deal had been made official. I think both articles should be protected until the media frenzy blows over. Timbouctou 18:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Since this is the third protection request made here today, its probably worth reminding people that requests for page protection should be made at WP:RFPP. Oldelpaso (talk) 20:45, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Articles to delete

The following articles needs to be deleted since the players have never played a professional game and are on the junior team of their club. I create most of the articles on Algerian football so I know that these players are not notable enough to have their own article. I don't know how to propose articles for speedy deletion so if someone can do that for me. The articles in question are the following:

Thanks! TonyStarks (talk) 04:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

All now PRODded and dubious content removed. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:02, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks mate.TonyStarks (talk) 06:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I am seconding. I think Abdelhakim Bezzaz is close to GNG and assume all the others could meet ATHLETE in the near future but the lack of sourcing + BLP + questionable notability are good enough for me.Cptnono (talk) 06:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Just to add, the person that created the articles simply copy and pasted existing articles of other Setif players and changed the names. TonyStarks (talk) 06:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

language in titles

Hello. I've seen that many CONMEBOL cups' articles are titled in Spanish: (Copa Libertadores, Copa Sudamericana), while the proper English name (as seen in the CONMEBOL page) is a redirect. Why is this? I can understand that the Spanish name is the most commonly used in a South American context, but naming the article in that language, when there is an official English name? And why Spanish and not Portuguese? (which by the way, is not even mentioned in the lead). Fernando 12:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia's naming policy says we should use "the name which is most commonly used to refer to the subject of the article in English-language reliable sources." This doesn't necessarily mean the official name, or the official name translated into English, if the subject of the article is more often referred to by a foreign-language name: "Common usage in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms, whether the official name, the scientific name, the birth name, the original name or the trademarked name." For the two cups you mention, the Spanish name is much more commonly used in English-language sources than either the English translation or the Portuguese name. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Note that Copa Libertadores in Portuguese is Copa Libertadores, and that CONMEBOL's website is in Englisn and Spanish, but not Portuguese. Kevin McE (talk) 12:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Not Taça Libertadores? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Not according to our article or, more tellingly, pt.wiki's. Kevin McE (talk) 13:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I've only ever come across those competitions referred to by their Spanish titles, so according to WP:COMMONNAME they're in the correct place. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 13:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
If CONMEBOL has official languages, I don't think English is one of them (at least not before Portuguese). In the press, they are referred to by their Spanish name. For example, ESPN reports that Independiente won the Copa Sudamericana yesterday, not the South American Cup. Digirami (talk) 07:46, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The player above, whose article is very bare to begin with, has just been accused of aggravated identity theft. While the circumstances concerning how he acquired the identity "Gonzalo Chila" is still being determined, it has been confirmed by the Ecuadorian FA that he is someone else. I'm wondering how to deal with some aspect of this. Is an article name change in order? How should I word the opening sentence and what not? Thanks in advance. Digirami (talk) 07:37, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I have added a source to the article relating to the allegation and would suggest that nothing further is changed relating to this investigation until the outcome is known. Eldumpo (talk) 10:51, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Whatever happens (interesting story, by the way), I think that the article will remain at 'Gonzalo Chila', as per WP:COMMONNAME. GiantSnowman 01:07, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
Analysis confirmed he is actually Angel Cheme, and he is increasingly being known as such. At what point do we say Angel Cheme is the common name? Digirami (talk) 01:19, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
When you say 'analysis confirmed' do you mean the outcome of the investigation is now known, in which case further info can be added to the article? Eldumpo (talk) 10:17, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
As far as I can see, he has now been suspended for 2 years, but any sanction against his club has not yet been announced (although it was due to have been yesterday afternoon. I'm inclined to allow Dirigami time to update the article, with his ear being closer to the Ecuadorian ground, but I would suggest that evidence is now strong enough to at least include his "born as" name. In all honesty, his Commonname in English is unestablished, as his notoriety has not greatly penetrated the Anglophone world... Kevin McE (talk) 10:58, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
The latest: The Ecuadorian FA did their own investigation into this identity. They concluded that his is Angel Cheme and is three years older than he actually stated. A criminal investigation (I think) is underway since he alleged to have stolen the ID; Cheme claims it was given to him by the the real Chila so Cheme can enter the youth system of Aucas. Emelec and a couple other clubs wanted to punish Liga de Quito claiming they broke a couple regulations. The Ecuadorian FA decided not to punish Liga since there was no nothing to find them culpable in Cheme's identity change. I'll update the article based on what is known. Digirami (talk) 22:24, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I require help. Can anybody upload Azerbaijan Premier League's logo as logo in wikimedia commons? I am having troubles loading due I don't know which license.

Logo is here http://www.qafqazinfo.az/foto/unibank-premyer-liqa.jpg

Help would be really appreciated.--NovaSkola (talk) 09:59, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

It cannot be uploaded to Commons as it is a fair-use image. Only freely reproducible images can be uploaded to Commons. see commons:Fair use. Oldelpaso (talk) 10:18, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Season designation and MoS

This conversation has drawn my attention to WP:YEAR, part of the MoS according to which 2005–06 is a two-year range, whereas 2005/06 is a period of twelve months or less such as a sports season or a financial year. Oh dear. How many thousands of times are our articles breaking that convention? Do we ignore, petition for change of MoS, or change our practice? Kevin McE (talk) 11:47, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Arguably we are in fact doing it wrong, but the amount of work that would be required to correct that now is staggering. If an exception were to be made it would be on those grounds. Can't hurt to bring it up, just in case someone really wants to write a bot that will spend the next eighteen months correcting all our dates. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:01, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
Discovering that particular bit of MoS just made me change my edit summaries to cite WP:FOOTY convention rather than MoS when "correcting" others' use of slashes, but other than that I've been happily ignoring it for some time. Hope this helps ;-) cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:07, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism

Hello, I don't speak english well because I'm italian. The page Piacenza Calcio is vandalized: look the team there are Messi and Ronaldo. Good job and bye. --Aleksander Sestak (talk) 01:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Timbouctou 01:54, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Goalkeeper's career stats

When we place career stats table for goalkeepers, why are we put goal stats in the table? Should we not put something like cleansheets,goals conceded or goals against average? Kingjeff (talk) 20:07, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

This has been discussed before, and if memory serves, the consensus was that any stat listed would be too dependent on the ability of a goalkeepers teammates and opponents. That being said, I agree entirely that goal scored is a ridiculous statistic list for a goalkeeper. Sir Sputnik (talk) 20:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I think one of the main reasons is that for players who aren't that well-known, or for many who played before the internet era, the goals against statistics just aren't available. BigDom talk 20:17, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Rogério Ceni would certainly disagree that it's a pointless stat for goalkeepers! In all seriousness though, there really isn't a viable alternative, and it's not that uncommon for keepers to get at least one goal during their career. J Mo 101 (talk) 20:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) You beat me to it J Mo! —Half Price 20:29, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Honestly, I would say Goals Against Average is a viasble stat. Kingjeff (talk) 20:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
GAA isn't widely recorded and noted for football goalkeepers in the way that it is for ice hockey goalies. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 20:37, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Putting anything other than goals would also be in breach of WP:V and WP:OR since statistics websites and books don't list goal conceded stats. Brad78 (talk) 20:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
WFC did it perfectly at Players. Separate, relevant, and sourced.Cptnono (talk) 20:46, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
For three goalkeepers in the history of the game. American sports are heavily stats based, and soccer in America has taken that mantle. That one article is a tiny, tiny proportion of the question. Brad78 (talk) 20:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Whilst on the subject of goalie stats, is there really a need for Category:Association football goalkeepers who have scored? Jared Preston (talk) 15:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

  • I think that would be "raising the bar" too high, Jared. No need for that category in my opinion, goals will be shown in stats and referred to in storyline. Would be (the cat) in the same line as "field players who have saved a penalty kick". - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Interesting, sure, but I agree that I don't think it is needed here. Anyone like to CfD it? Otherwise I'll create something like "Association football forwards who have scored a hat-trick". Jared Preston (talk) 16:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Is there really a need for any category? what is the point of Category:Association football defenders or its subcategories Category:Association football sweepers, Category:Association football fullbacks and Category:Association football central defenders. Category:National Hockey League goaltenders who have scored in a game has existed for some time and Wikipedia didn't break. WP:Category tells me "Categories should be useful for readers to find and navigate sets of related articles" Every time a goalkeeper scores people get interested in which other goalkeepers have scored. This is the easiest way to find a set of related articles.--ClubOranjeT 19:30, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 19:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
ClubOranje, as I said, I do find it interesting; but where do we stop? I'd also love to know how many field players have played in goal after the goalkeeper has been injured or sent off – I'm just not sure we need a category on Wikipedia for it. However, if I find any goalkeepers who have scored a goal, I will certainly add them to your category until any time in the future that it might get deleted. Jared Preston (talk) 20:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Do we need a category, when we already have a perfectly good list, which can be linked on any such goalkeeper. Brad78 (talk) 23:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
My issue is with the category name, it makes it sound like its a category for any goalkeeper who got lucky in a nightclub.--EchetusXe 23:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm happy to have the "rename to Category:Association football goalkeepers who have scored a goal" discussion, I was just trying to keep an already long name short as possible.--ClubOranjeT 11:52, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
  • It seems I may be the only one here but I fail to see your logic. The three categories you mentioned were primarily created to ease maintenance of articles and contain easily verifiable criteria which may be relevant for any person's biography (born in place X, appeared for national football team of country Y, took part in international tournament Z). Not every professional player who was born in Leeds actually played for England and not every English international appeared in WC 2010. On the other hand, why is scoring a goal relevant for any goalkeeper's career? Is saving a penalty too? How about marrying a beauty queen? Or recording a hit single? Also, since when did "people get interested" become a criterion used at Wikipedia? How about creating Category:Association football players who broke other association football players' legs? Or Category:Association football players who married models? Judging by tabloid coverage, people get tremendously interested in these things.
Why are you tying those three categories together? They are three separate examples of categories that have equivalent list articles; a reason given for not having this category. They are not related.--ClubOranjeT 17:30, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
Reasons for lists and reasons for categories do not overlap. For example, reasons for lists of people from place X have a much weaker rationale to back them up than categories of people from place x, simply because it is not encyclopedic to create lists which are unlikely ever to be complete (and even if it was feasible, it would hardly be of any use to anyone). They should actually be called "List of notable people from place X", which is still not encyclopedic (as "notability" is a very unclear inclusion criteria, as so many people pointed out at WP:FOOTY when "Notable players" sections were getting deleted wholesale a while back), but would be less misleading to the average reader. This is comparable to the category we are discussing here as the complete list of every goalkeeper who ever scored a goal is unlikely to be of any use to anyone, and introducing such an arbitrary criteria for categories makes even less sense. Basically you created a category for a group of people based on a feat which is within their job description, arguing that it is a rare occurrence. This would be equivalent to Category:Flight attendants who assisted childbirth or Category:Firemen who saved cats from trees. IF it is so rare for a goalkeeper to score a goal than a list would suffice. If the number of goalkeepers who scored a goal is too big for a separate list then a separate category is simply not needed as the feat is not rare enough to be a defining feature for them or their careers. In addition, if you're saying that any existing category is equally useful (and you are), you are also saying that any currently non-existing category would be too. Btw, the completely unnecessary Category:National Hockey League goaltenders who have scored in a game which you used for comparison has a total of 9 (nine) articles, and the featured (?!) list of goaltenders who have scored a goal in an NHL game lists 11 (eleven) players. Sounds like a far cry from the 154 goalkeepers currently listed in the association football version. And you've only made it up to the B's. Timbouctou 21:27, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
I did not say that at all.--ClubOranjeT 16:18, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Also, since you brought up WP:CAT, it states the following: "[Categories] should be based on essential, "defining" features of article subjects, such as nationality or notable profession (in the case of people), type of location or region (in the case of places), etc. Do not create categories based on incidental or subjective features." How is scoring a goal the defining feature of any goalkeeper's career? Thee are perhaps 5-10 goakeepers in the history of the sport who were well known for scoring from set pieces (like Rogério Ceni or José Luis Chilavert) and whose scoring ability deserves a mention in the lead (e.g. it is a defining feature), but I fail to see in what way are they and their articles "related" to Stipe Pletikosa (4 goals in 14 years) or Bruce Grobbelaar (1 goal in 24 years). This is pure trivia. Timbouctou 11:57, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Appeal to non-British football specialists

There are now around 1,000 footballing names left on the Unreferenced BLPs list. Most of these are foreign names. It is hard for me and others to distinguish notability, let alone find sources for these players. In order of significance: Israel, Ireland, Macedonia, Albania, Malaysia, Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, USA, Romania. Many other nations besides, get over to Sort by country to see the work needed for your country.

All that has to be done is to add one source that verifies the person's existence, and a check to make sure nothing untrue exists on the article. If the player is not notable (list of professional leagues) then PROD or afD the article. As you are familiar with the country then it should be easy for you to find a reference or to recognize non-notable players. Together we can 'get oue house in order' - currently footballers form around 10% of all unreferenced articles on living persons. Even if you just find one reference for one player then thank you for your help.--EchetusXe 00:46, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

When I get a chance, I'll update the sorted by country list - right now, it's quite out of date. Jogurney (talk) 04:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

This information is wrong. Nobody aged 22 has 56 caps with 46 international goals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.159.112.89 (talk) 00:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Nothing but a hoax, I have tagged it for deletion, thanks for letting us know! GiantSnowman 01:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Actually, upon further research the player does exist - the article has just been vandalised. Tidied up now. GiantSnowman 01:07, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Match Article Notability Guideline Proposal

Hello all, in light of recent deletion debates, I thought it might be useful to open up space to discuss whether we need any guidelines for football match article notability. Were members aware that at the moment, amongst others, the 2007 Baltic League Final, 90 Minutes for Mandela, Spain vs Malta 1984 UEFA European Football Championship qualifying match, Ukraine v Hungary (29 April 1992) and 2004 Football Conference play-off Final all have articles? I think given this, and the implication that, if we accept these as articles, we raise the possibility of hundred if not thousands of football-match articles being created, I think some sort of minimum notability would be useful. I have created some proposed [Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Football match article notability guidelines (proposal)|match article notability guidelines]] - whilst I doubt these would be the finished criteria, I'd hope they are fair and could be a starting point for discussion. Of course it may be that the consensus is that no guidelines are required... --Pretty Green (talk) 10:39, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for putting this together. I agree with the principle of producing some guidelines, but have a few comments on some of the points made. Feel free to move if you want all comments made to be collected on the sandbox page:
  • Overall, there is not enough mention of basing match article notability decisions on what the sources are saying.
  • In the Football League/Conference, all the play off finals receive substantial coverage and should be kept.
  • Points 2 and 3 which relate to years/number of goals are too arbitrary for me.
  • As a general point, if a page based on your guidelines is kept, we will need to be very careful about the introductory wording, as the danger is that it will come to be regarded by some as black and white rules.
Hope this is useful. Eldumpo (talk) 11:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Cheers. Discussion could be here or on the proposal page - doesn't really matter (but if it's lengthy it could swamp this page; anyway, we can always shift it at some point). In response - would you remove points 2 and 3, meaning that a record-scoring match would require broader notability, or simply reword/rethink them? As for the play-off point: sources are relevant for verifiability, but I'm not sure they are for notability? The point is that lots of football matches receive significant coverage but are not notable: for example, the recently deleted FC Barcelona 5-0 Real Madrid C.F. match received a lot more coverage than any Conference play-off final will get. Now it might be that we decide that play-off finals are, in and of themselves, notable: I'd argue that at a lower league level, they're not. Pretty Green (talk) 11:20, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Re points 2 and 3, my view is more that whatever numbers are chosen here would still be too arbitrary, but I understand why you are trying to quantify. I realise that loads of reliable sources in itself is not a criteria for including a match, as many games each weekend would pass that. For these games it is almost a matter of waiting a few months and seeing if there are still new sources relating to the game. I think it's a bit different for all the play off finals as they end with a final result (i.e. promotion) rather than a league game which is just one of many contributing to the final league position. Eldumpo (talk) 19:31, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments; I think criterion 3 could def. go to be honest, and wait for the wider notability to arise. If there's no desire to discuss this issue (which I'm presuming from one response to date) then, I'd take that as meaning there's no desire to bring in some guidelines? Pretty Green (talk) 09:15, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Individual goals/moments of play

