Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 100

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FIFA Club World Cup

Hey folks, an IP from Peru is trying to convince me, that practically the entire world (with the exception of some British media) regards the FIFA Club World Cup as enormously prestigious and possibly even more popular than the Champions League. I tend to disagree. Any comments on the talk page are welcome. --Mai-Sachme (talk) 18:31, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

@Mai-Sachme: In Brazil (and in almost all South American countries), the Club World Cup is waaaaay more regarded than the Champions League, despite both being incredibly popular. In Europe, however, the clubs tend to "put this title aside" when comparing it to UCL, while here in Brazil the clubs "have a need" to win the Club World Cup as well as the Libertadores. Hope that clarifies it all. MYS 77 ^✉ 18:45, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

@MYS77: Thanks for your answer! As a huge football fan I was, of course, aware of that fact. That is pretty much the same as the article currently says: While it is widely regarded as the most distinguished club level trophy in South America, it struggles to attract interest in most of Europe. Unfortunately, an IP tries to soften Europe's disinterest and emphasise the allegedly global popularity of the competition. I'd be thankful for any input on the talk page, where I have already clarified my point of view. --Mai-Sachme (talk) 18:57, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

@Mai-Sachme: The initial phrase is correct. The IP is just trying to raise the tournament's scale of importance, when it clearly doesn't exist in that scale in Europe. Just revert it, I'll back up up. MYS 77 ^✉ 19:37, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Scuse me but nobody tries to equate anything here, especially when it comes to a world tournament by statute and not a simple continental tournament. Thus, the information upon receiving it must reflect the world, not just the version of either continent. Being by its own statutes, a worldwide competition organised by the main governing body of the sport, it represents the club football's highest point in America (as claims adove), Africa (link, link) and elsewhere interested in football for which the sole participation is regarded a feat, but it is in Europe where perception changes usually between Eurocentric and/or Europhile people. Now, regarding Europe, it is false to say that in "the whole" continent the cup is ignored, that occurs in the UK because there the concept of "season" is rooted (but somebody explains to me what is a double a treble or Celtic's quadruple) and everything that is not circumscribed in this season (Seasonal European competition-League-Cup and League Cup) is regarded "minor" as any supercopa due to its sporting merit corresponds to the previous season (for that I previously added a paragraph about British media). A similar concept of "season" has in France, Holland and Germany, but not necessarily define the rest of cups as "minor" like in UK, but - at least in Germany is well - these cups are taken seriously. In Spain, the importance and media coverage of the cup (and the Super Cups) depends on the Spanish team participating as evidenced by the past two years when all the press (sport not only) was polarized, while in other European countries, as Italy (reason why the parliament closed in 2010) and the former Yugoslavia, however, the concept of season is not the same and usually includes all supercups and "1 or 2 match competitions" as "seasonal" cups and the Club World Cup is being taken very seriously by the title "world champion" award.

For finish, at sporting level CWC is inferior to IC, especially due the equality existed before between the European and South American team in the IC according to Guerin Sportivo (and if it don't like you, in the web there are many others) and anyone who does not see football since yesterday.--2001:1388:3:5D39:1DAD:6501:4C39:5A9E (talk) 04:57, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

reason why the parliament closed in 2010... Lol, That is a satirical report!!! And you didn't notice it. As to the rest, sorry... but what you are writing is a complete mess. As I said: I'm pretty aware of German, Italian and English media coverage. And nobody truly regards the Club World Cup as a high-ranking sports event. You may not like that, but you should accept it. There is only one exception to that rule: When a club from the respective country participates. Regarding the global prestige, there can't be no comparison to the Champions League Final, which is the most watched annual sports event on earth: [1], [2], [3]. The Club World Cup Final isn't even classified... Do you know why? Beacause it isn't a competition of global importance.

@MYS77: The IP reverted again. --Mai-Sachme (talk) 09:53, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Definitely your view is Eurocentric and therefore biased. I put sources confirming that OUTSIDE Europe, the Club World Cup (as it is right to be the case of a WORLDWIDE COMPETITION BY STATUTE) is the most important tournament because all the continental tournaments (except in Europe because its schedule is different that the used in the rest of the world) are regarded qualifiers to that competition as defined in 2000 and you come with ratings. Who cares about the ratings? For FIFA to win the European Champions League is exactly the same to win the South American Libertadores Cup (as is only right because in South America association football is organised otherwise), there not a bonus for the European team just like for UEFA being champions of England is the same to being champions of Andorra. I'm write using just the facts: some parts of Europe the tournament is not considered as "minor" as do the British world and for Europhiles, in Italy and in the Balkans, for example, is more prestigious to win the Club World Cup that to win the national cup, which they often regards a minor trophy due teams' decition to partecipe with the reserve squad.--2001:1388:3:5D39:11C8:6079:E0B2:57A (talk) 21:48, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

P.D. Whatever the source, the closure of the Italian parliament for the Club World Cup 2010 was a fact well known to Italian press who says read every day ...

