Talk:2006 FIFA World Cup

Archives
December 2005 – March 2006 April 2006 – 9 June 2006 10 June 2006 – 16 June 2006 17 June 2006 – 23 June 2006

Massive Thanks and Request for Award (what and to who?)

Brilliant work on a fantastic set of articles! Well presented, always updated. So much voluntary work by so many people. A showcase for Wikipedia's collaborative methods. Awesome! --Dumbo1 23:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Shortening group section

I just wanted to mention this here before I start doing it - the detail of the matches is to be moved to the 2006 FIFA World Cup - Group A etc. pages, with only result summaries here. The group sections will look like this:

Group A

Main article: 2006 FIFA World Cup - Group A

Team	Pts	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD
Template:GERf	9	3	3	0	0	8	2	+6
Template:ECUf	6	3	2	0	1	5	3	+2
Template:POLf	3	3	1	0	2	2	4	−2
Template:CRCf	0	3	0	0	3	3	9	−6

Date	Teams
June 9	GER 4-2 CRC
June 9	POL 4-2 ECU
June 14	GER 1-0 POL
June 15	ECU 3-0 CRC
June 20	ECU 3-0 GER
June 20	CRC 3-0 POL

This was discussed at Talk:2006 FIFA World Cup/Archive 4#Sandbox for redesigned Group section (post first round) with virtually no opposition. (Note: I have made VERY minor layout changes to the example shown there.) -- Chuq 05:27, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, the vote was 4-2 in favor of changing it. I wouldn't call that "virtually no opposition," though. Ian Manka Talk to me! 05:52, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

There were a few more positive votes *above* the sample Group A table on other talk page ;) Anyway, I have created a template Template:FWCMatchSummaryLine to make it easier, you can see it in action at User:Chuq/Sandbox/Group. -- Chuq 06:14, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

You may add my against vote to that tally. _└ ^VodkaJazz / _talk ^┐ 11:53, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

It isn't so much a tally of yes vs no, it is more of a discussion. What do you think could improve the design? -- Chuq

Personally, I think the above set-up needs to be used on the Groups pages as well. You could start by using it there, and then seeing if people like it enough to use it here. At the moment, when you load a page, say for Group A, you have to scroll a long way down to see the results, and they are not all grouped together. Similarly, for the current World Cup article, you have to scroll a long way down to get to the "Round of 16". I'll add a link in the introduction. Carcharoth 12:02, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

PS. I'd also add times to the date column. Carcharoth 12:03, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

The intention is to move the current detailed match reports (ie. the grey shaded boxes below each points table) to the top of each Group article (under the points table as it is here), and the main article only has the group table and the summaries (as seen on User:Chuq/Sandbox/Group). There isn't much point duplicating the tables on both. An advantage of this is that as the group sections on the main article will be shorter, you won't need to scroll down as far to reach the "Round of 16" games. -- Chuq 12:49, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I like your layout, but the argument about scrolling down doesn't really hold water. You should really either provide a link in the introduction (which I have done) or click on the link from the Table of Contents. Also, be careful about saying that putting the table on both pages is pointless. You don't want to force people to click back and forth between articles to see the table. I would say that both pages need the table, but only the table and results should be on the main article page. Remember that the groups and group articles are daughter articles of this article, and the relevant sections here that link to those articles need to summarise those articles, not just link to them. Then people have the choice to either read the summary, or click through to the more detailed article. If you don't provide the table, you are forcing people to click through to another article. Remember that this article should, eventually, be a one-stop place for people to read about this World Cup. The daughter articles should only expand on stuff mentioned here. More distant articles should be accessed through a navbox, like the one at the bottom at the moment (though hopefully that will be moved up to the top of the article after the tournament has finished). Carcharoth 13:06, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