As far as I am aware, the only single goal that has had an article on Wikipedia was the Hand of God goal, which is now a re-direct; and I am not aware of any "moments of play" that have had an article. My reason for bringing this up is that I recently challenged the notability of the article on Matthew Scarlett's toepoke, which was a piece of action in the 2009 AFL Grand Final (Australian rules football). The response I received was that "We have oodles of articles on individual plays in American football" and looking at the list here, it seems that there are. Should we start a series of similar articles? ;} Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 16:15, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I would oppose that to some extent, but it's the sort of thing that's near-impossible to set a limit on. The Hand of God should have an article imo, as the incident is still frequently referenced some 24 years later. —Half Price 16:44, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
What others might merit an article? Admittedly I've only pondered it for about 10 seconds, but I'm struggling to think of many. American football seems to delight in giving these things handy names which would make for good article titles, but I can't see an article on Non-awarded England goal against Germany in the 2010 FIFA World Cup standing up in court..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 16:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Hmm. That Roberto Carlos goal in 1997, possibly. Apart from that I'm struggling too. —Half Price 17:08, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
I could nominate a few by Matt Le Tissier, but to avoid accusations of bias, what about Ricky Villa's goal in the 1981 FA Cup Final. Rather strange, but it's hardly mentioned in the match article, even though his article says that it was the "Wembley goal of the century". Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 17:19, 10 December 2010 (UTC) p.s. for those too young to remember, see [1]
It's not that good... GiantSnowman 17:27, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Did you have to spoil my memories! He does look a bit like a lumbering tank! Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 17:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Pah! It wasn't even the best goal in that final. Steve Mackenzie's stunner is surely the most underappreciated cup final goal of all time. I'll get around to doing a proper job of the 1981 final article eventually, but I've still not done all the ones City won, never mind lost.
On the actual topic, most candidates tend to be so well-known because they happened in matches that would be notable whatever the outcome, like Zidane's headbutt in the 2006 WC Final. When myself and Struway wrote 1956 FA Cup Final, Bert Trautmann breaking his neck and playing on was given prominence, but it never once crossed our minds to give it its own article. Keeping such moments inside the match article seems the best thing to do when the match is notable enough to have its own article. After all, even the match containing the Hand of God goal had another goal in it that would pass the GNG on its own. So that leaves matches in which an incredibly noteworthy event occurred, but would not otherwise be notable. Racking my brains for a while I came up with three:
  • Johann Cruyff's penalty where he exchanged passes with a teammate.
  • The phantom goal awarded by Stuart Attwell in a match between Watford and Reading a couple of years ago.
  • A 1924 goal by Sam Chedgzoy where he dribbled direct from a corner and scored, prompting a rule change.
However, moments of individual brilliance or infamy are probably better placed in that person's article. I think some other sports more easily lend themselves to articles on moments of play because they are composed of a series of discrete events rather than continuous play. This is certainly the case for American football. Trying to think of examples from other sports I immediately thought of cricket, and that ball by Shane Warne to Mike Gatting, but I can't find any other cricket examples which have articles. Oldelpaso (talk) 08:57, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
The Cruyff penalty has been replicated, at least by Arsenal (Pires & Henry if I remember correctly) and probably others; there have been other phantom goals: I remember an Alan Hudson incident way back. Is your suggestion that each one would be considered notable, or that first occurences are? I see difficulties with both ("Yeah, but this is different because..."). We do have the situation where although the incident doesn't have an article, matches that are notable only for one incident do. Kevin McE (talk) 11:25, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
Reading back I didn't make it too clear, but my opinion is that the incidents I mentioned are best put in the articles of the individuals involved - so Cruyff, Attwell and Chedgzoy in those cases. Happily, that is what has already been done for those three articles, though Attwell's is a mess. Oldelpaso (talk) 12:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
An article on the "goal" in the 1966 World Cup final would be interesting, not to mention very easy to reference... Hack (talk) 07:41, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure such an article has already been created once and then deleted via AfD..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

<reduce indent> 'Goal of the Century' used to have an article, but as it was the same match as the Hand of God goal and only borderline notable, I merged the two into a match article. One incident which might make notability that I can think of would be Cantona's kick perhaps? But even then we'd be pushing it. Pretty Green (talk) 09:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Specifically regarding the 1966 goal, the following from Wikipedia:Notability (events) to me seems to apply (and probably applies for the Hand of God incident):
  • Events are probably notable if they have enduring historical significance and meet the general notability guideline, or if they have a significant lasting effect.
  • Events are also very likely to be notable if they have widespread (national or international) impact and were very widely covered in diverse sources, especially if also re-analyzed afterwards (as described below).

Hack (talk) 09:16, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Some for consideration - The Scorpion Kick[2] of Rene Higuita, Darren Bent's The Beach Ball goal[3] (Sunderland v Liverpool) and The Dentists' Chair goal[4] - Paul Gascoigne for England v Scotland at Euro 96.--Egghead06 (talk) 09:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
I don't see any reason for some of the events listed in this discussion not to have an article. —Half Price 19:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Club websites in infobox

May I remind everyone that the Infobox football club has a website parameter. Most club articles still have the club website listed under "External links". Any chance that users could edit "their" club articles to include the website in the infobox where it is more accessible than at the bottom of the page. Cheers. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 19:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I've done my two teams, Bradford City and Hamilton Academical. GiantSnowman 19:28, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
All Premier League clubs are done. J Mo 101 (talk) 13:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Every French club from Ligue 1 down to the Championnat National is done. — Joao10Siamun (talk) 19:52, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Assist again

Hi all, I am currently involved in a edit war with an IP user regarding inclusion of "assist statistics" on Zlatan Ibrahimovic's article. As many of you know, Italy's Lega Calcio does not officially count such data: in addition, there is no clear uniform definition, all over the world, of what an "assist" is - is for instance a free kick scheme considered an "assist"? I am vehemently opposed to include such information, however such user keeps including that sort of data (that is unsourced, by the way) thus violating the Wikipedia pillar of consensus. Could some other user please deal with the issue? Thanks in advance, --Angelo (talk) 11:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there's necessarily a problem with including assists as long as there's a source for it. Thierry Henry's article includes them for example. The ESPN profile given as a source seems to record assists so I don't see a particular issue here. J Mo 101 (talk) 12:20, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Firstly, ESPN is not an official source (thus unreliable by definition), in addition it does not mention how these numbers are counted. They might be even random as far as we know. --Angelo (talk) 13:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
ESPN gets the stats from OPTA who record data for all the major leagues in Europe, so the source is perfectly valid. J Mo 101 (talk) 15:16, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
The only really reliable stats in footy are games played and goals scored. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 17:00, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
To be honest, I don't think the definition of an assist in football is any more vague than ice hockey, where it is considered a much more important stat. The only difference is that almost no one bothered recording them in football until about ten years ago. I personally don't include them when editing player statistic tables, but I don't think there's anything wrong with it where the information is available. J Mo 101 (talk) 17:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Is OPTA an official source? No. Does the word "assist" have a clear, unambiguous, worldwide-recognized definition in football? No again. These two reasons alone are enough to exclude such sort of statistics altogether. (About ice hockey, I don't even know the rules of the game despite having lived in Canada, so I am not answering that part of the question: all I can say is that we're talking about assists in football - which is a totally different game). --Angelo (talk) 19:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree with J Mo. No reason to root out assists in tables ff the league provides a table for the stats. I don't know about Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Serie A's case, but in France, not only is there an assists' table for leagues, but there is also a rulebook (click on Règlement just below the table) that clearly defines what an assist is, by the LFP's standards, and how a player is awarded one. I think the Premier League takes a similar approach. — Joao10Siamun (talk) 00:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
The Premier League's official fantasy football league uses an assists stat, so they are presumably keeping track of it somewhere. No offense intended to the parties in question, but I think a knee-jerk dismissal of the assists stat on the basis that it seems like an Americanism is a little antiquated now. Plenty of places do keep track of it. For the sake of consistency we can't do it everywhere, but no point in discarding reliable information when it's available. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 11:56, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
If this was a statistic such as hat-tricks then it wouldn't be statistically telling or relevant for recording. But assists is an entirely different kettle of fish. There are multiple sources for them, not least OPTA. And OPTA is, for the purpose of recording assists, entirely accurate and proper official source. The fact that the FA does not record "assists" should not define the inclusion of such information. Clean sheets should (in theory) be included in the same category (as would fouls, yellow cards, red cards etc).Koncorde (talk) 23:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

WP vs. tabloid junk

Hi there, teammates,

I would like to have some inputs on this subject: User:Anen87 keeps inserting that Guti is dating X person, i remove it on the grounds of non-notability (it's often pointed out by the majority of well-intended users that this is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid newspaper), he re-adds it, without one word in summary.

Really, i would understand (but not 100%), it that stuff appears in the likes of Paris Hilton, Heidi Montag and akin, but what percentage of interest does it have in a footballer's article? That's not what they are known for (i don't think even his marriage - to another socialite - is noteworthy), although i understand some stuff in PERSONAL sections: 1 - a marriage to someone who is also connected to sports, or family ties in the area; 2 - material like the "kidnapping" story in Quini is also notable...The rest is a little too much if you ask me, can i ask you? Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Well marriage and children are perfectly fine if they are sourced, as is a long-term partner, or any relation with a Wikipedia article. But some people are dating different people very week, some people might not like a list of ex-girlfriends on their article, and of course just because a tabloid newspaper reported something trivial then it does not necessarily make it true. Can always make exceptions for things like Frank Lampard and Christine Bleakley which seems to be regularly reported as fact.--EchetusXe 17:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Precisely what i mean Eche. I stick with your sentence "some people are dating different people every week", and of course the Lampard things deserves one line or two - even without being a "proper" relationship, the John Terry situation is noteworthy, especially because it affected his football career (and don't get me started on this guy) - but i think the Guti bit borders on the sensationalistic. Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 19:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Oh yeah, absolutely. If the relationship effects the football career then there is little option but to include it. Terry and Bridge, and Beckham come to mind (David might still be at Man U if he didn't doing things Sir Alex didn't like, like dating celebrities).--EchetusXe 22:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:NOTNEWS. We aren't a magazine. End of story. If there isn't a significant reason to include details on a person's current private life, purge it with fire and warn the offendee if it's a repeat offence. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 00:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Dale Roberts

A couple of problems with the recently created Dale Roberts (footballer born 1986) following his untimely death today. Firstly, a previous article was deleted because it failed to meet certain criteria. Is this still the case? Secondly, the article is a clear copyright violation from his Rushden & Diamonds profile as I've reported on the talk page. Brad78 (talk) 00:02, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I feared for this, and was going to salt it, but the article hadn't been recreated at the time. For what it's worth, the deleted revisions are sub-stub and not worth restoring from over your work today. As for the notability aspect, I dare say that we might need to wait to see full media coverage of the death. Going strictly by FOOTY consensus it fails because of the lack of competitive appearances in a pro league, but that can be superceded by the GNG. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 00:55, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Indvidual Player Statistics

I'm a professional football statistician who worked with companies such as STATS, OPTA, ESPN and others and been making statistical data available online since 1996 newsgroups and the RSSSF.com. I recently launched four sites http://www.EPLinfo.com (English Premier League), http://www.LaLigaInfo.com (Spanish La Liga), http://www.SerieAinfo.com (Italian Serie A), and http://www.BundesligaInfo.com (German Bundesliga) that has detail historical statistics of player who play and have played in these leagues.

I put these files under consideration for Wikipedia as I feel it provides sources for inforamtion missing on player profile pages and can assist in the great information you already make available. Please review the sites and if you have any questions or concerns feel free in contacting me

CheersEnb17 (talk) 15:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

You don't happen to work for these websites do you? —Half Price 15:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Premier League results not updated since the end of October - not a great help--Egghead06 (talk) 15:53, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Premier League certian current information can not be displayed because of copyright laws regarding FootballDataCo also the thing you refering to is a paid feed provided by GSM - http://www.soccerway.com a site wikipedia does recognize. In general the sites are desinged as historical reference material ie: http://www.baseball-reference.com and its relation to major league baseball.
In full disclosure I'm one of the webmasters on the site and I do provide the historical statistical data. For more information regarding me and the work you may visit my linkedin page http://ca.linkedin.com/in/enbsports Enb17 (talk) 16:21, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the links. I'm sure in time that these sites will be accepted and used as references in our articles, though obviously this will be an organic process by which adoption is dependent on wider public acceptance of them as authoritative. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 02:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, thank you for your efforts and your communication.--EchetusXe 00:38, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Jimmy Elliott

Does anyone know if this Jimmy Elliott and this Jimmy Elliott are one and the same, as I suspect...? GiantSnowman 03:12, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes they are, and this one as well: James Elliot Donnelly At least he's the Fenerbahce coach I'm not sure about the national team coach because another former Brentford player James Donnelly was working in Turkey as well in the 1930's He's also the James Herriot on the list of Valencia managers. He played for Brentford reserves 1922-27. Also coached in Switzerland and the Balkans and in 1935 Guatamala City (Source: Timeless Bees Brentford FC who's who 1920-2006 Graham Haynes and Frank Coumbe) Cattivi (talk) 11:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
The Spurs A-Z confirms that the Spurs/Brentford was called J E Elliott - no mention of a 'Donnelly' in his name...GiantSnowman 13:38, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
James Donnelly coached Gunes in Turkey. He could also be the national team coach, but that's a guess. He also worked for Gradanski, but there's another problem here, In 1930-31 he played for Thames. He didn't play any league games 1928-30 in England so the 1930-31 on the Gradanski page is a bit doubtfull as well, unless he worked there only for a very short period Cattivi (talk) 14:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
According to Michael Joyce, James Donnelly (a full-back) was born in Mayo, 18 December 1899 and playedfor Blackburn Rovers (1920-21 8 matches), Accrington Stanley (1922-1924 54 matches), Southend United (1924-25 42 matches), Brentford (1925-1928 7 matches, 1 goal) and Thames (1930-1931/32 36 matches 3 goals), before playing for Grajanski and Gunes. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 16:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
I've searched the Milliyet digital archive and found James Elliott Fenerbahce trainer, and 'Donoly' national coach (no additional info whatsoever) .Nothing like James Elliott Donnelly DESC&SayfaAdet=20&isAdv=true Registration was easy and free Cattivi (talk) 20:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Any chance James Elliott only coached Fenerbahçe and the other former Brentford player James Donnelly coached Turkey national side and Gunes. This would be this "Donoly" in Miliyet archives. Their careers would have been mixed up by some Turkish source.--Latouffedisco (talk) 08:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

How is this article not in breach of WP:CRYSTAL, thought I would ask here before I started an AfD. Mo ainm~Talk 14:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The article is pure conjecture in its current state. I would agree with putting it up for AfD. J Mo 101 (talk) 15:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
Please send it to AfD. Article consists entirely of speculation. Camw (talk) 15:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
It made me laugh, seemed to be a simple steeping stone to allow the creation of 2030 FIFA World Cup bids, where no doubt speculation would be rife of an England bid and surely England would get it and no other country stands a chance blah blah.--EchetusXe 17:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
It's factually incorrect too. Continental rotation has already been used for the last time. —Half Price 18:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm disappointed it doesn't mention a possible Antarctican bid. Hack (talk) 03:41, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Question unanswered about team and article moving

If I could direct your attention to my question on the US and Canada task force talk page, I'd appreciate any replies. Thanks! Powers T 16:54, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Help required

The current FLC List of Romanian football champions really could use the help of a native English speaker who is willing to make a serious copyedit to the article. BineMai 05:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Footballing air disaster templates

Superga air disaster, Munich air disaster, 1987 Alianza Lima air disaster, Surinam Airways Flight 764 - all air disasters which have resulted in the deaths of many players. Would anyone be opposed to me creating a template for each disaster to link the deceased/survivors? Sort of similar to the {{Colourful 11 disaster}} template, but with more information...GiantSnowman 18:23, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

That would be an interesting creation, indeed. Thumbs up! - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 19:18, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
{{Superga air disaster}} created - what do people think? GiantSnowman 20:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Were you going to include the 1993 Zambian team disaster in Gabon as well? Kevin McE (talk) 20:50, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, of course, but I think the Zambian crash deserves a new, seperate article. Any ideas on name? GiantSnowman 20:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Is the Superga template a list of people who died in the crash and not just those who received injuries, and if so should this be stated? Eldumpo (talk) 10:34, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
There were no survivors in the Superga crash - all the names are people who died. On the Zambia incident, is there a popular name for this crash? Otherwise, looking at theWP:Aviation accident article naming conventions, we'd have to go for something like 1993 Zambia national football team air disaster. Hack (talk) 03:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Good plan, I'll create the article/template at 1993 Zambia national football team air disaster, and if anyone comes up with a better name then we can always rename. GiantSnowman 17:18, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Just added a bit of stuff to the article, with a bit of work we could take this to DYK...Hack (talk) 03:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Kieran Agard

In the summer I corrected the spelling of his name but it was reverted back to Keiran Agard by another user citing findmypast.com. I haven't reverted the change because it may lead to an edit war.