@2001:1388:3:5D39:11C8:6079:E0B2:57A: Man, you seriously need to chill. I am Brazilian, and I'm agreeing to what Mai-Sachme said up here. The ratings do serve for one thing: to prove which tournaments are more successful than others. As you can clearly see, the Champions League has waaaaay more worldwide attention than the Club World Cup. You can't accuse me of having an Eurocentric view nor being Europhile. The Club World Cup is regarded as the main honour for a team in my country (with a clear exception – it only has good media coverage when a Brazilian club is playing, if there's none in it then our newspapers/TV shows only show the goals), but it isn't in the vast majority of Europe. Adding a satirical article as a source is clearly a wrong attitude.

And I would recommend you to look at this tournament's history. European clubs were (and I think they still are) obligated to participate otherwise they'll be sanctioned by FIFA itself. FIFA tried to make this tournament the best of the world, but it failed. It just has a poorly formatted competition (a club from Oceania may only play one match, while all other ones are granted at least two), with both clubs from South America and Europe being nearly thrown at the final. I think the Club World Cup was ridiculous, and the only time I seriously watched it all was in 2011, because the club I support was there at the final. To me, I'd rather watch a Champions League final than a Club World Cup final, and I'm not the only Brazilian nor the only South American who think that way. MYS 77 ^✉ 00:07, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

@2001:1388:3:5D39:11C8:6079:E0B2:57A: C'mon, please don't tell fairy tales about the closure of the Italian parliament, because the politicians wanted to watch the Club World Cup... It is simply not true. By the way: Inter's performance in the final of the Club World Cup's 2010 edition was watched by only 700,000 Italians (source), Inter's Champions League final against Bayern, however, by 11,500,000 viewers (source).

And no, I'm not eurocentric. If I was eurocentric, I would support something like The FIFA Club World Cup is a superfluous and irrelevant competition with a very low, if not without any sporting quality. European clubs take only part in, because they want to sell more shirts overseas. That would summarise pretty much, what most European football fans think about that trophy, but it would only be half of the story.

The current article version tries to illustrate different views. It acknowledges both, Europe's limited interest and South America's increased interest.

As to the rest of the world: When you write something like "widely regarded as the most distinguished club level trophy in the rest of the world", you need an extremely good source for that claim. I already told you, that the Champions League final is the most watched annual sports event on earth. How could that be possible, if Asia or Africa regarded the Club World Cup as superior? I can only repeat: you need a extremely good source for such a far-reaching claim. And I doubt, you'll find one. --Mai-Sachme (talk) 00:16, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

As I wrote in CWC Talk, CL final is played on Saturday inside the UEFA calendar for atract more people as UEFA itself claimed some years ago, CWC final is usually played inside the FIFA calendar during the work time or during bed time in the European perspective. There is no comparison because both tournaments are restricted to different calendars.

Do you want a source?: when Mazembe played the CWC final in 2010, the CAF explicity called the mere participation without regards the final result, the crowning achievement of African football (the links sources are in google, I invite you to looking for) and that obviously puts over winning any CAF CL. All teams that have attained the highest position in continental terms outside Europe and South America (such as 3rd place in Asian and New Zealand teams) were awarded for their own confederation and/or federation claiming more or less the same (I previously added some links adove). Again, the position of most of Europe is minority compared to the rest of the world and so does the FIFA World Youth Cups (Mickey Mouse trophies won by who now dominate the world scene).--190.235.25.73 (talk) 00:23, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Christian Stuani

If anybody is interested, there is a page move discussion for this Middlesbrough player. Different sources have his Christian (ho ho ho!) name spelt differently. '''tAD''' (talk) 19:44, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

May ground/stadium parameter for clubs list the location as well

The template is currently silent and an editor decided to remove for MLS clubs claiming that it's against the documentation. I reverted and asked at the template. I'm not sure if others care or not. Template talk:Infobox football club#location along with ground or stadium parameter. Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:41, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

New albanian sock

Hi, I need help to figure out if "Strapazzoni0" is a new albanian pusher. The editor insists that Héctor Bellerín (diff) has an albanian surname and Mateo Kovačić is albanian. Qed237 (talk) 14:00, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

If anyone could look at User:Usuiko (diff in Marko Arnautović), this would be also helpful. I think that this could be another sock. --Jaellee (talk) 14:20, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Biar122. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:42, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Confederations - Regions

What is that in the infoboxes of the Confederations articles? From which they arise?