If we do change the main World Cup page not to include all matches (and I agree we should), maybe we could adapt your format to look like the Greek Wikipedia's. I think their layout is very aesthetically pleasing, and the smaller font reduces the vertical space they take up - and I think the different shadings add something as well.--Moszczynski 14:24, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

you may also count me against changing the current layout. The Greek page that was linked in my opinion looks too much like a statistics box. I like the current lay out, it's consistent across the board with the other World Cup articles, adding or changing the layout won't add anything to the article. Then there's the theory of leaving well enough alone, the article as is serves its purpose very well and there's no need to continuously tweak it just because we can. Batman2005 17:03, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I vote for the new layout. Not many are interested after a while about the points scored, goals for and goals against. Proposed layout gives brief information and if user wants more, it is always available separate article.

One more point also that, can we remove the group match details from this article? Article size is really huge and it slows down the browser very much.

24.5.19.13 17:38, 24 June 2006 (UTC) Santhosh.

I am for the new layout. Some people just want to be able to open the page and look at the scores, and click on links if detailed match info is needed. ChaChaFut 18:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that the above layout should feature on the main page (in place of the detailed match info) and the group pages (in addition to the detailed match info). I have a layout suggestion though: move the right-hand box down so that the "Date" and "Teams" headings are horizontally in line with the "Team", "Pts", "Pld", etc., headings of the left-hand box. I'd also shift the right-hand box a little more to the right. Otherwise, I think it looks great. -- Hux 18:57, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Um....its my understanding and by looking at the page i'm correct, that as is...you CAN open the page and look at scores, then if you want you can click on a link and find more detailed match info. Batman2005 21:22, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Round of 16

I mentioned this earlier - but I don't think I've ever heard the term "Round of 16" before. The other night Gary Lineker on the BBC coverage said something like - "So France are now through to what the American's annoyingly call the 'Round of 16'." - and in The Guardian on Thursday, Nicky Campbell wrote "CNN is ever-present in German hotels and guest houses and it is terrible. Most galling are its British journalists who adhere to company policy, spewing out guff like "a one to nothing victory", "the opening half", and "scoreless tie". And, worst of all - "the round of 16". I don't care what anyone else says, I yearn for Motty". [1]Jooler 08:59, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree - no offence to any Americans reading this, but why should we take a name from them, when they think football is a game played with hands. Simply call it the second round.--Tivedshambo (talk) 09:42, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Stylistically, I agree too. Unfortunately, FIFA calls it this [2], and it is their tournament. For the same reason, "quarter-final" and "semi-final" are the preferred spellings here. Americans seem to prefer to omit the hyphen but clearly we should be guided by how FIFA writes. HTH --Guinnog 10:02, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

FIFA's international nature means that they have a habit of mangling the English language. It's their tournament, but it's our encyclopaedia. What they call simulation, we have at diving (football). I'm just wondering if "Round of 16" was used before this tournament, or whether it's got something to do with the current sponsors. I've tried to look up FIFA's pages on the Internet Archive for 2002 but with no luck. Jooler 10:19, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I seem to recall the Round of 16 being so-called since 1986 when it was introduced to the tournament. Certainly the relevant Wikipedia articles seem to reflect this useage. --Guinnog 10:50, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

My understanding, probably wrong, is that the terminology is "first stage" for the group stage, which has three rounds of matches. Then there is the "second stage" or knock-out stage, where losing teams are automatically knocked out of the tournament. This second stage has four rounds: the Round of 16 is the first round of the second stage; the Quarter-Finals is the second round of the second stage, etc. So there are 7 rounds in total at the finals of the World Cup (preceded by various qualification and play-off competitions), but divided between 2 stages. Dunno what you would call the third-fourth play-off. Pointless? :-) Carcharoth 11:48, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

PS. I forgot to mention that this use of second and first stage, and second round of the first stage and second round of the second stage, means that calling the Round of 16 the "second round" could be confusing. Similarly for calling the group stage the "first round", as it is technically a series of round-robin rounds, as opposed to a knock-out round. This might explain the need to avoid "2nd round" terminology (though I am as guilty as anyone of calling the "Last 16/Round of 16" the second round). Carcharoth 11:51, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