  • Evertonfc.com, UEFA.com list him as Kieran Agard
  • His own personal facebook profile is under the name of Kieran Agard

Alternatively

  • Yahoo, SI.com, and BBC list him as Keiran Agard

Can we come to a final conclusion either way. ? TheBigJagielka (talk) 02:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Didn't find my past list Mr. Heskey as 'Emily' until they were informed?! And the BBC is sometimes incorrect, as per the McLaughlin/McLaughlan nonsense I have to endure every time I read a Bradford City match report...personally I'd go with his club, UEFA, and the player himself for the correct spelling. GiantSnowman 10:30, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Agree entirely. If Everton FC were spelling his name wrong in big writing, he'd soon tell them. The current Sky Sports Yearbook also spells him Kieran. Further, going to birth certificates, even if transcribed accurately, verges on original research. That's the historian's or biographer's job, then we follow those secondary published sources. On a slightly different tack, I had a look at the article and noticed someone had used Football Manager as a source for descent, I've commented those countries out pending finding a reliable source. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Now sourced descent to this from the Liverpool Echo, doubtless they got the info from the Wikipedia article, but we can at least hope they checked it before publishing it. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:27, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Top league of FR Yugoslavia/Serbia and Montenegro between 1992 and 2006 - opinions needed

FkpCascais (talk · contribs) pinged me about a change to Template:Serbian SuperLiga he had recently committed, in order to change it to the style currently employed by, among others, Template:Premier League. As you can see, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia/Serbia and Montenegro seasons between 1992 and 2006 and the former teams during that period have also been included into the template.

However, during our brief discussion, we discovered that there is absolutely no coverage of these years – aside from the season articles and one tiny section at Yugoslav First League – in any article whatsoever. The original article associated with these season articles, First League of Serbia and Montenegro, has been redirected to point at Serbian SuperLiga after a short merger discussion back in 2006, but even before the merger, the Ser&Mon article did not contain very much information as well. Since a RfC by FkpCascais at the SuperLiga talk page on how to deal with the missing history, dating back from last August, went unheard, I thought it was a good idea to take the discussion one level up. Basically, there are two solutions for the problem.

The first one would be to include the missing history into the current SuperLiga article and then mold the template around this expanded article; however, this could potentially lead to problems regarding the inclusion of the template on certain clubs, especially Bosnian team Borac Banja Luka, who were playing in the FR Yugoslavia league system during the Bosnian war. The other solution would be to replace the redirect to First League of Serbia and Montenegro with content and a separate template dealing exclusively with this era. The downside of this second proposal is that the various leagues after 1992 could probably be seen as one and the same entity, so a split might not be appropriate.

So, since everything to deal with the problem has failed so far, are there any opinions from your side? --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 10:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

My opinion is that "former clubs" should not be included in league templates - I have no idea why this has become common, but it is just clutter and, to me at least, totally pointless. Number 57 10:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Regarding the issue of the article of Serbian SuperLiga not including the 1992-2006 section, I beleave that that happend because in the time when the SuperLiga article was made, there was existing a separate article for the 1992-2006 period. The problem was that when the merger was done, nobody included the 1992-2006 period in it. It want be a problem for me to do it in some near future. Regarding the template, perhaps I precipitated myself by expanding it in a way that, as I can see now, was not agreed here. FkpCascais (talk) 00:26, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I need a help: where can I find the numbers of the players who participated in the final match? They aren't indicated in the article...--VAN ZANT (talk) 10:17, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

This type of info is often hard to find, it doesn't seem to have been very well-recorded. Youtube can be useful, though, particularly if you recognise the players by appearance. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 21:31, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Season template

I've had a look around and can't find any template for season articles. Should there be one? † Omgosh30 † 22:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Template:Infobox football club season.--EchetusXe 23:14, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
That's a template for the infobox, not for season articles... † Omgosh30 † 01:04, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
There is no navbox template.--EchetusXe 01:08, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
I don't think there is a template nor a set guideline for how to create season articles. There are a few good articles which might help you towards better format, and there's also the season article task force who might help with guidance. But looking through general season articles, they are a bit of a hotch-potch in terms of general style. Brad78 (talk) 02:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
WP:NENAN. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 04:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
What do mean "season template"? Like an MOS for season articles? That's a broad term; a "season" of what exactly? I know one MOS was created for league season articles a while back, though I'm not sure if it's official. Digirami (talk) 06:39, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
He means something like this: Template:Port Vale F.C. seasons. thumperward is right, there might not necessarily need to be such a template unless there are several articles to link together. Which is why I have nominated two templates for deletion here.--EchetusXe 10:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the ambiguity. I mean articles such as this. † Omgosh30 † 12:51, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Hence my answer above. Brad78 (talk) 15:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Article for Speedy Deletion

Can someone please add a speedy deletion tag to this article : Yanis Youcef ? I dont know how to do it myself, I usually just propose the articles here. As for the player, he has never played in a professional match. Thanks. TonyStarks (talk) 16:04, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

The criteria for speedy deletion are very specific; the article on Youcef is not eligible for speedy deletion as it makes an assertion of notability. However, you could try proposed deletion. To do that put {{subst:prod|insert reason for deletion here}} at the top of the page. Oldelpaso (talk) 16:13, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the precision, I'll do that.TonyStarks (talk) 17:47, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Africa(n) Cup of Nations

While I was editing Template:Africa Cup of Nations, the articles about the individual tournaments struck me as inconsistently entitled.

red = Africa; green = African
main 57 59 62 63 65 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 00 02 04 06 08 10 12 13 15 17

I think they need a unification. --Theurgist (talk) 15:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The best name would be Africa Cup of Nations, I think, as it's the more direct translation from French and doesn't lose any meaning. It's also the name of the main article and the more recent tournament articles, which are likely to have been named under greater scrutiny. † Omgosh30 † 16:01, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
The logo for the 2004 tournament (see here) clearly shows "African Cup of Nations" as does that for the 1998 tournament [5]. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 17:22, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
It was a shock to the system when what we had consistently heard referred to as the African Cup of Nations suddenly became the Africa Cup of Nations, presumably around 2006. The (more grammatical) adverbial form, with the n, was the correct contemporary title for many years. Kevin McE (talk) 17:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
CAF website does indeed omit the n. —Half Price 18:52, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Most of the time: but not always: note the page names of previous editions. Even so, no-one doubts the present name: the issue is the name from 1972 to 2004. Kevin McE (talk) 19:58, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

What's the most commonly used form in reliable English-language sources, folks? I note that the BBC (which usually has some degree of consistency) has used both in the last week, along with "African Nations Cup". Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 01:20, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I left a note on Mr Hall of England's talk page, as he seems to have done some renaming that concerns the issue. Maybe he'll provide some assistance for us. --Theurgist (talk) 14:51, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Use of AWB to convert references from "Korea Republic" to "South Korea"

Recently it was decided to move Korea Republic national football team to South Korea national football team. See here. To fully carry out this naming change across the project will require a substantial number of edits (eg edits to the biographies of South Korean footballers).

I seek the project's approval to use AWB to carry out these changes. AWB's rules say "If there is a chance that the edits you are considering might be controversial, consider soliciting comment at the village pump or appropriate WikiProject before proceeding."

I have made an example edit with AWB here. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:48, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

MAkes sense seen as the country is called South Korea.--EchetusXe 00:11, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree that your use of AWB would be good to facilitate the name change which has already been agreed. Eldumpo (talk) 12:03, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks very much for the responses. I'll kick it off now. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:00, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

Just wanted to give you all a big slap on the back for the great job you have done in bringing the number of football related Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Unreferenced BLPs from over 5000 this time last year to just over 900 today. Well done! (11 days left this year... 90/day is do-able if you have enough people helping out... a challenge for you?!!?)The-Pope (talk) 05:51, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I said that a few days ago. The trouble now is that those left are foreign players that don't have readily available references on the internet. Need someone with a knowledge/book/website on Saudi players, Malaysian players etc.--EchetusXe 12:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone know a good way of sourcing the hundreds of Thai footballers in that list? I know of the www.thaipremierleague.co.th site, but I can't seem to find a way to navigate round the site to find links for individual players. Soccerway seems like the only other alternative but not many of the players are listed there. J Mo 101 (talk) 13:58, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
I've been through all of the remaining 51 Thai footballer uBLPs with this Google search (you just adjust the date of birth for each player), but none of them are listed at the Thaipremierleague.co.th site (that search only works for players that are currently with Premier League or First Division clubs). I'm afraid all of the "low-hanging fruit" is gone (at least for Thai footballer uBLPs). Jogurney (talk) 16:28, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
If they are unverifiable then, alas, they need deleting. Sure we can't (and shouldn't) rely on online sources for everything, but these articles have lain unsourced for two years. With no prospect of that changing, and no ability to do it ourselves despite people's best efforts, we have no other options left. Oldelpaso (talk) 16:45, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Speaking of low-hanging fruit, there are 58 Italian footballer uBLPs and 48 Israeli footballer uBLPs, which ought to be fairly easy to source. I used to have sources for both types of players that I'll try to dig up. Jogurney (talk) 16:38, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
I sourced most of footballers from ex-Yugoslavia worth having an article. The only problem is that some user made a list of Macedonian fotballers that simply play for his favourite club, most having only 20 years and never played abroad. I supose deleting most of them wouldn´t harm at all. But they have Macedonian First League appereances (Pro, I didn´t knew until yesterday), so, what to do? They are as notable as any other unknown player of any other medium-low quality league. Montenegro has a similar situation, with the difference of their top league not being pro. On the other hand, and this counts for all countries, I also noteced that there was a number of sourced articles that simply had wrongly the "unsourced tag" still on. FkpCascais (talk) 19:00, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Are these sort of lists notable enough for their own article? I'm aware of WP:OTHERSTUFF but not even Premier League clubs seem to have seperate articles for club top scorers. J Mo 101 (talk) 13:58, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Simple answer in my opinion is no. Camw (talk) 14:20, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Agree with Camw. These kinds of lists have written WP:FAN all over them, no matter if the club is KF Tirana or Manchester United. Either PROD or AfD the list, please. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 14:28, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Vidkel

Can anyone have a look on User:Vidkel and his recent contributions, he created an Indonesian footballer article (David Lionel Paul) which I think is a pure non-sense. He has also been uploading some possibly unfree images of Indonesian footballers, including two that overwrites existing images on wikipedia (File:Bp.jpg, File:Gonzales.jpg). — MT (talk) 16:46, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Like you said, the David Lionel Paul is absolute nonsense. I have informed Vidkel accordingly and tagged the article for speedy deletion. Regards, GiantSnowman 16:51, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick response. What about the images? Can I revert back those two images that overwrites existing images on wikipedia? As for the other three images (File:Depan-1a.jpg, File:Budi sudars.jpg, File:Dfaf.jpg), should I nominate them to Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files or they fulfill criteria for speedy deletion?MT (talk) 17:06, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Never mind, those three images were already tagged. And I've reverted those two images to the previous version. — MT (talk) 18:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Page now deleted. This is the second time it's been deleted: the same user created it both times. I've warned him for adding hoax content. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 19:09, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Nile basin tournament

Hi, please could someone put the fixtures from this image [6] into the 2011 Nile basin tournament article? Unfortunately I do not understand Arabic to be able to do it myself. TheBigJagielka (talk) 02:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Uh, is it even a notable tournament? It looks to be a one-off, three-day tournament that is being used by some of the participating nations as preparation for more 'serious' matches i.e. a friendly game by any other name. GiantSnowman 02:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
No different to the Umbro Cup and Tournoi de France (1997) then... TheBigJagielka (talk) 11:48, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
And I'm sure that we all remember the 1991 England Challenge Cup and the 2004 FA Summer Tournament with fond affection. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 12:05, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Santos FC

I've been reading through the article on Santos FC, and it's POV from A to Z. I honestly don't know where to start cleaning this up. An example from the section about Pelé: "The dream of that little boy from the state of Minas Gerais, originally from Três Corações, was to be a soccer player just like his father. However life surprised Dondinho (Pelé’s father) by giving him the one who went far beyond just playing the game. He overcame obstacles to follow his dream and to fulfill a promise made to his father: to win a World Cup." I don't think the next section, about the youth department, has any neutral information at all. This article is fancruft from the very first letter to the very last. Then there are unsourced claims, like the assertion that "Santos became the first team in football history to pass the 10,000-goal mark." Has Santos really scored more goals than leading European clubs that are much older? 83.84.195.88 (talk) 13:56, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Ouch! I love the phrase in the Youth section: "Whenever one works hard, being rewarded is just a consequence." Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 14:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
About 60% of the article's content should be removed. The Pele section is ridiculous, the youth section needs splicing, the squad section needs serious renovation and the achievements section needs a clean-up. The article doesn't really have a history section at all. All in all, a disgrace to WP! —Half Price 14:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone have references for this list, especially the earlier tables? I see a lot of changes being made, but I have no idea whether they're correct or not. I've reverted one which was blatantly false, but there are many others. Argyle 4 Lifetalk 17:36, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

The teams are generally listed in the Nationwide (ex-News of the World) Football Annuals each year. I've got some from the 90s, I'll see if I can dig them out....... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:21, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
I started this page way back when, and now I'm wondering if it needs to be broken up, given how big it is, and how much bigger it could potentially be. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 09:43, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

history of national teams of Netherlands Antilles/Curacao/Sint Maarten

I would appreciate some light on the status of national football teams in the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean. The present situation after the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles is not clear (but that is something we'll have to live with I am afraid for now), but the status of the island teams before the country Netherlands Antilles was created and whether there was a foraml "predecessor" of the NAVU would be of interest... A discussion was started at Talk:Netherlands Antilles national football team#history, so feel free to comment there. L.tak (talk) 07:57, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

FIFA.com still lists the Netherlands Antilles as a member association, and they have played matches as such since the dissolution. As FIFA is not a federation of countries, but of associations, I guess it could remain thus for as long as NAVU wish it to do so. At FIFA.com, it can be seen that there is continuity between the results of Curacao (until 1946) and Neth Ant (from 1948). Kevin McE (talk) 12:07, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
I found out today they should change their name (which is contrary to the Netherlands Antilles Olympic committee which will remain) at some point, so we'll see what happens. As for Curacao, where did you find the 1946/1948 breakdown (I found 1958 still curacao, 1962 Antilles...)? I guess my main uncertainty left regarding the pre 1958 Curacao team is: was this the territory of "curacao and dependencies" (which would become fully Netherlands Antilles) or only the island Curacao? L.tak (talk) 13:36, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Using the FIFA.com fixtures and results facility, and enter the dates as Jan 1883 to Dec 2010, or as early/late as you like (not directly linkable). Does seem odd to have the Neth Ant name that early: maybe an error in retrospective naming? Contemporary sources would be necessary to be confident of the team's name at the time. RSSSF says Note that while the name changed from Curacao to Dutch Antilles officially in 1948, the Curacao tag was still used until about 1959, and yet lists the 1948 games as being in the name of Curacao, contrary to FIFA. Kevin McE (talk) 14:04, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Tnx for the link to the facility... This paper pinpoints these links indeed as occuring in the 1958-1962 timeframe, which looks then the most reliable to me. It gives me also more and more that the name Curacao is the name which was used to indicate all the islands together... L.tak (talk) 14:42, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