Without sources in the top of the articles. --IM-yb (talk) 21:42, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm unable to answer your question without knowing exactly what it is you are asking. As far as I know, all of the information in the infoboxes is public information available from the confederations themselves and is not required to be sourced or otherwise cited anywhere in the article. — Jkudlick ^tc_s 00:18, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

My answer is if that regions are real, or the opinion of a wikipedian. I don't found sources about that name (Region I, II..). --IM-yb (talk) 13:10, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

It would probably help if you would link to the article where you found this information, as all you have linked to are the individual confederation articles. — Jkudlick ^tc_s 00:06, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

NSPORTS discussion implicating NFOOTY

Good morning. Recent AfD cases have given rise to concerns about the article notability guidelines in WP:NSPORTS with opponents of short sports biographies insisting that they fail the general notability guidelines (GNG) even though they meet the sport specific criteria (SSC) of NSPORTS, also known as the sports notability guidelines (SNG). Sports implicated to date are baseball (WP:NBASE), cricket (WP:CRIC) and football (WP:NFOOTY). I'm therefore writing to you to advise you of two discussions taking place. One of these is specific to cricket but its outcome will be relevant to NSPORTS overall. The other discussion is in NSPORTS itself and, though NCRIC is the point of issue, the scope of the discussion is much wider and has already activated a baseball AfD.

If you are interested in joining the NSPORTS discussion on behalf of your project, please go to disputed changes to NCRIC notability. You are also welcome to join the cricket project discussion re the NCRIC wording. Thanks very much. Jack | ^{talk page} 08:08, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

"Resurrection" of sources

Happy new year to the entire "commission", from Portugal!

Now, for business: using this tool User:Threeohsix kindly sent me (please see here http://dispenser.homenet.org/~dispenser/view/Checklinks) is it possible to revive the sources from Record? Site has changed configuration, old one "made" all refs crash. Is it possible to have a bot perform all that? That would sure save up a lot of time.

An example of old-style refs can be found at Mauro Riquicho, whilst an example of the new approach is for instance at Rúben Andrade. If nothing can be done, bugger, millions of refs down the drain...

Attentively, thanks in advance for whatever can be provided --84.90.219.128 (talk) 23:52, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Since I've been mentioned, i'll give my input. Checklinks can't find where the url moved to; you have to search yourself. Most of the sources can be re-target if you know the exact title of the news, however some news are lost forever (from experience, all with record.xl.pt/1234567, the numbers being the target url), so it's best just to leave it as dead link and assume good faith of the user. Sources should be verifiable by others, but there's nothing to do in this situation. See what WP:404 says about this problem.--Threeohsix (talk) 12:27, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Some pages from Record have been archived at web.archive.org. I have added the archive details to the Mauro Riquicho article. Hack (talk) 04:27, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Templates for a clubs captain

Not sure if this has been addressed before (I swear it has but I can't remember) but do we allow templates for a teams captain? Recently I came across Template:Mohun Bagan A.C. captains [this] and I never saw anything like this, even with top teams and players, so I am not sure if this is allowed or not. Cheers. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 16:50, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

They've been deleted in the past, pretty sure. Giant Snowman 18:02, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

A quick search of the template deletion log turned up these two discussions: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 February 20#English association football captain navboxes and Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 February 7#Template:Derby County F.C. captains. Sir Sputnik (talk) 18:09, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Cool. I really should make a user page with these past TfD and AfD's for reference. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 19:20, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Template:UEFA Euro U-21 2015 Team of the Tournament

Quick thoughts on {{UEFA Euro U-21 2015 Team of the Tournament}} before I take it to TFD? Giant Snowman 08:16, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't think they are notable enough for a template. Not even worth a real article/news for UEFA. That's just a picture, so they have something to share over the social media. There are two others in that category also. -Koppapa (talk) 12:34, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Should be deleted. Kante4 (talk) 16:42, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