The excel sheet of the fantasy football competition of FIFA/Yahoo! shows Round of 16 too though. Eighth-finals would be the British equivalent i guess, but I'm not sure this point deserves all this discussion. _└ ^VodkaJazz / _talk ^┐ 11:57, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

"Eighth-finals would be the British equivalent" - no. Second round or last 16, as per BBC website Jooler 12:43, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I feel that "Round of 16" is fine. It lets us know how many teams are in this round... just like in quarterfinals we have 8 teams, semifinals we have 4 teams, etc. Kiwi8 12:24, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

But it's just not what I or proobably most people who have followed the World Cup over the years are used to. We don't say "round of 8" or "round of 4" and I don't recall "round of 16" being used either. Jooler 12:45, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I think "Last 16" is a fairly common expression. It is certainly the one that I use. but the important thing is not to argue over which we should use, but to consistently use one of these terms and to mention and explain ALL the terms. Carcharoth 12:58, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Who gives a shit what its called? Honestly there are probably more important issues to deal with other than "Round of 16," "Last 16," "Second Round," etc. Look at the FIFA page, see what they call it and call it that. Goodness, its not that difficult to figure out. Batman2005 17:06, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Obviously the people discussing this topic give a shit, sir. And if you bothered to read the discussion, you would see it is not that easy either. I support Carcharoth's views of mentioning the other terms. PHF 17:28, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

We don't say "round of 8" or "round of 4" because they already have special names (quarterfinals and semifinals respectively). Kiwi8 18:51, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, PHF, I did read the entire conversation, and easily came to the decision that calling it whatever FIFA calls it would probably be the best choice, since you know...it is the FIFA World Cup...perhaps they should be allowed to call it whatever they want. If you guys wanna disagree and call it something else just because some writers or commentators call it something else in other countries, then start the Wikipedia World Cup and ya'll can argue about what to call it. Until then, just look at the damn FIFA webpage, figure out what they call it and get on with it. Again, not difficult, too many people here try to over complicate the pages when simply looking at this page [3] shows that FIFA calls it the Round of 16. WOW, MY GOD THAT WAS HARD. Seem the "American's annoyingly calling it the 'Round of 16" might just be doing so because FIFA also calls it that. Hmmm? Batman2005 21:13, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I was quoting Gary Lineker. As I said I don't think I've ever heard the term used before, it's certainly not common in the UK and I still wonder whether it was used before, but can't find the right pages on the Internet Archive. Jooler 22:19, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Useless comment of the day: here in Argentina and all the spanish speaking countries it's "octavos de final" (literally "eighth finals", as "cuartos de final" are "quarter finals") and there is no official mentioning of this at FIFA. But it's "octavos de final", no matter what, since "second round" was the name given to the second league played before the world cup turned to be a league+tournament, in 1986. --Yago Stecher 22:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we're looking at different pages, but if you go here you'll see that FIFA does call it "octavos de final". --Deville (Talk) 22:14, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I have to say that I'm a bit confused as to why we are having such a discussion. If FIFA calls it "Round of 16", why would we do otherwise? --Deville (Talk) 22:15, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't like the term, but I looked up the FIFA site after I posted my comment above, and realised that it was the official name. Therefore this should be the title Wikipedia uses. --Tivedshambo (talk) 22:20, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Batman2005 that we should call it the Round of 16, like FIFA do. Batman, do you agree that there should be a footnote mentioning the other names for this round? And talking about commentators being annoying, the BBC commentators made an annoying error tonight. They mistakenly thought that Torrado (for Mexico) was mistakenly booked for a foul made by Castro a few moments previously. It was obvious that the referee had booked Torrado for kicking the ball away, not for the foul. The commentators then made a big thing out of it, saying three or four times that the card would be rescinded, and that (later in the game when Castro got booked) that it would have been a red if the earlier "mistake" hadn't happened, and saying that Mexico would "quite rightly complain". I've never heard such bilge. I want a Wiki commentator that I can rewind and correct!! :-) Carcharoth 22:22, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I do have to say that the mistake was a bit understandable, however, since Castro had made contact right before the whistle, and Torrado was clearly away from the ball, so if someone thought the booking was for contact then it was reasonable to think the wrong player was booked. The (Spanish-language) commentators in the States made the same mistake, although they didn't make such a big deal about it...:) --Deville (Talk) 22:53, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Group teams removed in the map?