The situation since the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles is very complicated. This article in De Telegraaf states that the Netherlands Antilles national football team will continue for the time being. This would mean that the internationals still qualify as Antillean footballers. So how should we display them in Current Squad sections? With the flag of the Netherlands Antilles (the still-existing national team) or with the flag of one of the newly-formed countries (Curaçao and Sint Maarten)? 83.84.195.88 (talk) 14:18, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

As long as they play under the flag of the Netherlands Antilles (and they do...), I would argue that that's what we should use... Interesting article indeed. I am adding this one for reference saying Curacao should be forming its own association asap, and that they are negotiating on linking that to Bonaire... Let's wait it out... L.tak (talk) 14:42, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Season articles

A small selection of club season articles are in Category:English football club stubs - is this correct? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:19, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Having clicked on a few of them I'm not sure how many are actually stubs, and in particular the Leeds ones are not. If there are enough genuine club season stub articles then it could be appropriate for a stub sub-category? Eldumpo (talk) 09:53, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Most of them were created by the same editor, at this sort of standard, i.e. unsourced, basically just a squad list with a fair number of mistakes (I really must do something about that one...) A few have been tarted up a bit since but they're mostly still stubs, according to the definition: "The article is either a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work to become a meaningful article" (my highlighting). I'd say Association football club season stubs would be an appropriate category to create and apply. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:36, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately, you can't just creat a new stub type, unlike categories. It has to be approved at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 10:50, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
I know (now) ... ages ago, in my ignorance, I created a new England-footy-position-18xxs-stub template, and within hours got a lecture from the guardians of the stub-sorting structure; they let it remain, though :-) There are umpteen club season articles assessed as stubs by the Season article task force, which puts their talk pages into Category:Stub-Class football season articles. Some of them will have improved since they were assessed, but the articles ought to have some sort of stub category, and mostly they don't. Counting those assessed as stub-class but without any stub tag on the article, as well as the ones in Category:English football club stubs and Category:Association football stubs, there are plenty enough to justify a season stub cat. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:43, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
The idea of proposing additional stub categories seems to be a good idea, not only for club seasons, but for league and cup seasons as well. Just take a look at Category:European football competition stubs, for example. Originally intended to be for general competition articles, it is now mostly populated by season articles of all kinds. The same goes for the other categories, by the way. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 20:24, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Fb team templates Albania up for deletion

See also the respective entry at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#Template:Fb team 17 Nëntori.

While understanding the rationale of the nomination (which comes from an editor with exactly zero participation in this project, by the way), I do not think that the nomination itself is useful at the moment, simply because the system behind these templates is spread all over the season articles of this project. It would be a far better idea to first discuss if we would like to keep the fb templates system in general, and if so, to what extent.

The templates, as a reminder, are currently being used mostly for league and results tables in league season articles like 2010–11 Premier League. Aside from that, there is a whole bunch of templates for all kinds of purposes related to team season articles (see any article from Category:Association football clubs 2010–11 season and its subcategories as arbitrary examples).

So... what are your opinions? --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 11:26, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

The templates have the potential to be properly utilised, the fact that they aren't at the moment misses the point. They are useful and should be kept. —Half Price 11:33, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I've noticed that if you put England=y or season=y in the WikiProject template, the importance field doesn't always work. For example, if you were to have the following code:

{{Football |class=stub |importance=Low |England=y |season=y}}

the talk page would be in Category:Low-importance football articles but not always Category:Low-importance football in England articles. Instead it comes up as Category:Unknown-importance football in England articles, as I noticed when I was looking at the category.

So just a heads-up, we should put yes instead of y just to be careful. —Half Price 16:26, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

With nearly 1800 articles seemingly mis-classified, can a bot be created to change "y" to "yes"? Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 19:03, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Not all of them are mis-classified, some of them just haven't been assessed for importance yet. A bot would be nice to have though :D —Half Price 19:12, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Robbie Findley to Nottingham Forest

Did Robbie Findley's deal with Forest take immediate effect or will it not take effect till new years? – Michael (talk) 18:24, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

According to this article from Skysports, he will complete the move when the transfer window repopens. Eddie6705 (talk) 18:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Due to work permit issues, I believe that he won't be able to sign until 1st January. GiantSnowman 18:58, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Football vs. soccer

There's a debate going on regarding what we call the beautiful game in the case of an American player in England. Please join in the discussion here. Regards, GiantSnowman 23:30, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

The Monster report

Reported the "user" Zombie433 last week at the forum (please see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football/Archive_49#The_.22monster.22_is_back.21.21.21), just to let you know i have been tipped off by friendly user User:Joao10Siamun, who found this IP and this one.

According to him, this German "user" continues to add incorrect stuff in articles (this time, the prize went to French football). My worst fears have come to life, almost 100% sure he has a dynamic IP, so he's pretty much unstoppable now. Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 20:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

This edit on German wikipedia [[7]] was done shortly after this identical edit by one the IP's [[8]] Is this enough prove for block-evasion ? Cattivi (talk) 21:43, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
I think one edit like that is too circumstantial, but if it is the same person, it's only a matter of time before he makes enough edits to generate something more conclusive. That being said, I wouldn't mind if the powers that be disagree with me on this. Sir Sputnik (talk) 23:33, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
If you believe that these edits are a case of block evasion, then a trip to WP:SPI is in order - they'll be able to confirm whether it's the same guy or not. Bettia (talk) 10:37, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
Edits which just screamed "Zombie433" at me on the Délis Ahou article were made by 79.213.124.106 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), which is located in...yep, you guessed it, Germany! GiantSnowman 10:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
It must be him. The IP has also written about horror films, one of "Zombie's" favourite topics (compare edit histories). Jared Preston (talk) 11:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

If it's hopping about between IPs too quickly to block (as it seems), it might be worth pinging WT:LONGTERM for suggestions. There's no easy fix here, unfortunately. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 01:08, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Now at 79.213.118.218 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). GiantSnowman 17:08, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Now at 79.213.119.102 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). --Jaellee (talk) 23:15, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Now at 79.213.82.64 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and 79.213.93.127 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) --Oleola (talk) 00:14, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

According to the article, the Superliga was only founded in 1998, yet every article in Category:Albanian Superliga seasons is named "XXXX-XX Albanian Superliga season". This is clearly wrong, if anyone has the time and patience to rename them all.......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:10, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

What was it called before then? Digirami (talk) 19:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
The Superliga article says in its very first sentence "The Albanian Superliga (Albanian: Kategoria superiore), the highest level of association football in Albania, was founded in 1930 under the name Kategoria e Parë (First Division)." --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 20:04, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Then I say get a bot to rename the respective articles. It beats doing it one by one. Digirami (talk) 20:20, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
So why on earth is the article at Albanian Superliga, if that is neither a meaningful word in English or the proper name by which it is known? Kevin McE (talk) 23:00, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
As you might have misread something, for clarification: The current and correct name of said competition indeed is "Albanian Superliga" (or "Kategoria superiore" in Albanian). The season articles beginning with the 1998–99 season (and the competition article itself) thus are correctly named. Earlier season articles, however, should be moved to "19xx-xy Albanian First Division", as this is how the competition was named then. Precisely these requested moves were what Chris was asking for in his original post. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 23:16, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
What makes you say that Superliga is the "correct name of said competition". RSSSSF, FIFA, Worldfootball and Transfermarkt show it in English as "Kategoria Superiore", although UEFA and Soccerway do show it as Superliga. Eldumpo (talk) 10:30, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Geez... Name the Albanian leagues as you want, then, as long as the naming is language-consistent (in other words, no "Kategoria superiore" and "Albanian First Division" combination, please)...
Big G has ~367,000 results for "Albanian Superliga -wiki" and ~398,000 for "Kategoria superiore -wiki", so this is not conclusive. Nevertheless, I would prefer to use "Albanian Superliga" and "Albanian First Division", since this would circumvent the need to type an 'ë' in "Kategoria e parë". --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 11:30, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Happy Holidays!

          Happy Holidays!
Dear all football fans,
Best wishes to you and your family this holiday season, whether you are celebrating Christmas or a different holiday. It's a special time of the year for almost everyone, and there's always a reason to spread the holiday spirit! ;)
Daemonic Kangaroo [talk]
05:52, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
:-0 Fancy!--EchetusXe 15:47, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
  • May everyone - including the ones that have been living in the "dark recesses" of Wikipedia, may they see the "wiki-light" glow in their hearts, and stop vandalizing other people's hard work... - be merry, cheers to y'all mates, from Portugal, keep on scoring!! - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 17:39, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
:) --FkpCascais (talk) 06:14, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Felicidades! Digirami (talk) 09:50, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Yep, merry Christmas everyone! GiantSnowman 13:45, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Merry christmas to all footy members. Have a great day. :) 03md 14:21, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Category Help

I do a lot of work with regards to Algerian football and was just hoping to get some help about a category. There currently exists a category called "Olympic footballers of Algeria". From my understanding, and from its parents categories, it seems that this article is meant for footballers that have represented Algeria at the Olympics. Seeing as how the U23 team also doubles up as the Olympic team, how do I go about creating a category for all U23 internationals and not just ones that have played at the Olympics? I'm guessing I can have the Olympic footballers category as a subcategory of the U23 one? Just wanted to get some feedback from anyone that might have had this issue before.

Thanks .. and Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating.TonyStarks (talk) 14:37, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

The article MFL League has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

A search for references found no published (gBooks) support for the content of this article. Fails W:N and WP:V. Both other language articles are also unreferenced.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jeepday (talk) 17:47, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Issue ressolved. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 18:38, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes it is, thank you :) Jeepday (talk) 19:03, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

The article Military Police (Cambodian football club) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

A search for references found no support for the content of this article. Fails WP:N and WP:V

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jeepday (talk) 19:01, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Notability established for this one as well. GiantSnowman 20:11, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

WPF member list: Updated and "Activity checked"

For the first time since September 2007, the WPF member list has now received a complete "activity check". It was a long hard job, but nevertheless I am quiet happy to have cleaned it up, as I managed to identify no less than 300 inactive members, being wrongly listed at the "Active member list". Thus, the number of active members has now declined from 612 to 313, while the list of inactive members now count 342. You can find a full report, and more details about the "activity check" (including a proposal for the upcoming maintenance procedures), here at the WPF member talkpage.

Along the way, my work to improve the layout of the member list, has also ended. After our last brief discussion, about how to list club names in the WPF member list, I subsequently updated the member list, to also fully comply with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (sports), as we all in the end agreed, this was the best thing to do. And as announced, I have now also for all WPF members, added their membership data of all the current WPF taskforces/sub-projects.

Here in the Christmas holiday, I however still need your comment and attention in regards of one last "layout change", that I proposed today at the WPF member talkpage. To say it short, I proposed to completely remove the recently added "Latest activity link", as it basicly is no longer needed, now when I also updated the member list to show all users with the standard "user template": {{User|}}. At the talkpage, I have now listed 3 new layout Alternatives to pick between, and now wait to receive your comment, about which alternative you prefer to be implemented. :-)

Danish Expert (talk) 20:27, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Good work, well done! However, is that "still active" within the Project, or just on Wikipedia in general? GiantSnowman 20:42, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. The applied "inactivity definition" was: "Whenever someone failed to post minimum 1 edit to a football related article or talk page, within the last 12 months". --Danish Expert (talk) 21:11, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Make that 314 active members. I noticed that, even after 30,000+ football-related edits, I wasn't actually listed (my own fault, I realise) :-P -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:44, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

And another one, despite writing footy articles since 2005, I hadn't got round to adding myself! Number 57 21:40, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Er, judging by his contributions, Deacon of Pndapetzim shouldn't have been moved to inactive (his last footy edit was on 19 December). And the same goes for NYCTLV. Hope there aren't any others... Number 57 21:49, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Some more names I recognised misplaced in the inactive section: Poulsen, Juve curr, Johan Elisson, ... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 22:07, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the notice. The inactivity check was performed on the days from December 17-19, so that is why you found Deacon listed as inactive per December 18. I can now see he was lucky to wake up from the dead, and post his first football related edits in 1 year at December 19. I will of course hurry up to readd his name to the WPF member list. In regards of NYC2TLV, I guess this is the one and only true mistake I made, when moving all the inactive members from the active meber list. I was very carefull not to move the wrong numbers. But that one clearly slipped. He will of course now also reenter the list. :-)
By the way, if any member at one point of time had his status changed to "inactive", I applied the rule, that he need on his own to reconfirm any resumed activity within WPF, by re-adding his name to the active member list. Like wise, we have a few users listed at the inactive member list before December 2010 (from the first one to "The Does"), who today are posting football related edits, but for some reason -at one point of time- decided no longer to be an active WPF member. To say it short, I think the best solution therefor is, that we never perform "activity check" for the list of inactive members. I also think its reasonable of us to demand, that if you have once turned inactive due to no football related edits in 1 year, then we need the member to confirm his resumed activity -not only by making a football related edit 2 years later-, but by actually visiting and reading his name to the WPF member list. So thats why the additional members (Poulsen, Juve curr and Johan Elisson) posted above be struway2, will not be reentered as active members, unless they show up and do this all by themself. :-) --Danish Expert (talk) 22:42, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I think that we should remove every name from the 'Active members' list and start again, asking everyone who considers themselves involved in the Project to confirm their membership. As ChrisTheDude and Number57 have shown, many contributors and people who view themselves, and are indeed viewed by their peers, as Project members aren't listed; likewise, someone making 1 edit a year can hardly be considered an "active" contributor to the project's aims and goals. GiantSnowman 22:57, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm sure Qampunen would have something to say about that...--EchetusXe 23:06, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Eventhough I can understand the positive aspect in the proposal from Giant Snowman to hit the reset buttom, I also believe there are some serious drawbacks of doing so! The biggest negative consequence would be, that many of the active members who make a lot seasonal contributions (particulair in summer months), might not discover that someone suddenly removed them from the active member list at the winter time. If we hit the reset buttom today, then we will loose a big group of those members, who are currently listed as active (and consider themself as active contributers). I think it would be particular dangerous to do at winter time, when many are "at sleep". In all circumstances, I would however never do it at any time of the year, as a lot members would not become aware, that they have been automaticly removed and now need to readd their name. Therefor I think the best solution is, to continue with the current list as it look today. However, I am ready to support to perhaps introduce some more strict "inactivity criteria" the next time we run the "activity check", if a majority of you feel that way. :-) Danish Expert (talk) 23:55, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
@EchetusXe : Occasionally people put themselves at the top and not the bottom when joining. Qampunen was one such user, but never got moved to the correct place - first edit November 2007, more than two years after the project started. The person who deserves the credit for starting the project is User:Johan Elisson. Once upon a time I used to maintain the list, but decided a couple of years ago that it didn't achieve much and there were better uses of my time. Oldelpaso (talk) 17:51, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
If the maintenance job towards the member list in 2007, only was performed by you, I can certainly understand that you at some point of time, finally got tired to do the maintenance and update work. The new maintenance procedures I proposed some weeks ago for the WPF member list, also suggest, that we from now on start to perform a fast activity check once every second month, and that it would be highly appreciated if many of us volunteer to do it, so we avoid one member is overly burdened by the task. I think we today have a much greater chance for members to volunteer, as the new version of the WPF member list carry a lot more value, compared to the old version. With the introduction of Sortable coloumns, new user links, and info listed about all WPF members additional membership of a taskforce/subproject, the new version is a far better navigational tool, compared to the old version.
In my point of view, the WPF member list is important to maintain for two reasons. First of all, it has an important function for both new and old WPF members, as it provide a fast path to identify all fellow WPF members -with expertice inside certain fields. Second, it also work externally as a reference point in minor disputes/talk with other editors, as the general Wikipedia policy automaticly grant higher status to opinions posted by a WP member, compared to opinions posted by a non WP member, in disputes about content of certain articles/templates (where no existing MOS or other guideline exist, to solve the matter). So I certainly believe the WPF member list, deserve to get a propoer maintenance, which with the new suggested procedures in place will mean, that we from now on perform a regular activity check every second month. As a final salute, I also want to use the opportunity today, to wish a Happy christmas to all those (now 321) active WPF members -who remembered to include themself at the WPF member list. :-) --Danish Expert (talk) 21:34, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Comment: This seems to me to be a lot of meta activity, the purpose of which I fail to properly understand, as we have more pressing matters, imho. Not meaning to discredit your efforts, just saying. Madcynic (talk) 14:51, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