@Koppapa and Kante4: - now at TfD. Giant Snowman 19:37, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Another questionable template

Template:Football stadiums in India – It has been so long since I have been this active on wikipedia so I forgot a lot of the notability rules but I have never seen a template like this, I have checked articles for major stadiums in the US, England etc. and there is no template like this one. I know lists are allowed but I do not believe templates are. Also, while I am here, I am not sure about this: Template:Brazil national football team records, as there are already templates on the Brazil page that link to the squads of these championship sides and there is no linkage pathway of sorts with this template. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 22:54, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

The stadium ones are common and I believe perfectly acceptable – see e.g. {{Football venues in Scotland}}, {{Football venues in Romania}}, {{Football venues in Switzerland}}, {{Bundesliga venues}}, {{Ligue 1 venues}} – and there are also several from England ({{Football League Championship venues}}, {{Football League One venues}}, {{Football League Two venues}}). The Indian one just needs laying out better. Number 5 7 22:59, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Ya, I remember the ones for leagues and we have that with Template:I-League venues and Template:Indian Super League stadiums. Although, I do like the layout of the Scottish, Swiss, and Romanian venue templates and I think that would be better for India if done right. This would mean merging or deleting the other two templates but worth it I reckon. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 23:07, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

An odd situation

Got a bit of a puzzle here, and not 100% sure what to do- it relates to Cameron Norman and whether he's at Norwich or Woking.

Sources such as [4] say he had a loan deal at Woking until 2 January and he's no longer listed in the Woking squad [5]. However, there are no sources listing him as being at Norwich, [6] and [7] (the 2 sources used on the Norwich page) don't list him at all.

As it doesn't appear he's at Woking anymore, I've listed him as being at Norwich, but was wondering what people would suggest? Joseph2302 (talk) 23:12, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Young players who have no chance of ever getting a game will often barely register as a real person on club websites. By the way this player doesn't meet WP:Notability based on this project's guidelines.--Echetus Xe 00:41, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Most likely not listed as the player is not part of first team squad. Also as Echetus says, the player is not notable and I have put WP:PROD on it. Qed237 (talk) 00:47, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Thinking about it, I agree he doesn't pass WP:NFOOTY, I just thought it was odd he wasn't listed on Norwich squad, when other young players who returned from loan were. Joseph2302 (talk) 07:49, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Clean up Infobox national football team (continued)

Three weeks ago, at a time of nearly complete inactivity in international football, two editors decided to "clean up" the infobox national football team by eliminating the Elo rating and biggest win/loss results, both of which have been part of the infobox without interruption since July 2006. One person convinced a second originally-opposing individual, while a third editor threw in a quick remark opposing removal of the Elo information. This went under everybody else's radar, and the proposing editor went ahead. Two editors tried to revert the deletion, but were dismissed with "Elo rating is removed because it is barely (if ever) used outside of Wikipedia" and "I don't see any opposition to this". The first argument would be reasonable, but hasn't been true for a while and the football Elo ratings are generally well respected by statisticians and betting agencies (statisticians of sort). Ignoring most blogs, check for example: [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]. Nate Silver in particular has become a big fan (e.g. [13], [14]) and has implemented derived ratings to other team sports. The second rationalization only reflects a nadir in interest in international football.
I don't have much of an opinion on the biggest win/loss, it's cute but trivial and can be put somewhere in the main text, but I believe the Elo history and current ranking is relevant in the infobox, primarily for all the failings of the FIFA rankings, which are now the only source of information: 1) The historical record of the current FIFA ratings dates back only to 1993, letting glancers-by for example believe that the Hungarian football team reached its zenith last week. This by itself should be enough. 2) The FIFA calculations from 1993 to 1999 were completely different (and even more naive) than the current calculations, so shouldn't and can't be compared to the rankings afterwards. 3) For many teams the worst FIFA ranking is the default entry ranking (check e.g. Croatia and Ukraine at 125 and 132 in the world. These are completely meaningless numbers. 4) The FIFA rankings are constantly derided by about anyone with some knowledge of football ([15], and too many other links;-) and are widely acknowledged by statisticians as being the least reflective of a team's actual strength or accomplishments among methods used (e.g. [16] and other links mentioned here). The FIFA rankings may be official, do (painfully) determine the seeding of teams, and get an extraordinary amount of attention, but all that also applies to, say, Jack Warner and Sepp Blatter. They should not be the single indicator of a team's current and historical strength if we can avoid it.
I don't think the tiny bit of "clutter" in the infobox should outweigh the loss of information due to this deletion. Afasmit (talk) 17:12, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your research. You make a convincing case that the Elo rating is statistically more interesting than the FIFA one, but unfortunately it has several other drawbacks. One is its lack of any official entity maintaining it, which results in editors being forced to conduct WP:OR if they wish to update the rating during an eloratings.net downtime (as your first referenced article by Nate Silver mentions). Another editing-related problem is that it does not have set dates when the ranking is updated, but rather it is a countinuous ranking (i.e. updated after every single match) which makes it hard to keep up-to-date on articles. This is of course related to the lack of an official entity, causing vagueness on when 'it is official' and when it should be updated. About whether it is notable: I realize that many football statisticians like to use it, after all it is a superior system to rank relative strength, but that's all it is: an interesting statistical method, rather than an actual official, published rank. That's why I believe it certainly has its place on articles about football statistics, but not on every team page. Elo isn't the only non-official ranking system out there, it just happens to be the only one that was mentioned on Wikipedia. –Sygmoral (talk) 18:52, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