I may have been wrong, but didn't we agree that for the Knockout stages map, we can keep the participants of the group in the group stage so that we know at a glance a knockout qualifier came from? Kiwi8 12:28, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. But I don't have particularly strong views either way. I think there should be three such diagrams: one for the overall tournament, where the group order (1, 2, 3, 4) is shown, plus the knockout stage; one just for the group stage; and one just for the knockout stage. There should also be a chronological list of all the matches somewhere, with all other information stripped away. A lot of these presentations will use the same information, but the different layouts have different purposes, so they are all needed and are not redundant. Carcharoth 12:56, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Introduction rewritten

The introduction was looking a bit dated and incomplete, so I rewrote it. I think the last paragraph could still be rewritten, but left it there for others to play around with:

The 2006 FIFA World Cup is a high profile international football championship, the finals tournament of which is being held in Germany. The championship began in December 2003 with the draw for a series of qualification tournaments and play-offs that resulted in 31 national teams qualifying for the finals tournament. Germany, as the host country, brought the total number of teams to 32. The finals tournament of the 2006 World Cup began on 9 June 2006 and will end on 9 July 2006. The first stage was the Group stage, where the 32 teams were divided into 8 groups of 4 teams. The teams in these groups of four competed in three-round round-robin tournaments to find two teams from each group (a total of 16) to advance to the knock-out stage. The Group stage was completed on 23 June 2006. The knockout stage starts on 24 June 2006, and progressive elimination of teams through quarter-finals and semi-finals, will finish with the World Cup Final, the final match on 9 July 2006. The World Cup Final will determine the World Cup champion and will be played in Berlin.

The 2006 finals are the eighteenth to be contested. The host country and football federation is Germany, who in June 2000, won the right to host the event, beating bids from South Africa (who will host the 2010 World Cup), Brazil, England and Morocco.

Carcharoth 12:38, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks more like a schedule than an introduction to me though. And the information on qualification is quite redundant. Maybe you should transfer that part to the Teams section, which is in need of some text anyway. Less dates and more history maybe? _└ ^VodkaJazz / _talk ^┐ 15:57, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Why is the information on qualification redundant? You do know what the introduction or lead section for an article is meant to do? It is meant to act as a self-contained summary of the entire event. So it needs to start from the beginning and go to the end. This article is (or should be) about the whole event, not just the finals tournament. It should also give the context, explaining that this is part of a series of tournaments held every four years. I will add more later, but please be aware that this is just a start, and I built on what was a very sparse introduction. Also, bear in mind that it will read like a report on a current evet while the tournament is still going on, but that will change after the tournament ends. Carcharoth

I think the opening line is a little odd "a high profile international football championship" makes it sound like this is just one of a number of equally important international football tournaments when it is evident enough to be stated here that this is the premier international football tournament.