The question is, what purpose does this list serve? It doesn't serve as an accurate indication of how many active contributors we've got in the field (the list has roughly doubled since its last page move. I somehow doubt that our editing rate has only doubled since 2006); it's too long to serve as a useful go-to guide for new contributors; and it's going to be perennially out of date no matter what happens. I've never been a fan of yearbook-style pages on Wikipedia, nor of WikiProjects (which are nothing more than informal groups of like-minded editors) assuming a sort of club status. Indeed, Danish Expert is flat-out wrong that membership of a WikiProject gives one any sort of rank in a dispute, whether it involves articles / subjects under that project's purview of not. I happen to think that WP:FOOTY has generally been very observant of that, and open to critique from outsiders, and I would certainly not like that to change. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 11:39, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that User:NCDane is a "man on a mission", namely to get rid of all the "ß" characters in the English Wikipedia. He changed all appearances of "Hoeneß" in this article to "Hoeness". I think that without moving the article also to Uli Hoeness this is not an improvement of the article. I'm not sure about the style guidelines here, but I had the impression that the "proper" name of of the person is used as name of the article (for example Hamit Altıntop, Sejad Salihović, Zoltán Szélesi) and redirects without the special characters are created. Is my impression correct or should we move all these articles (which seems to me the logic consequence of User:NCDane's opinion)? --Jaellee (talk) 23:39, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

You're correct, keep the article at 'Uli Hoeneß' (as that is his name) and add a note such as {{foreignchar|Uli Hoeness|ß}} on the page. GiantSnowman 23:45, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
The note {{foreignchar|Uli Hoeness|ß}} was already there. I don't think that it will convice this user, but we'll see. --Jaellee (talk) 00:04, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

The MoS for diacritics and other characters that are 'not commonly used in modern English' [9] states to not use these if there is a well-established standard English character alternative. RSSSF [10] FIFA [11] and Soccerway [12] all show the name as 'Uli Hoeness' so should the article be changed to this? Eldumpo (talk) 10:17, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course these English-language websites aren't going to have the ß, just like they don't have the Č, that doesn't mean we should move Petr Čech to Petr Cech, just because we lack the diacritics. I'm getting sick and tired of this nonsense. Jared Preston (talk) 10:26, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Surely it's what the English language sources are saying not what the German-language sources say, and in any case, I was just quoting text from the MoS. Also, I would suggest it's a bit different with a diacritic above a standard letter (e.g. as per your example), whereas with ß it's less certain to readers how the character converts to English-language. Eldumpo (talk) 10:42, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
So how does a "Č" convert to English? Because it sure doesn't sound like a C when it's pronounced. Removing all ß won't help readers understand it either. Jared Preston (talk) 10:48, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I would like to have consistent rules. FIFA, RSSSF, and Soccerway all use the dotted i instead of the dotless i for Hamit Altıntop. I have no idea what the difference of those two types of i's is and could not say how it converts to English. For Sejad Salihović it is more difficult: FIFA and RSSSF use c instead of ć; Soccerway uses the ć. What should be done in such cases? --Jaellee (talk) 11:26, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

You don't know the difference? Here it is. We should talk about what we know if we're gonna say "it should be done that way". --necronudist (talk) 13:07, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

This has been going on since at least January 2010 on multiple articles and he's been blocked twice for it already, so I've indef blocked NCDane as an inducement to buy a hearing aid left a final warning that any future edit warring of this type will be met with an indef block. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 12:13, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

It seems most people who've posted on this thread believe it's not right to change to 'Uli Hoeness', but could someone explain why they think this is the case, with reference to the MoS on diacritics and the fact that the English-language sources give his name without the ß? Eldumpo (talk) 13:03, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Taking inspiration from WP:IGNOREALLRULES, I believe that having the actual name of the player, diacritics and all, is more beneficial overall, regardless of what English-language sources (and don't forget, we don't have diacritics in the English language!) say. GiantSnowman 13:32, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I find it strange that we would muddy the waters so readily with regards to foreign names when readily available standard alphabet letters exist. I'm all for including "Hoeneß" in terms of providing the alternative, however I do find it strange that the majority of news agencies, database sources and primary sources for his name state "Hoeness" but wikipedia is determined to be different on the basis of? The most obvious search will be for Hoeness (at least based on the popularity of its spelling in the media) and the impact on the wiki is nil to negligible if his name within the article text is stated as "Hoeness" rather than the potentially confusing Hoeneß. The most bizarre stretch of this would be to reformat Park Ji-Sung or Yoshito Ōkubo using their traditional alphabet...or is this just an arbitrary thing for Germans only?
When such inclusion directly effects the readability of an article we really should probably be more considerate. I would consider "ß" to be one such problematic character.Koncorde (talk) 16:53, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
You can't just get rid of the ß on the English Wikipedia without removing all other diacritics. This really is a ridiculous discussion that we needn't be having just because some people think the "ß" is ugly or confusing. How about Arsène Wenger? Just because the average Arsenal fan doesn't know how to pronounce or write the è, that shouldn't mean we should move the title on the entry of the manager to "Arsene Wenger". Arsène is his name, just like Hoeneß is Uli's.... And no, nobody is suggesting we use Japanese or Korean scripts, only Latin. Jared Preston (talk) 19:31, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
As I stated above, the "ß" character is different to standard English characters that have a diacritic added, in that many casual users will not be aware of how the character fits into a word - hence why sources generally transcribe it into English as "ss". The article title should use the most used version of the name in English; the pronounciation can always be dealt with in brackets. I don't see why just because it's his (German) name the character should be included. On that basis, you would rename FC Bayern Munich to FC Bayern München, and I think there have been various discussions about renaming foreign club names on English Wikipedia and the consensus seems to be to go with the 'English' version (again, based on sources). Are there any other characters in a Latin language where the character does not look like an English letter i.e. not just those with diacritics? Eldumpo (talk) 11:23, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Đ Ğ Ħ Ł Þ/ð – all pronounced differently than they appear. Jared Preston (talk) 11:56, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Jared, you forgot to mention Ə/ə. I do not understand what the current fuss is all about, anyway. WP:DIACRITICS states in it very first sentence that "[t]he use of modified letters (...) in article titles is neither encouraged nor discouraged", which means that "Hoeneß" is as fine as "Hoeness" in terms of article naming. Since the correct spelling is "Hoeneß", this should be preferred. It further says "Place redirects at alternative titles, such as those with or without diacritics." This is, as far as I know, a common practice throughout Wikipedia. Uli Hoeness follows exactly that practice, so there are no accessibility problems whatsoever. Finally, WP:DIACRITICS begins its last paragraph with the following words: "Beware of over-dramatising these issues" – which is exactly what is done here. We all have better things to do with our Wikipedia time than discussing the use/non-use of diacritics. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 12:22, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Players in both parent and sub categories

I've started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization#Brad Evans that could have an impact on including players in both 'Xish footballers' and 'Xland international footballers'. Please feel free to contribute. Regards, GiantSnowman 17:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Infobox Football biography and those who are not noted mainly as Footballers

A former Tour de France winner, Óscar Pereiro, retired from cycling this year, and has at the age of 33 signed with his local team in a non-fully pro league. He has played once for their B side, but evidently retains ambitions to make a first team appearance. Is there any real justification for his article having the Football biography Infobox? Do other notables who also had a go at kicking a ball get two infoboxes? I note that the foul mouthed chef has no football infobox, while the first black professional Yorkshireman has a football infobox, but not a comedian one. Kevin McE (talk) 22:41, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Do what they do for players who played both football and cricket, which have a section called 'Football career' (complete with football-specific infobox) AND a section called 'Cricket career' (complete with cricket-specific infobox). GiantSnowman 22:48, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
If they have a football career, give them an infobox, but if they just kick a ball about for a semi-pro team's reserve side, then don't. Charlie Williams played for Donny for years, where Ramsay never had more than unsuccessful trials, whatever he once used to claim. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 22:54, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree. An infobox is probably only worth adding if the person had a notable spell as a footballer. Ralf Little for example has played sporadically for several non-league clubs over a number of years, but not enough to justify an extra infobox. J Mo 101 (talk) 01:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree. I certainly wouldn't give Michael van Wijk a footballer infobox, no matter how many extra fans he managed to draw to The Field of Priests...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:28, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks: confirms my instinct and now acted upon. Kevin McE (talk) 09:31, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
John Bishop (comedian) used to be a semi-professional football player too. 19:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
As a rule of thumb, if a person does not meet notability guidelines for being footballer (athlete) then he should not have a footballer infobox.--EchetusXe 22:14, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Another example: Harald Bohr, who was a Danish international footballer before he became an eminent scientist. Should his article have a Football biography Infobox? 83.84.195.88 (talk) 17:17, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
I would say yes; he played at international level and won an Olympic medal in the sport. His brother, however, should not - his footballing career was brief and consisted of a few amateur games. Worth a mention in the prose, certainly, but not deserving of anything more. GiantSnowman 17:27, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Infoboxes

Is there any plan to change the old infobox into the new one en masse? Whenever I look at a player's details on my iPhone, none of the lines in the old infobox line up. It's essentially pointless looking up stats for players with the old infobox. Brad78 (talk) 23:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

We'll need someone with a spare bot and some mad-crazy programming skills...GiantSnowman 17:28, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Oh, and don't forget that the even older {{Football player infobox}} still exists as well...GiantSnowman 21:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Obscure Scottish question

I came across Willie Sinclair (Falkirk and Huddersfield Town) while I was researching another article. I found a forum post that said that he was brother of Jackie Sinclair(Sheffield Wednesday, Leicester and more). Does someone happen to know if this is true? Hack (talk) 12:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
To answer my own question - yes. It also happens that Jackie's son, cousin and uncle also played to a reasonable level... Hack (talk) 12:42, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Article on his son Chris created. GiantSnowman 17:55, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Emergency request - 2009–10 National Premier League

Can somebody please fill in the most basic information for 2009–10 National Premier League, a season article for the Jamaican top-level league? As of now, the article would qualify for speedy deletion(!) under criterion A3... I would take care of more details once my sleep deficit has been reduced to a minimum. Thanks in advance, Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 02:12, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Did you know

This list is getting quite long now - always a good indicator of a strong, healthy Project, so good work everyone! - so is it about time we created a proper year-by-year archive? GiantSnowman 16:48, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Nikola Puharić - hoax or just unverifiable?

A couple of questions arose just now in my attempts to source some Macedonian BLPs. First, Nikola Puharić supposedly signed for UD Almeria last year, but I can't find anything about it, which is suspicious for someone signing for a La Liga team. His previous club is from the Croatian third tier, so I couldn't find anything about that. Google turns up nothing useful for his romanicized name, and no Cyrillic one is given. I'm struggling to work out if this is a hoax.

Secondly, lots of the Macedonian URBLPs are for young players from FK Pobeda, who were expelled from the league last year for match fixing. All their matches to that point in the season were considered void. So what do we do with players whose only top flight experience was gained in these matches? Oldelpaso (talk) 19:09, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Nikola Puharić? The name sounds far more Croatian than Macedonian to me. I also can't find any information about the supposed player. As for players becoming notable for games in which they played but were then declared void – I can't see much of a way around other than to reset the appearances to zero and possibly AfD them. Their statistics have, after all, been revoked. Special care should be taken if they played for more than one season for the club in question though. This sort of thing has happened before, but I don't think on such a large scale. Jared Preston (talk) 19:21, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I follow La Liga stuff thoroughly - not just Barcelona or Real Madrid, i "give the same treatment" to all the teams - and, cross my heart and swear to die, he did not sign with Almería or any team in Spain's major level(s) (that also includes Segunda División!). Also, i think that players who have one, two matches in any given top division, then spend the rest of their careers in divisions 2 and 3, without any relevant impact, should not even have a WP article, just a thought. Happy new year!! - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 21:36, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Based on Amaral's statement I have prodded the article. If anyone believes the article to be genuine then please feel free to remove the prod and add references.--EchetusXe 22:29, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

The article Montserrat Championship has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

A search for references found no WP:RS for the content of this article. Other language articles did not have WP:RS either, fails WP:N and WP:V

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jeepday (talk) 00:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

E Stadio de Maforga

Would someone knowledgeable check out whether this article E Stadio de Maforga about a football stadium in Mozambique is a hoax please? Thanks, Malcolmxl5 (talk) 01:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

As for the stadium - I am not sure if the structure exists or not. The only hits that Google delivers point to this book; however, the term is only included as a keyword, so no idea if the stadium is for real, plus the book itself looks rather... dubious. (Check the link, and you will know what I mean with that.)
On the other hand, the club affiliated to the ground, Pipelina Maforga, does indeed exist, as proven by this RSSSF document. The club is located somewhere in Manica (by the way, the article of said town could really use a translator from Portuguese!) and participated in the Mozambican minor leagues in 2009. I do not know if the club was a top-flight team earlier in its existence, though. A person with deeper knowledge of the Portuguese language might be able to help with obtaining more information *looks into a certain direction ;-)* --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 01:38, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Update: The club also played minor-league football in 2010, as seen on this page. Still nothing to find on the stadium, though. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 01:58, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Whatever the existence of the stadium, there are a couple of issues with the title. It should be something like Estadio do/da Maforga. Hack (talk) 12:06, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Books LLC is, I think, one of those publishers who reprint and charge(!) for copies of Wikipedia articles so not terribly helpful. :-) If the existence of the stadium can't be verified, it should be prodded, I think. There would appear to be no such problem with the club though notability might be an issue? Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:57, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, Books LLC is not considered a reliable source because it's just a tangible Wikiscrape. See Amazon.com controversies#Sale of Wikipedia's material as books. —Half Price 18:38, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

This article needs some attention from someone who knows what he's talking about... :-) --Crusio (talk) 14:18, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I've reverted the anon editor's edits. Jogurney (talk) 17:15, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Team of the Year templates, positions

Just reading through Jason Puncheons profile and noticed the templates at the bottom have differing positional attributes (FW vs ST for instance, CB vs CF, CM vs MF). I can't find any reference for what is and isn't the correct criteria to be used.