I really don't think the biggest wins/defeats of a National team should be removed from the infobox. I find it an easy way to access the information, now it is missing from every article. I think this was a very poor decision honestly. Neither do I feel the ELO ratings should be removed. I really do not understand why this was deemed necessary. Why fix something that isn't broken? I really hope this infobox gets restored to its original form. It is missing valuable information which was easily accessible. I for instance like to check on this sort of information for teams and it is no longer handy. I am sure there are many other Wikipedians who would agree. Regards, (Subzzee (talk) 09:41, 6 January 2016 (UTC))

Notice to participants at this page about adminship

Many participants here create a lot of content, have to evaluate whether or not a subject is notable, decide if content complies with BLP policy, and much more. Well, these are just some of the considerations at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Optional RfA candidate poll

You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and maybe even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:06, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Templates years in European football query

I've got a query in regards to the German championship seasons linked in the years in European football templates and would appreciate some advice. For templates from 1903 to 1963 we have currently two (West) German seasons linked in each template. Take Template:1962–63 in European football (UEFA) for example, where both the 1962 German football championship and the 1963 German football championship are linked. Now Germany has, except for a brief period in East Germany, never played a calendar year season like the Nordic countries do, to my knowledge, but always played an Autumn-Spring format. The situation is that the 1963 championship was the championship round for the 1962–63 Oberliga season while the 1962 championship belongs firmly to the 1961–62 season. The situation is comparable to, let's say, the 1962–63 NHL season which was followed by the 1963 Stanley Cup Finals as the championship play-offs. What do other editors of the project think, am I ok to remove the non-applicable seasons from the templates? Calistemon (talk) 11:29, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Sounds sensible to me. Number 5 7 11:53, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Intercontinental Cup (football), again

"New year, old arguments" (cit.) This user insists on deleting information of the lead section agreed by consensus among users and data administrator some times ago and filling it with information from other tournaments that are unrelated to the article and continued to provide distorted information by means of unilateral press in the historic section as in the past his "friends" like EpidemiaCorinthiana/God Football or some of his puppets before they were banned. Please intervene, thanks.--Dantetheperuvian (talk) 21:36, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

The user Dantetheperuvian is lying. The ONLY thing I erased is the expression "de facto", which is not mentioned in any of the sources cited. You can see that, of the expression "All the winning teams are recognised de facto as "world club champions", I erased the de facto (as it is not shown in any source) but I kept "All the winning teams are regarded as "world club champions", which shows that I am not erasing any information, as both informations (with or without "de facto" have the same meaning). The person here who is erasing information is another person. I added the information from FIFA.com sources (the most authoritative source on this issue), and to avoid controversies, I quoted the exact words ippsis litteris as they appear on the source, and this has been erased (erase sourced information= vandalism) by IPs from Peru (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Intercontinental_Cup_%28football%29&type=revision&diff=697662305&oldid=697652142 ; https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Intercontinental_Cup_%28football%29&type=revision&diff=697728219&oldid=697679905), by the way the country Dantetheperuvian alleges is his country . In my opinion these IPs are Dantetheperuvian wanting to keep on his POV, but using IPs (not his own account) because he knows that erasing sourced content is vandalism. I would like to request investigation between Dantetheperuvian account (places of login, etc) and those IPs. Last bu not least, I read the contributions of God Football, whom I am not. Dantheperuvian has been, for a long time, decided to be kind of "owner" of the Intercontinental Cup article (so I discovered seeing the history of edits). And a proof of this is that, from the SAME FIFA.com sources he uses, he wants to decide which words FROM THE SAME SOURCE could or could not be cited. I request mediation on this issue. El cazador (talk) 22:00, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