I agree. See comments above. That sentence was in the original text, and I didn't get around to changing that. Please feel free to make changes. Carcharoth 16:19, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Highlighting scorers still active in tournament

2006_FIFA_World_Cup#Individual_scorers doesn't distinguish between players whose teams are still in the tournament, and those who are not. Would it be possible to have a colour marking those who are still active, so we can see who is still in the running for the Golden Boot, and who isn't? I don't know how to do this, but it would be informative piece of formatting. Also, if someone in the list is injured, that should be noted as well. Carcharoth 12:44, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I've added asterisks for now. Maybe the alphabetical order by country should be dropped, and the players still in contention moved to the top of each list? ie. Order by "number of goals", then by "in contention", then by "country", then by "name". In fact, I disagree with any ordering by country, which is pointless as this is an individual award. Carcharoth 12:53, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion there's no need at all to distinguish which scorers are still in the tournament. It makes no diffference. If Germany is eliminated today, Miroslav Klose will still lead the tournament if nobody else has 4 goals. As we go on and more players keep scoring then we'll see movement, but as it stands there's no real reason to do it. Why should we list injured players? That doesn't have anything to do with the goals they've scored. The list is fine as is, there's no reason to bold certain players and leave others in regular text. Batman2005 14:12, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

The point is that you can see that some of the players on two goals cannot catch Klose. It gives you an idea of who is still in the running to catch him, and who isn't. It might not be that important now, but when only four teams are left in the tournament, it will be helpful to see who is left in. Surely you can see that? It is adding information. What is wrong with that? Carcharoth 14:18, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I suppose highlighting scorers still in action is useful mainly for prediction of the final outcome. It's not a necessity, but now that someone has added it in, it's fine. 203.218.141.30 14:20, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I understand the desired outcome, but I just don't see the point in it at all. Regardless if its added I won't undo it or anything. Batman2005 17:00, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Unupdated information

I corrected some unupdated information in the Group G, the results of the last two matches of the group here wrongly implemented in the score table. Also, the colours of the eliminated teams of groups F and G were wrong. Note: Is UNUPDATED a real english word? PlaGa701 6/24/6 11:24 (GTM -4)

Out of date? --Guinnog 16:06, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Reverted = Unupdated. sikander 16:14, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

yes, the code has right, but the information did not displayed, the group g appear like if the last two matches of the group didnt happen, so i erased some characters so the table of the group appear like the tables of the other groups, and that fix it. I really dont know much about the code you use, but the changes i did worked perfectly. No intencion of offending anyone

PlaGa701 12:39, 24 June 2006 GTM -4

Early updates

Please, do not update the Knockout stage table before the end of the matches. It makes no sense and can be misleading, especially if someone doesn't know that the match is still being played. Afonso Silva 17:29, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

ANGf2 vs ANGf

What is the difference between these two? when rendered it looks like that, ANGf is shown as Portugal.

24.5.19.13 17:33, 24 June 2006 (UTC) Santhosh

The flag icon appears to the right of the country name in the f2 templates, to the left in the f templates. -- Arwel (talk) 20:04, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

See for yourself: ANGf2=Template:ANGf2 and ANGf=Template:ANGf. sikander 20:20, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Semi-Protection

I know this has been thoroughly discussed, but the article just has to be at least semi-protected during games and for several hours after them. The vandalism and early updates are just out of control. There are many good contributors, but there are lots of people trying to update the same statistics creating conflicts. Phoenix2 21:53, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Protection of any front page article is strongly discouraged and we're probably just going have to live with it. Certainly any protection lasting around two hours would be unwarranted unless the article was under attack from IP hopping vandals. That said, I did come close to semi protecting it after the end of the last match. I blocked one of the vandals and things started to calm down, so I decided against it. --GraemeL ^(talk) 21:59, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

All righ, thanks for the reply. Phoenix2 22:09, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there anyway we can fully protect just the group stage results? There's no need to keep it open. Kingjeff 22:11, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunatly there isn't. Protection is only available at the level of the whole article. --GraemeL ^(talk) 22:17, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

What would be possible is to create templates for the group tables, and then protect the templates. This could be extended to anything involving results, but would rely on an admin being there to update results and/or unprotect as soon as the game is over. Carcharoth 22:24, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok. I think we should do that. Group stage is over and no need to edit that section. Kingjeff 22:47, 24 June 2006 (UTC)