The issue is probably prevalent across several templates, just these two are patently obvious. Koncorde (talk) 15:43, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

DF/MF/FW is used in the squad templates and should therefore be used in these examples, in my opinion. GiantSnowman 15:47, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
I'd like to say that I'm happy with either, just so long as it's consistent. I was curious also because Puncheon is described as a Winger (with occasional role behind the strikers), but selected in the Team of the Year as a Central Midfielder. The usage of RM / LM / CM / CM without citation would seem to be arbitrary in that case (unless of course the Teams are provided with such positions). The PFA Team of the Year article lists consistently the DF / MF/ FW format. Koncorde (talk) 16:13, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Help with an image clean-up

Having been advised in a peer review that there are clean-up tags on this image of Ron Atkinson used in the article, and i attempted to follow the steps on the tags, but im not too brilliant when it comes to the image side of wikipedia. If anyone could help me out and check it over i will be very grateful. Eddie6705 (talk) 17:57, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

The article Mongolia Premier League has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

A few mentions online support the existence of the league, no published (gBooks) WP:RS references, the majority of the content can not be validated. Only the minor mention web links in the other language articles. Fails WP:N and WP:V

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Jeepday (talk) 23:13, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Re:http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Mongolia_Premier_League&action=historysubmit&diff=405079184&oldid=405076776 edit, prod removal] there is no such thing as "inherently notable", Per "if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article."
Actually there is such a thing as inherent notability and in this project's case, a country's top level league would come under this IMO. Bettia (talk) 22:15, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Is rsssf.com considered to fulfill WP:RS? If so, there is this list. I don't have time to do these changes atm, so just a heads up. ;-)
There's also this at Fifa.com. Madcynic (talk) 23:31, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Yes, RSSSF is considered a reliable source for football articles. Aside from that, and even while assuming good faith... I think it is a little ridiculous to come up with a PROD like this one. It takes only two minutes to check FIFA and/or the confederation page and/or RSSSF if there is any notability for this league, even for contributors usually not involved in any editing with the project. Sorry for the rant, but I am a little disappointed. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 00:08, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure, that RSSSF qualifies as WP:RS. Jeepday (talk) 00:18, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
I believe RSSSF fails WP:RS at WP:SPS. If I am mistaken please help me understand why. Jeepday (talk) 00:22, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Take a look at their introduction page. There it says:
Our major goal is collecting all kind of statistics, in particular league tables from all over the world, on football, and making this information available to those sharing our interest. Moreover, those statistics should be as reliable as possible, which means that our ultimate goal is to have correspondents from (and better yet in) the countries involved.
New members are therefore in principle welcome if:
* they can provide continuous coverage of as yet uncovered competitions;
* they can ensure correctness of their data.
In other words: The foundation has very high standards, even on accepting new members. As such, the collected data has a very high quality level - which is exactly why this page can be treated as a reliable source. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 00:33, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Managerial Career in Infobox

I'm creating a new article for a football manager and I was just wondering if we include coaching done at the youth level and other roles such as technical director in the infobox .. and if we do, do I specify the role in the infobox? Thanks TonyStarks (talk) 00:50, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes to include coaching positions, and yes to specify the job role - for an idea of how I tend to do it, have a look at the recently created article Harry Sinkgraven. Regards, GiantSnowman 00:56, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the prompt reply. I was about to do it the same way, I was just hoping to get a confirmation that its the way to go. Thanks again! TonyStarks (talk) 01:00, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
(after edit conflict: rather different recollection of previous consensus than Snowman) I'm sure discussions about this could be found in the archives: my recollection about them is that the infobox should only contain spells as club manager, or at least caretaker manager (although you will find examples where this preference is not followed, and the club has the role in brackets after it): other jobs can be mentioned in the prose. Kevin McE (talk) 01:03, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I wasn't quoting consensus - I wasn't aware of any either way - I was just saying what I feel is appropiate. The infobox is surely there to summarise a player/manager's career - which is what my method does. GiantSnowman 01:07, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
2 previous discussions ([13] and [14]) and the instructions on the template [15] document previous discussion. I'm not necessarily sold on the managers only idea (although the template would need changing to accomodate other roles properly), but what consensus and direction we have seems to indicate manager only for now. Kevin McE (talk) 01:22, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Interesting, thanks for finding that. Personally, I don't believe in managers only - but I don't think every role should be in the infobox. Managers, caretaker managers, assistant managers and coaches only - maybe scouts, I'm not too fussed on that one to be honest. If changing the template documentation is what needs to be done (including replacing the 'Club number' parameter with 'Role' for non-players) then I think that's a discussion that needs to begin - or indeed already has. Regards, GiantSnowman 01:33, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
The section says clubs managed so I'd stick to just those actual managerial roles and put the rest in the text. Brad78 (talk) 12:03, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Question regarding Honours (cup achievements)

Must a player have participated in the final of a competition for it to be added to his/her list of honours? For example, Alexander Hleb was never selected by Barcelona for the 2009 UEFA Champions League Final, yet it is included in his honours. The same for Marco Ferreira, never selected for the 2004 UEFA Champions League Final, yet because he played in the qualifying rounds it is included in his honours. Please clarify. Wolcott (talk) 10:39, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe if a player played in the competition and is at the club at the time they lift the trophy/cup/title then he is entitled for have that honour in the honours section. I think the argument that only if a player receives a medal then he has the honour listed was disregarded. The only real problem is with top players having bloated honours with many little individual awards and such, but a Champions League honour obviously doesn't count as a trivial thing.--EchetusXe 12:07, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I've always stuck to the belief that players are entitled to an honour only if they played in the final itself or received a medal. In addition to my question, is there a WP policy for this? Wolcott (talk) 13:16, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Players who received a medal should be the only ones to have honours. Finding definitive prove for those that don't play in the final or for league situations might be harder though. Brad78 (talk) 13:46, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree with the above that in order for a player to be listed with an honour they should've received a medal, and the details of which players are eligible for medals will differ by competition, and may not always be easy to come by. Off the top of my head, I believe that anyone on the bench in the Champions League Final would get a medal? Eldumpo (talk) 18:38, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Since the mid-1990s, UEFA has given additional medals to players who have missed the finals - prior to that, it was only the matchday squad. British football has been quite strict about only giving medals to the matchday squad (although this has also been relaxed recently), whereas in most of continental Europe medals have always been given to the entire first-team squad. You have to take it on a competition by competition basis. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 19:43, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
But what about league titles? Premier League will be easy to source, but how about a player in Division Three (North) in the 1930s who played just a handful of games? Brad78 (talk) 21:22, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
English leagues have, as far as I know, always worked on the principle that any player playing a quarter of games gets a medal. As with all things, it's a bit more generous now, but it's safe to go with that. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 22:19, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I don't recall any examples now, but imagine this situation: a guy plays all the matches and minutes in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League, then the same in the round of 16, quarters, semis...Due to illness, injury or suspension, he misses the final (the same reasoning for any given domestic cup), are you telling me he does not merit the honour? Seriously...

On the other hand, in relation to what Art states, i have seen that Gabriel Milito has ALL the 2008/09 honours given to him, even tough he did not play or train ONE second during the season. Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 19:53, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone have additional info regarding this player's nationality status? From "where i come from", he was born in Switzerland, but has Spanish passport, with both his parents also hailing from the latter country. He also has never been capped by the Swiss team in any categories, so he has to be deemed Spanish.

I fear an edit war may be arising with a Swiss user, so i would like for some additional inputs on the subject, even though i am almost 100% on the stand i am taking. Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 15:59, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

He doesn't "have to be deemed Spanish" at all - because he was born and raised in Switzerland, I'd actually say his default nationality was Swiss. However, he holds both Swiss and Spanish nationality, as confirmed by PlayerHistory and Transfermarkt, amongst others. GiantSnowman 16:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
The player self-identifies as Swiss: he says here in ref#1 "Suiza es mi país aunque mis padres son españoles" [Switzerland is my country, even though my parents are Spanish], and goes on to talk about how his parents emigrated to Switzerland in the 1970s, he was born there, and all his family lives there, though he has a Spanish passport for convenience. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:33, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
Struway's reference seems to be a relatively rare example of where we could reasonably denote 'footballing nationality' to a player in the absence of him having played representative football (at any level) for a country. Eldumpo (talk) 18:32, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Bradford City A.F.C. Player of the Year

Can anyone help fill in the gaps for this list, and the corresponding template please - the official website doesn't have a definitive list, but browsing through the archives has given me 1999 and 2002-2010, but nothing else. Any help greatly appreciated. Cheers, GiantSnowman 21:25, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

If anyone has any idea who was Port Vale F.C. Player of the Year for 1998 that would complete the 43 year template. I have an idea who it could be but I will not enter an education guess.--EchetusXe 23:48, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

League season MOS

Greetings all,

A while back in the season article task force, several members of that TF and this project came together and developed a template (outline, if you will) for a league season article (see here, here, and here). Seeing as this is a very common and simple article that is already pretty standardized (perhaps as per the above discussions), I think it is time to codify this to one of the MOSs. It also helps to have a easily accessible reference point for any possible disagreements and possible future changes. What does everyone else think? Digirami (talk) 19:53, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Seeing that we have a couple of regular IPs and new editors contributing to these kind of articles, a reference page would be more than helpful. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 20:13, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
While we are at it, we should create a MOS for club season articles. This would be useful for making sure that new articles comply and we can achieve some level of standardisation. 03md 16:38, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Door closed, horse bolted. - Dudesleeper talk 17:09, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to go ahead and create one based on Soccer-holic's sandbox since, at least in my opinion, it the only version that was agreed upon by consensus in a talk page (among other things). Digirami (talk) 22:15, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I added some comments but I just noticed that sandbox2 has changed to something about Germany. --MicroX (talk) 03:49, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I have just resored Sandbox2. Feel free to hack/edit as you like. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 11:20, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
I created this a couple weeks back so we don't have to mess with Soccer-holic's sandbox and to eventually link it to the main project it page. It incorporates the vast sum of what's in the sandbox. Digirami (talk) 08:53, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
Update: The league season MoS has been added to the project main page and navigation box in the meantime. The only major thing to be ironed out is the grade of inclusion of stats à la 2009–10 Premier League#Season statistics. Should we conduct the respective discussion here or move over to the league season MoS talk page? --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 09:01, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

World cup records templates on nft articles

Mr Hall of England has taken it upon himself to turn the World Cup summary table on each national team article into a template, and I don't think he's done a great job of it.

Compare his template: {{Ecuador FIFA World Cup record}}

With the previous version:

Year Round Pos Pld W D L GF GA
1930 to 1938 Did not enter
1950 Withdrew
1954 to 1958 Did not enter
1962 to 1998 Did not qualify
2002 Round 1 24 3 1 0 2 2 4
2006 Round of 16 12 4 2 0 2 5 4
2010 Did not qualify
Total 2/19 12 7 3 0 4 7 8

Why do I think the template is a backwards step?

  • it is enormously wasteful of space,
  • causes multiple breaches of MOS:FLAG,
  • contains ungrammatical capitalisation,
  • suggests that teams can meaningfully be said to have a record in an event that are still more than 10 years away
  • the asterisk by the D in the header is unexplained,
  • loses the qualification data was incorporated into the table in many nft articles.

So what to do about it? Kevin McE (talk) 18:19, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Reverting them all back to how they were before looks good here. Just one question: all of the articles in Category:Countries at the FIFA World Cup use them in their otherwise similar tables. Should these go as well? Alzarian16 (talk) 18:25, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

My template looks better because there is a lot of inconsistency with the articles and they look better than the old ones.Posted by Mr Hall of England at 20:39, December 31, 2010

World Cup results sections are inconsistent because different teams have very different records. A degree of consistency can be acheived while conforming to the principles in the pre-existent Ecuador example that I quoted. I understand that considerable time was spent on these templates: I would recommend running a proposal past the relevant project to check whether it is worth spending the time on in future. Kevin McE (talk) 21:01, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
The new one looks awful for all the reasons Kevin McE stated. Revert on sight. --JonBroxton (talk) 20:41, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
I don't like the new template, as all the blank years (for many teams) results in it taking up too much space. Eldumpo (talk) 10:48, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Concur with above comments. It's a backward, probably even unnecessary, move. Brad78 (talk) 10:50, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
I also dislike it for the reasons already stated by others. I am also mystified as to why templates are being used when they will only ever be used on one article. I sense an imminent TfD. Oldelpaso (talk) 12:02, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
The original layout is far more clear and concise. I too cannot see a reason for a template which will be used on only a single page. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 10:03, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Citing FIFA.com

I want to cite the website FIFA.com to show that it includes fixtures for the 2011 Nile Basin Tournament. How can it be done? The page that contains the information on the site uses a query but the url does not not change despite the content changing due to a script. TheBigJagielka (talk) 01:42, 4 January 2011 (UTC) This is the url for all fixtures. TheBigJagielka (talk) 01:52, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you mean. What's more, the fixture list on FIFA.com only marks these matches as friendlies rather than a tournament. Why not just use the Soccerway page link at the bottom of the article instead? Bettia (talk) 09:39, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Youth career in Infobox

Is there a limit on the number of rows in the youth career section of the football infobox 2 ? I'm trying to add the youth career of a player who's been through 7 youth clubs but only the first 5 are showing. I've seen a work around on here but I can't find it right now. Otherwise, is there a specific approach to which clubs should be listed ? More recent, more notable ones ? TonyStarks (talk) 10:05, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

We should not be trying to include parks teams who someone was with aged 8. IMHO, relevant youth teams are those with a professional coaching set up, or at least those requiring a major commitment from the child and family, not just a training kick around on Saturday morning and a match on Sunday. If the youth team is not a section of a professional set-up, there should be extraordinary reason to include it, although some boys' teams with a strong history of producing professional players (Senrab F.C. leaps to mind) might be worth a mention. Kevin McE (talk) 10:49, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
What if he's played in the youth ranks of 7 professional clubs? :D TonyStarks (talk) 10:54, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
has_asked_afore...see_Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football/Archive_50#Help.21.21...refer_Nuno Santos (footballer born 1980)_for_a_'ethod..dirty;tho_works._(sorry;lost_lower_row_of_key'oard)!--ClubOranjeT 11:05, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

2014 FIFA World Cup venue images

User:Δ is claiming that non-free content polcies, specifically numbers 1 and 8, preclude the use of the non-free venue images in 2014 FIFA World Cup. I think the issue is that the images are not free. I have provided fair use rationale for the images that the editor removed and then restored the images. Comments? Suggestions? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:18, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Your usage of the images fails WP:NFCC#8. I am in the process of removing the images, if you re-insert them against policy you will be blocked for violating the non-free content policies. ΔT The only constant 00:21, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Not only does using the non-free images fails WP:NFCC#8, it also fails WP:NFCC#1 because it is possible for anyone to take a photo of any of those stadia and therefore the images are replaceable; also see WP:NFLISTS as this part of the article is effectively a list. Non-free galleries are deprecated at Wikipedia - do not replace them. However, I notice there appears to be a Brazilian press agency which releases its photos via Creative Commons (there are some examples on the World Cup 2014 page) and it is very likely that there are some photos of the stadia at their website or obtainable by contacting them. Black Kite (t) (c) 00:38, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Concur with Δ and Black_Kite. There is absolutely no reason that would comply with WP:NFCC policy that these images should be in the Venues table. Δ was correct for removing them. See also WP:NFG regarding the use of non-free images in tables. This usage Walter proposes just isn't the way we handle non-free content here. --Hammersoft (talk) 00:52, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Δ, please don't threaten Walter Görlitz with blocking - educate as to why the images are unacceptable (which I agree they are) so that he may learn for future edits. Regards, GiantSnowman 00:55, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
I've tried, and pointed out the relevant policies, when a user does not listen, escalation is needed. ΔT The only constant 00:57, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Free or not there is no need to show each location as it really does not add to the article. If one really has a need to see the venue they all seem to have their own article, which is linked - meaning all one would have to do is click on the link to find out more information on the venue itself - including images. As for the specifics of why use of a non-free image is not acceptable here it is because of a few reasons - one is most such images could be freely replaced, thusly failing NFCC 1 - No free equivalent. The second is Contextual significance - and as I have already stated, free or not, images in this section don't "significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic." Another possible failure to meet policy is NFCC 6 - Media-specific policy. In this case the Image use policy - Placement:Image galleries says, in part: Fair use images may almost never be included as part of a image gallery, as their status as being "fair use" depends on their proper use in the context of an article (as part of criticism or analysis). While the list of venues is not a gallery the addition of an image of each venue listed makes it appear to be one. Soundvisions1 (talk) 02:09, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't want to be a pain, but if anyone would care to take a look through and make any comments i'd be very apprecative. Its been up nearly ten days and only had one response, and im keen to push it to FL. Eddie6705 (talk) 18:10, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Input needed

There is a discussion here and below it about if FIFA.com can be considered a WP:RS. Please have a look Gnevin (talk) 21:30, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Squad template

What do you make of this: Template:Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. squad--EchetusXe 17:22, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I've reverted; these templates are for first-team members ONLY. GiantSnowman 17:29, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Sorry: what is the difficulty with that? By virtue of having played for the team, it is demonstarbly true that the player is, at least on occasion, a member of the squad, which is what these templates list. Kevin McE (talk) 07:44, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

2009 COSAFA U-20 Cup

Please could somebody help and track down results for this competition? TheBigJagielka (talk) 04:09, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I think RSSSF has all of the results here. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 04:49, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

fb template

I'm trying to create a fb template for Algeria's A local team (Algeria A' national football team) but I haven't been able to figure out how to do it. I took a look at the documentation here Template:Fb but that wasn't much help for me. The team is currently participating in the 2011 African Championship of Nations and the article uses the fb template for the A team and not the A' team (for all the teams in fact). Since Algeria has its own article for the A' team I figured the article should be using that one.