@El cazador: Actually, removing the term "de facto" does change the meaning of the sentence, as it then infers that the winners of the Intercontinental Cup were officially the world club champions (as opposed to widely recognized, but unofficial) when clubs from only two confederations were invited to take part; that FIFA considers the International Cup a predecessor of the FIFA Club World Cup doesn't change that fact. Also, the appropriate venue to request mediation is WP:RFM. Cheers. — Jkudlick ^tc_s 00:23, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

@Jkudlick: All right, for me it does not make any difference whether the de facto term is there or not. For me it makes no difference, it can be put there again that I dont care. What I do care is that I made some introductions of content, taking them from the FIFA.com web-site , and quoting the words ipsis litteris as they appear on the FIFA.com, and even so 2 Ips from Peru (whom I suppose are Dantethperuvian without using his own account as he knows its is vandalism to take out sourced content) took my introductions of contents out . Please, could you please create a meditaion request for me, as I am not acquainted with the forms of the Anglophone wikipedia. To speak the truth, I am happy with the article as it is now (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Intercontinental_Cup_%28football%29&type=revision&diff=697737254&oldid=697737120), but knowing Dantetheperuvian's past record of edits, I guess he will (though his own account or IPs) reverse everything later. So need to start mediation. Thanks 01:03, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

@El cazador: It was not vandalism because I justified in the box in each edition made by myself. Add information about the Rio Cup 1951 (the only mentioned by FIFA), the Club World Cup and the historical project/conspiracy against the CWC ARE NOT RELATED with the subject described in the article (Intercontinental Cup), so that is useless info. I use my own IP when my user account has access problems, that is not prohibited.

@Jkudlick: The user called "El cazador" continue here with his personal crusade began in the Portuguese Wikipedia (he was wrote his manifiesto here) as a result of his own original research "based on" a biased journals (a.e. El Mundo Deportivo is clearly biased due it is clearly a pro-FC Barcelona daily and that team that never won the cup) and lousy translations of some of his other sources, none of these, reproduced by a reliable source in order to denigrate the Intercontinental Cup and demand, as here it has required, recognition for a tournament like the World Club Cup and its own (alleged) legacy altrought being played every year since 2005, 11 years ago. That can not be allowed because no original research are accepted regardless corresponding to the "truth" or not.--Dantetheperuvian (talk) 09:59, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