Can anyone help me in creating this? Thanks. TonyStarks (talk) 07:31, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

James Elliot/t(s)

Something I've asked before, but the answers produced just ended up confusing the situation more! Basically, are English football managers Jimmy Elliott and James Elliot one and the same - the former's career seems to end in 1934, and the latter's seems to start in 1935. And are one (or both) the same as Spurs and Brentford player Jimmy Elliott? My suspicion is that all three could be the same...GiantSnowman 16:26, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

What can be done is to merge Jimmy Elliott (footballer born 1891) with Jimmy Elliott (footballer) who are the same person.--Latouffedisco (talk) 11:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
And you will need to add James Elliot Donnelly's playing career details as shown in Joyce as per my reply to your original query. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 12:39, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
So two seperate people? GiantSnowman 14:24, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
As James Elliot Donnelly played for Blackburn in 1920-21 and Jimmy Elliott (footballer born 1891) was with Brentford that year, I think they are not the same person. Donelly joined Brentford in 1925. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 15:12, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Good point. And is JED's surname 'Elliot' or 'Donnelly'? - I've seen him called both...GiantSnowman 15:17, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
He is listed in Joyce under Donnelly. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 16:14, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
OK, I think having 'Eliot' in the article name is confusing matters more, I'll move it to James Donnelly (footballer). And if an admin can please merge Jimmy Elliott (footballer born 1891) into Jimmy Elliott (footballer), that'd be appreciated. Many thanks everyone, GiantSnowman 16:18, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
OK, I think the article on the person known as James Donnelly/James Elliot Donnelly is accurate, can somebody please take a look to make sure I've interpreted everything correctly? GiantSnowman 16:45, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Same with Jimmy Elliott - the two articles are now one. GiantSnowman 16:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
You added Fenerbahce manager to the wrong player/manager. I wouldn't add Turkish national team manager to any of these players. It's unreferenced. The rsssf list of managers is useless, there is no information on that site that links the manager to the Brentford players. That means you can also remove the Elliot middle name (it's completely unreferenced) Cattivi (talk) 23:05, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
The RSSSF list of Turkish national team managers says he was called James Elliot Donnelly. GiantSnowman 23:35, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Even when one of the Brentford players was called James Elliot Donnelly (I doubt that, but that's not important) you still need a reliable source that says "The Turkish national manager who previously played for X or managed team Y". Then I think it's reasonable to assume that they are the same. When you don't give such a reference you're only guessing. Even well known writers (Tony Matthews) like to do that, you're in good company, but it's not something everybody should do. To be honest the Brentford who's who , only mentions a coaching job in Sweden, not a specific club. Cattivi (talk) 00:34, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
OK, ignore ther 'Elliott' part of his name - a James Donnelly (player) is known to have been in Turkey in 1935; a James Donnelly (manager) is known to have been in Turkey in 1935. Are you saying this isn't the same man? GiantSnowman 13:36, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
The Fenerbahce manager was James E. Elliott (ex Tottenham, Brentford), the Turkish national team manager could be James Donnelly (can't find a reference for that) 62.194.188.112 (talk) 14:57, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

International notability question

I may have missed this when it was decided but the following from Wikipedia:Notability (sports) limits notability to those who have represented their country in competition. Why are friendly matches excluded?

Players, managers and referees who have represented their country in any officially sanctioned senior international competition (including the Olympics) are notable as they have achieved the status of participating at the highest level of football. The notability of these is accepted as they would have received significant coverage as outlined above in the general notability criteria.

Hack (talk) 09:41, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

They aren't.--EchetusXe 12:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Friendly matches and "officially sanctioned senior international competitions" are usually mutually exclusive. Somebody will go to town on football articles using that criteria. Hack (talk) 13:17, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Officially sanctioned international competition means FIFA "A" internationals - which includes friendlies (not all of them because some a "B" or "C" internationals). Jogurney (talk) 17:58, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Then why not just say "A" International and use the FIFA description?

An international “A” match is a match arranged between two Members of FIFA and for which both Members field their first representative team.
"3 International matches". FIFA Statutes (PDF). FIFA. August 2010. p. 58.

FIFA use phrases like international competitions to describe a specific sub-grouping of "A" International excluding friendlies eg in the section on player eligibility.Hack (talk) 01:05, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
That makes sense to me. Jogurney (talk) 15:03, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Aras Özbiliz

How do we list Aras Özbiliz (AFC Ajax)? He apparently was born in Turkey, raised in the Netherlands, and is an ethnic Armenian. He was previously listed on AFC Ajax as both Dutch and Turkish, but a user changed that to Armenia. I can't find any footballing affiliation, as far as I can tell he hasn't played for any national youth team yet. So what do we go by? Country of birth? It's safe to say that Armenia/Turkey is a sensitive issue, this might turn into an edit war. 83.84.195.88 (talk) 01:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

It's hard to say. Although born it Turkey, Ajax, and UEFA both list him as Dutch. I wouldn't list him as Armenian unless there is a source to verify he has decided to play for Armenia. I'm inclined to say Dutch, simply because that's the nationality listed in sources. Sir Sputnik (talk) 02:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
I've attempted to neutralize the issue for now. If forced I would probably go Dutch too, but a lazy source covering a Dutch competition will inevitably default to Dutch. For most players this isn't a real issue, hence we accept Dutch until something else comes along. But where it's an active matter of contention, we should simply leave it blank until there is something solid to go on. —WFC02:41, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
How about "Turkish-born Dutch footballer of Armenian heritage". LOL very long, but should (probably not) temporarily appease the warring editors until it can be determined if he will represent Turkey or Armenia, then can simply be shortened to just "Turkish footballer" or "Armenian footballer". — Joao10Siamun (talk) 04:56, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Only if there is verifiable evidence that this is the case though: we cannot say that someone is "of Armenian heritage" simply by virtue of his surname. Can you imagine how many players would suddenly be "of Scottish origin" if every surname with a Mac prefix was edited on that principle? Kevin McE (talk) 18:18, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm generally in favour of denoting nationality provided that it's done properly (i.e. provided that we're not asserting something to be a fact when we aren't confident ourselves). Without anything concrete, what is wrong with "professional footballer"? —WFC06:00, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Well, I tried. If I thought that we had admins competent enough not to block me for 3RR, I'd try harder. But best to stay on the safe side. Call him a citizen of Earth and be done with it, I say. —WFC06:30, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Same user has also edited Denis Tumasyan, Russian, ethnic Armenian, born in the SSR Ukraine, no caps for any national team. 83.84.195.88 (talk) 11:49, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I live in the Netherlands, and all the media around refer to Özbiliz as Dutch. Ajax website does not list nationalities, but Eredivisie's does and describes him as Dutch indeed: [16], as Voetbal International does, he grew up in the Netherlands and has always played in this country. So, he should be named as Dutch, regardless of what a single user is trying to WP:POINT. --Angelo (talk) 13:04, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Hi everyone. I had a number of similar cases, and from my experience, I can tell you that the best way to have the article as stable as possible is the way Joao10Siamun proposed. I know simply "footballer" would be enough, but then we´ll allways have a number of IP´s every day adding ("Templetonian"... then "Mars-born"... then "Mars-born Templetonian of Cosmic origin", then, an IP will delete all and put "Cosmic player", then the other IP´s will revert him, and... and ...) see the point? FkpCascais (talk) 17:25, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

So now we've got three users who have listed Özbiliz as Armenian:

I'm starting to suspect meatpuppetry. 83.84.195.88 (talk) 02:14, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I've semi-protected the article. If you use a GeoIP tool, you will discover that all the three IPs above are based in California, and the first two actually belong to the same IP range, so it's quite possible they all refer to the same user, but making edits from different places. --Angelo (talk) 08:48, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Request for page protection

Turkish fans are hardcore, we all know that. Apparently Mauro Formica is close to becoming a new Galatasaray player, and his article is suffering from excessive vandalism/premature confirmations. Could someone semi-protect please? Fache (talk) 19:02, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Duggie Lochhead

Hi! Can anyone please confirm former Norwich City manager Duggie Lochhead coached Galatasaray S.K. from 1950 to 1952, as I suspect ? It also looks like he played for Walsall F.C. coming from St. Johnstone F.C..[17] Cheers.--Latouffedisco (talk) 10:54, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, they are the same person born Partick (Glasgow) 16-12-1904 died in Leeds 29-8-1968 coached in Holland (Heracles) dec 1953-1956 source Canary Citizensby John Eastwood Mike Davage Cattivi (talk) 12:35, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
See also Milliyet 22-10-1950 : Mr Lockhead, St Lohnstone (spelling errors as usual) [

http://gazetearsivi.milliyet.com.tr/Ara.aspx?araKelime=lockhead&isAdv=false] Cattivi (talk) 14:07, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!!!Article improved with infobox and new datas, thanks to Cattivi. Cheers.--Latouffedisco (talk) 14:39, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Also had a spell at Norwich as a player: [18]. J Mo 101 (talk) 17:58, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Information added to the article, thanks . If anyone has his career stats, that would be perfect.Cheers.--Latouffedisco (talk) 18:52, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone know if Liam Palmer is the son of Carlton Palmer? There is a passing resemblance (see[19] and [20]) Oddly the youngster appears to be qualified to play for Scotland whereas Carlton was an England player. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 12:02, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

He probably has a mother as well, who could be Scottish. Worksop (Liam's birthplace) is a plausible commuter zone for Sheffield (Carlton's place of work in 1991), but that is far from probative. Kevin McE (talk) 12:21, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
I know message boards are not reliable sources, but this one [21] has someone posting that knows him and says he isn't Carlton's son, but some others say that he is. Swaddon1903 (talk) 12:25, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
This article gives a bit of family background (Scottish granny and some Jamaican heritage) and doesn't mention Carlton. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 12:28, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Surely some source will have mentioned it if he is a relative?--EchetusXe 16:45, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Both people are black; both are footballers; both are called Palmer. This does not make them related, though it certainly does raise some suspicions. If nobody has mentioned it yet, then I doubt they are father/son or uncle/nephew or whatever. GiantSnowman 17:05, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Araz Abdullayev

This one is complicated. Araz Abdullayev has or hasn't signed for Everton depending on the source. Everton say he's only training with the club as he doesn't have a work permit.[22]. Whilst Azerbajani sources say he has signed for Everton from January 1st and he's loaned to Neftchi Flavinyo with the player himself saying he's proud to be transferred to a Premier League club. [23] and [24].

It wouldn't surprise me if Everton have signed him, as they signed Anderson Silva de França without a work permit. What is the consensus here, is he Everton player on loan or still belong to Neftchi Flavinyo in the eyes of Wikipedia? TheBigJagielka (talk) 15:16, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I personally think should always go with what the club's official website says. That's what I do. Until the club confirms it, the news isn't official. According to Everton, the club only have a first option agreement with Neftchi Flavinyo similar to what Manchester United have with Giuseppe Rossi. The Everton source even debunks the Azerbaijani reports. — Joao10Siamun (talk) 16:36, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Laos

I suspect the article Laos national football team has been vandalised. I find it hard to believe that a team ranked 169th on the FIFA ranking has players from Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique de Marseille. These players are not listed anywhere, as are more foreign-based players of Laos. 83.84.195.88 (talk) 01:54, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

This appears to be common to more Asian national teams. How about this image, allegedly of the national kit of the Maldives. Looks like it's been made with MS Paint. 83.84.195.88 (talk) 01:56, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
I have removed the players with French teams for now after checking the recent page history; however, it would be good if someone with more knowledge could check the current squad for factual correctness. Regarding the file, I have no idea if this is copyright violation or not, but it might not be needed on the Maldives national football team article anyway since there already are minikits which should satisfy the current standards. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 02:31, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing Laos. My concern about the image of the Maldives kit is not that it might be copyrighted, my concern is that it's a fake. 83.84.195.88 (talk) 02:38, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Youth international tournament templates

I believe consensus is that such templates aren't notable...? If so, does someone with a better knowledge of TfD want to take a look at {{England U21 Squad Euro 2002}}, {{England U21 Squad Euro 2007}} and {{England U21 Squad Euro 2009}}? GiantSnowman 16:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Personally I like the U21 templates. I wouldn't vote to remove them if requested. TheBigJagielka (talk) 17:44, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm not fussed either way, but we need a community agreement on the matter - if we say they are acceptable, then what other tournament templates are allowed as well? GiantSnowman 17:49, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
I think AFC, CAF, UEFA, CONCACAF and COMNBEBOL organised tournaments should be allowed. ;) TheBigJagielka (talk) 18:28, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
So just about everything then...? GiantSnowman 18:46, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Maybe we should allow a vast array of templates for tournaments, but only for senior ones, in my opinion. I feel the youth career of any player is an "crawl before you can walk" approach, important in a player's development, but a bit in "the shadow", like the infoboxes (which do not contain stats, and sometimes not even years, as they are not available) and some storylines. Happy weekend all! - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 18:37, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
One thing to consider is that if we allow youth templates, will there be a cut-off point? Or will we see under-13 international tournament templates getting made? It's a slippery slope...GiantSnowman 18:46, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
That would be seen as Euro-centric and biased. GiantSnowman 20:18, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Euro-centric? FIFA anyone? But thanks for that tip mate, that allows me to throw all the U-20 international competitions throughout the world "into the mix". Thanks. - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 20:22, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, I'd be happy with the Under-21/20 tournaments organised by AFC, CAF, UEFA, CONCACAF and COMNBEBOL as the cut-off point. GiantSnowman 20:25, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
Prior concensus was that youth tournaments need not have squad navigation box templates. The templates will normally have lots of redlinks which encourages the creation of many non-notable footballer biographies since few youth players will initially meet our notability standards. I don't think there is a good reason to change the concensus, but I'm open to discussion. Jogurney (talk) 21:22, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree. A tournament that would not confer notability for its participants probably should not have a template, because there is no assumption that all members merit an article. Kevin McE (talk) 22:31, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
While most of these templates would probably just be red/blacklinks, there are definitely some that wouldn't. What I would suggest is to factor usefulness into notability, i.e. if a squad has enough bluelinks to be useful as template, then why not create one? Sir Sputnik (talk) 00:31, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
That has always been my opinion. If a Conference National/North/South team has five to eight bluelinked players, surely a navbox serves a purpose. On the other hand, there's no point in having a navbox for the under-20 Tahiti world cup squad for "fairness", unless several of them happen to do something notable. —WFC04:10, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
But we can all anticipate insistence that if England U21s in the hypothetical 2013 Euro U21s championship has a template, then the Finnish U21 team that reaches the same tournament merits the same. That is why I think the "ruling" should be on the basis of the level of tournament, not the individual teams in each tournament. Kevin McE (talk) 09:44, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
Navboxes are very different to articles though. If we created articles on the individual teams for the tournament, England and Finland would merit the same coverage, as they are competing at the same level. If on the other hand only one or two of the Finnish players ever went on to pass this crock of shit, the Finnish template wouldn't be a Navbox. At best, it would be a decorative banner. —WFC10:14, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
I think we agree. The English template at that tournament would be worthwhile, the Finnish one would not. But any argument against the existence of the Finnish template/navbox would be undermined by the existence of an English one: WP:OTHERSTUFF would probably not be considered strong enough to calm the ire of those sympathetic to the cause of the Scandanavians. So which is the lesser evil: lack of an England navbox for that tournament, or the presence of a functionless Finnish one? Kevin McE (talk) 12:37, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

From my experience, if you allow one of them (English for exemple) you will inevitably have a bunch of fans from all over the world making ones for their youth squad as well. FkpCascais (talk) 05:07, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that would be much of a factor. In most countries that qualify for the tournaments we're talking about, players go on to have pro careers nowadays. Including Finland. I find it hard to believe that someone would create a Tahiti template in good faith, without at some point realising just how useless said template would be. —WFC10:18, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
So is it OK to produce a template full of red/black links now, on the assumption that they will become blue over the next few years? Kevin McE (talk) 11:32, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
No. But by the time a good faith user realises that a player they're working on could have one of these templates but doesn't, the balance of probability is that the template itself will be worthwhile. I bet that even at the start of last season, around half of those Finnish players had articles. Your argument is that this causes too many potential problems to be workable. Aside from the obvious (that nothing is less workable than tens of thousands of living people who once made a pro appearance before fading into obscurity having articles), mine is that you will only be proven correct if someone goes out of their way to create knowingly useless templates en-masse. —WFC11:44, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Template:West Germany Squad 1980 Mundialito has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 17:01, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Oddity

Just found out that there seems to be one category of players that reads "AEL FC players" and another that reads "AEL Limassol players". Pardon my ignorance, but aren't both the one and the same club?

Also, could anyone enlighten me on why, EVERYTIME i write, with my anon account, the word "sacked" (or "fired"), to convey info on dismissed managers, i am accused of vandalism in the edit summary? Quite bizarre, to say the least...Kind regards, happy week! - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 23:21, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Does one category maybe refer to AEL 1964 FC? If so, it will need renaming...
Also, who is accusing you of vandalism? GiantSnowman 23:31, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Haha, no I meant that one category is meant for the Greek team, one is meant for the Cypriot team, and over time editors have got them mixed up...
As for the accusations of vandalism I'll have a look for you and see what's happened. GiantSnowman 23:42, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Haha, no problems! As for those two articles, are you referring to the message of "Tag: possible BLP issue or vandalism" that comes up? I think those are automated messages, have a look at Special:Tags as for why you have been the 'target'. Regards, GiantSnowman 23:50, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I believe the AEL FC players and AEL Limassol players categories are both for the Cypriot club. AEL 1964 FC's players category is Larissa F.C. players (the club was also at Larissa F.C. until recently). I'm not sure which category/club naming is best, but Larissa F.C. and AEL Limassol F.C. would be my preference for the clubs/categories. Jogurney (talk) 00:07, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
The category names should match the club names; based on current article locations, we should have categories at Category:AEL 1964 FC players and Category:AEL Limassol players. GiantSnowman 00:40, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I think the better choice is to move AEL 1964 FC back to Larissa F.C., but perhaps we should have a discussion on the article's talk page? Jogurney (talk) 02:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Quick question

Following a recently exposed question (Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football#International_notability_question) just to clarify, if a player has played a friendly for an A national team, he pases notability? FkpCascais (talk) 05:17, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I read NSPORTS as considering people who played in FIFA "A" internationals as notable. Jogurney (talk) 07:02, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
How exciting. I'm brushing up on my knowledge of The Other Final as we speak. —WFC08:00, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Very funny. Jogurney (talk) 16:38, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
With respect, you're the one asserting that all 22 starters plus substitutes are notable! —WFC03:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
OK, so I will conclude that all players with caps for senior FIFA national teams pass notability, even if the ones from WFC exemple, althought, those are really not encouraged to be created as article... :) FkpCascais (talk) 07:57, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. There's not much point in starting an article about an amateur footballer who played in one "A" international for Monserrat. However, if there are reliable sources which can be used to write a decent article, I wouldn't complain. Jogurney (talk) 21:43, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Time to stop

About Festus Agu, i'll ask it AGAIN, last time i brought this forth, received ZERO input, have no idea why...

A third account has been created (almost 99% sure it's the same "user"), proceeding to insert unreferenced stuff in the player's article. The last account "raised the bar", removing the reference that existed. I have browsed the web extensively, and found NOTHING about the stuff that keeps being added to the page - what on earth is this (http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Festus_Agu&diff=327928434&oldid=327927993 - especially this account), this (http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Festus_Agu&diff=385764088&oldid=385763953) and this (http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Festus_Agu&diff=406330353&oldid=406329501)?!?

Does anyone have any info on this obscure Nigerian player (only time he had any relevant impact was in Germany's third level), especially after his playing career? If not, i think maybe this page should be protected for a few months...Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 02:43, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I couldn't find anything which confirms the Nigerian league statistics so I think they should be removed. It's odd to list anything more than he played in Nigeria for NITEL Vasco da Gama and Enugu Rangers - there is nothing I can find to show more about his experiences in the Nigerian league. He certainly joined Bolivar and then there is sufficient sources to verify his career in Spain and Germany. Jogurney (talk) 03:06, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Again, i am either ignored or misunderstood. Jogurney, i did not even pay attention to the stats (most must be truth, he played several years in Germany and Spain, and the links are there), i am talking about the (possible, more than possible) vandalization of his page, over and over again (please see the diffs i provided)! If no one can attest to that, measures must be taken, i think - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 03:17, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Jesus Christ! Reading the article´s revision history is quite an event... :)
P.S.: Despite lack of sources, it doesn´t necessarily needs to be untrouth, I´m talking about the early career inserted by those redlink user(s). It would be strange to have people loosing time to made up such a detail football story... However, it also doesn´t mean that it isn´t (a joke). FkpCascais (talk) 08:15, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
P.S.2:Regarding your diffs, I beleave the edits are quite tipical and usual among unnexperinced editors, as the case here seems to be. FkpCascais (talk) 08:17, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
::The only diff that is a problem is the first because of the unnecessary bold, POV terms, and un-sourced material. However, it could be easily copy-edited by an experience editor as it provides more detail, albeit not sourced, on his career than the current revision. The others seem to indicate that the user(s) are simply new; one having trouble with the caps and goals and the other fixing grammar, but in the process removing a reference. — Joao10Siamun (talk) 08:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I apologize. Looking at the diffs provided, I'm not sure those were intentional vandalism as much as a new user who doesn't understand how to made edits properly (but it's no less frustrating when new editors remove references and other content). The detail about his early playing career was hyperbolic at best and I don't think we can keep it when it's totally unverifiable. Jogurney (talk) 14:48, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
  • No need for apologies Jog ;) I am glad "the force" is reaching a consensus on the matter! Regarding Joao's input, yes most revisions contain more info than the current one, but are they verifiable? No! At least at this point...I prefer a short but sourced storyline to this load. --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:17, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Yeap. FkpCascais (talk) 16:42, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

A situation has arisen between two users, and now i will act as: 1 - their mediator; 2 - someone who also wants to learn more about the (football)ways of WP...

This player never appeared for FC Barcelona's first team, in La Liga that is, spending three seasons with FC Barcelona B. One of the users inserts "FC Barcelona" in his box (with 0 games and goals), the other - i agree with this one - removes it, on the grounds it is unnecessary.

I also feel that his connection to the main squad should only be referred to in storyline and categories (Category:FC Barcelona footballers), but not in box. Also, the user that agrees with having "FC Barcelona" in box has been providing me with examples of other players (Steve Slade, Mickael Buscher), but i feel the "situation" with the B-clubs in Spain (they also compete in the professional level, but some players do not have professional contracts) surely have another approach. Or am i DEAD wrong :)? Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:51, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

According to the article, in 2009/10, Assulin started in a Copa del Rey match for Barcelona in the October, and was called up to the first-team squad (and presumably given a squad number) in the December. That made him a Barcelona first-team player in that season, whether he played in La Liga or not, so IMO that team should appear in the infobox. I'd agree the Buscher case isn't comparable, don't know enough about the situation with Slade, though I'd have thought he'd have to have some form of registration before turning out in the FLTrophy. Have you notified the editors concerned about this discussion? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:28, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Could someone knowledgeable take a look at this massive edit? I have no idea if it's correct or not, but it's a pretty big change from what was there previously. Thanks. Corvus cornixtalk 20:17, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

It all looks fine to me - and was made by a highly respected member of this project. The previous version was pure fantasy. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 20:23, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
OK, thanks, like I said, I didn't have a clue.  :) Corvus cornixtalk 20:25, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
As a Plymouth Argyle supporter, I'm fairly sure I'd remember if he had scored 99 goals for us. God bless vandals. Argyle 4 Lifetalk 08:13, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Stub cateogry names - striker vs. forward

I have nominated the striker stub categories for renaming to "forward". Feel free to participate in Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion/Log/2011/January/12#National football striker stubs. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Service announcement: Fb r2 header has been moved to Fb r header

The header for templated football results boxes, Fb r2 header, has finally been moved to {{Fb r header}} after the old (deprecated) template has eventually been deleted. Please use the new syntax for now on. Any still existing redirects are planned to be fixed by a bot in the next couple of days. --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 09:22, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Opinions on a trio of Newcastle United match articles appreciated

What are the project members' opinions on each of these three articles? --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 12:05, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

The first two matches have potential but both need cleaning up and more sources; the third match seems to have received lots of coverage and so probably passes WP:GNG. Happy to be proved wrong though. GiantSnowman 15:42, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
The first one is a definite keep, since it frequently gets mentioned as one of the greatest ever cup upsets. The third article screams recentism, and I'm not convinced it will be notable in the long-term. The second one isn't so clear cut, and the article itself needs sourcing, but a quick Google search seems to suggest it has the "lasting significance" needed to satisfy our criteria.
So in short, keep #1 and #2, prod/afd #3. J Mo 101 (talk) 15:45, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
#1 is the benchmark FA Cup upset, discussed in written and broadcast media regularly, reasonably written but needs sourcing;
#2 might be notable, because of the Match of the Decade award thingy, but as all we have is one sentence of unsourced prose and a flag-strewn match template, it should be redirected to the appropriate Premier League season article, with no prejudice against re-creation as a proper article;
#3 might be notable in time, but it only happened 3 days ago, and the contents though well-sourced are basically routine reporting; assuming lasting significance would IMO be WP:CRYSTAL. Comparisons with #1 are inevitable because it was an FA Cup upset, #1 is the standard comparator for FA Cup upsets, and Newcastle were the victim in both cases. I'd merge it into the 2010-11 Stevenage season article. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:00, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
My 2p: 1 is definitely notable, 2 is possibly notable and worthy of AfD, 3 is probably not notable. But seeing this, I learned something - I had no idea Stevenage had been renamed. --Dweller (talk) 16:49, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Another 2p - yes 1 and 2. Notable, memorable and much shown and written about. 3 - was it so big a deal? Far too early to judge the impact of this match - to Afd.--Egghead06 (talk) 16:52, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
One is for keeps. I wouldn't vote either way in an afD for number two because it has that award yet does not seem to be that notable otherwise. It would be a shame to delete number three because it is well sourced and it also includes information on the first encounter giving it some sense of history. On the other hand pundits aren't even saying Pardew is 'under pressure', so how significant is the match really? Would probably be deleted on an afD.--EchetusXe 18:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
1 - definitely notable. 2 - dubious. Definitely needs more than it's got now. 3 - recentism. AfD. Black Kite (t) (c) 19:22, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Afd 3 now, per WP:NOT#NEWS. Brad78 (talk) 23:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I've prodded #3. Number 57 10:44, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

IP removed the PROD saying 'so what if shrewsbury beat everton 10 years ago? make a page on it. this is the first time that a team in the 4th tier as beaten a prem side by 2 clear goals, worth noting imo' (my emphasis) Is this right?--EchetusXe 20:50, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Even if the statement is right, it is not relevant. Upsets happen in cup competitions time and again. Take it to AfD. (at least that's my EUR 0.02) --Soccer-holicI hear voices in my head... 20:59, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Article idea: List of FA Cup giant-killings with inclusion criteria of top-flight clubs being knocked out by teams from the third tier or lower, or somesuch. Merge or redirect articles like #3 to it. Oldelpaso (talk) 21:16, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Said page was deleted. Brad78 (talk) 22:02, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Now at AfD. The IP is wrong. Bristol Rovers own 3-1 at Derby County in 2002, which is even more impressive.— Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

  • I've flip-flopped on this. Because match 3 is historic for one of the participants, I think it's notable. And therefore I think match 2 is the most dubious of the three. --Dweller (talk) 14:31, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

FIFA World Cup Qualifying

I was wandering if anybody could help me with these football articles?

I want to make them right before I put them on the respective football articles? Mr Hall of England (talk) 17:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I have the full totals but I want the qualifying campaigns from 1934-2010 please Mr Hall of England (talk) 17:37, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Flag use is a bit excessive, probably contravenes WP:MOSFLAG. A lot of the ones for nations that didn't compete for many years don't need rows for every competition they didn't enter. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 17:51, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

What about just doing the ones where the countries HAVE qualified? Mr Hall of England (talk) 17:56, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Are you suggesting an article on UEFA teams qualification record for World Cups etc? Or that one of these tables should be posted on each National Football Team article? There were discussed and thoroughly rejected recently when they were being posted on articles as templates. If the former, do we really need several dozen links on one article to the (for example) 1986 World Cup? If the latter, why do we need a link to the first 14 World Cups on Slovenia's article, when they didn't exist as a team for any of them, or a long list of flags of places that the Wales team didn't go to?
Apart from the MOSFLAG issue, there is capitalisation that is, to say the least, unstandard, and there is no merit in placing future events in the records section of an article. Kevin McE (talk) 23:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Is it just me or are the above articles re-inventing the wheel but in a very bad way. There's nothing wrong with the current tables on the respective entries. Brad78 (talk) 00:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Well some article do not have qualifying records and some do and I think all the nations I have got in my records they should all be the same. Mr Hall of England (talk) 10:54, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

A previous discussion shows that the vague consensus is that the existing format is preferable to this new one, so maybe it'd be best to make all the articles the same using that layout? Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 11:24, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Not sure about the 'vague consensus', it was pretty clear cut. Eldumpo (talk) 10:30, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The article Sandy Mutch has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

A search for references failed to find published (gBook) support for this subject winning the FA Cup, as this is the primary claim to notablity the article fails WP:V and WP:N

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 16:20, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I've found sources to confirm his final appearances and removed the PROD. Bettia (talk) 16:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
This article should never have been prodded in the first place - he played over 300 matches in top-flight football and is clearly notable. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 17:19, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
How come occasional prods appear on here?--EchetusXe 20:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Because apparently the above editor checks notability on the grounds of sources they can find. When they cannot find any, they prod the article. Imho, this is a very weird way of doing things - especially when knowledge of notability criteria is sketchy (as it apparently is in this case) - as it risks an admin deleting an article if we don't stir quickly enough to assert notability. Still, posting them here is better than just prodding them so only people who watch for those things stumble upon them. (At least that is what I gathered from reading the above user's talk page. Madcynic (talk) 23:20, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Hopefully admins will realize that an unsourced notability claim is an insufficient ground for deletion (unless someone has actually looked carefully for sources). Jogurney (talk) 00:20, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Well if you think that's bad, FK Proleter Zrenjanin was nominated for speedy deletion yesterday on the basis of the page being "spam"! There does seem to be some bad tagging going on. Bettia (talk) 10:50, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

An article was deleted but I supose he pases notability

An article Andrés Cabrero has been deleted, but as he played for Puerto Rico national football team I supose that he passes notability then. Resumingly, am I right? And, if so, is it possible to restore the article? FkpCascais (talk) 12:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Yep, playing for Puerto Rico is enough to meet WP:NFOOTBALL, an admin will be able to restore the article for you. GiantSnowman 14:09, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Like I said, there's some really bad CSD tagging going on. The text may have been a mess but there's no way that was spam (G11) or vandalism (G3). I'll restore it now. Bettia (talk) 14:12, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
I've overhauled the article, removed all the crap and added an infobox and some references. GiantSnowman 14:31, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
Many, many thanks. I beleave it was easier to restore the article that make a new one. Thanks again to both. FkpCascais (talk) 16:24, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Category:Brigend Town F.C. players

Resolved
 – Thanks to Oldelpaso! GiantSnowman 20:19, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not quite with it today and I've made a bit of a boo-boo, can an admin please delete Category:Brigend Town F.C. players, as its correct spelling should be Category:Bridgend Town F.C. players Many thanks, GiantSnowman 16:40, 13 January 2011 (UTC)