@Jkudlick:: As I mentioned, in my edits I cited, quoted ipsis litteris the FIFA.com web-site (please, see my edits), and being ipsis literis quotes from the most important source of football, they cannot be POV. About the Mundo Deportivo contents, this is a very respected sports newspaper in Spain, and the same information El Mundo Deportivo published, the ABC newspaper (from Madrid) also published... If Dantheperuvian is unhappy with the Mundo Deportivo newspaper, if he wants, I can bring the same informations published in Madrid's ABC newspaper... Just he tells what information from Mundo Deportivo he thinks is wrong, and I will bring links to ABC Madrid newspaper with the very same information as in Mundo Deportivo... Dantetheperuvian's unfouded attack on El Mundo Deportivo newspaper, which borders on regional/national and club prejudice (see what Dantetheperuvian wrote: is clearly biased due it is clearly a pro-FC Barcelona daily and that team that never won the cup) is a clear proof of how biased he (Dantetheperuvian) is. If there is someone wanting to make POV here, this is Dantetheperuvian. From my part, I did NOT erase ANY content brought by ANY user, while Mr. Dantetheperuvian tried (via IPs) to erase contents from the FIFA.com site that I brought to the articles, and he has long been trying to erase contents brought from large-sale newspapers (valid sources for Wikipedia rules) because they do not fit his opinions. Clearly he (Dantetheperuvian) is the one making POV here. His desperate attack against a respected newspaper, attributing its informations to supposed "regional or club envy" (sse tha he wrote: is clearly biased due it is clearly a pro-FC Barcelona daily and that team that never won the cup) shows that. By the way, the Mundo Deportivo newspaper news which were brought to the article date far back before Barcelona won any European Cup and therefore much before it had any chance to play the Intercontinental Cup. And, taking an example of that, in the same way that Mundo Deportivo (from Barcelona) published (for example) that Stanley Rous said that FIFA saw the Intercontinental Cup as a friendly, this information was also published by Madrid's ABC newspaper (http://hemeroteca.abc.es/nav/Navigate.exe/hemeroteca/madrid/abc/1967/11/03/097.html), by Scottish newspaper Glasgow Herald (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19671106&printsec=frontpage&hl=pt-BR, please see page 06: "Sir Stanley said then that FIFA regarded the competition, which is between the winners of the European Cup and the South American equivalent, as a friendly fixture".) and by Italian newspaper La Stampa (please look for La finale mondiale Europa-America di calcio ufficialmente è una semplice gara amichevole in http://www.archiviolastampa.it/ , in the 1967 news). I am using this piece of news as an example, but this is the same for the others. This once again shows that Dantetheperuvian's attack on Mundo Deportivo newspaper is senseless, in that this newspaper publishes the same information published in newspapers in other cities (Madrid) and other countries (Scotland/UK, Italy). By the day, contents from large-sales newspapers are not original research according to Wikipedia rules. Please, I ask you to intervene. After I denounced his erasing contents from the article via IPs, Dantetheperuvian stopped erasing them, and the present format of the Intercontinental Cup article (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Intercontinental_Cup_(football)&action=history) still have my contributions. However, seeing how eagerly Dantetheperuvian is willing to impose his personal views on that article , and his not-so-clean "tacits" for doing that (use IPs to delete sourced content; try to tarnish the image of a newspaper only because it is from Barcelona), I am sure he will persist. El cazador (talk) 21:16, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

@Jkudlick: PS: Once more to show how Dantetheperuvian is biased and wants to make POV of his views, he complains that I added information about the FIFA Club World Cup in the article about the Intercontinental Cup, which is another competition. Well, I must say that much before I edited the Intercontinental Cup article, it was already there written in the Intercontinental Cup article that the Intercontinental Cup was the sole FIFA-recognised predecessor to the FIFA Club World Cup. Thus, the mentionings to the FIFA Club World Cup were already there in the Intercontinental Cup article much before I edited it. It's OK, it is supported by FIFA.com sources, and I never tried to erase it. However, when I brought sources also from the very same FIFA.com web-site, and I quoted them ipsis litteris , then Dantetheperuvian "decides" that there should be no mentioning to the FIFA Club World Cup in the Intercontinental Cup article... In other words: for Dantetheperuvian, it happens that FIFA.com-quoted mentionings to the FIFA Club World Cup can be present at the Intercontinental Cup article, but only as long as they reflect his views... Please, I ask you to intervene, for to me is clear that he (Dantetheperuvian) is making POV. I also state once more that, if all of you (including Dantetheperuvian) agree, I must say that for me the present form of the article (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Intercontinental_Cup_(football)&action=history) is pretty fine. I respect the sources and contents brought by Dantetheperuvian, I never tried to erase anything he wrote (and he knows it), I am not here to impose views, my contributions are valid, based ipsis litteris on the FIFA.com sources and on independent news´papers, and I dont think they should be erased because they do not fit one other user's views. El cazador (talk) 21:42, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

@Jkudlick:: As Dantetheperuvian tried to tarnish the image of Mundo Deportivo newspaper for being from Barcelona and supposedly "pro-FC Barcelona" (this, according to Dantetheperuvian), I added a link to a Madrid newspaper, putting the original Spanish-language texts and the English translation in the ref, so that an independent English-and-Spanish-speaking user (a third, independent part, not Dantetheperuvian) can check how loyal the translation is. And the Scottish and Italian sources I mentioned are there in the Intercontinental Cup article. To sum up: Dantetheperuvian LIED when he tried to persuade you that the Barcelona newspaper was my only source. The sources I put are FIFA.com texts that I quoted ispis litteris and newspapers from Italy, Scotland, Madrid and Barcelona, the former 3 ones having the same news of the Barcelona one (Mundo Deportivo), proving that Dantetheperuvian is wrong when he tries to tarnish the image or Mundo Deportivo for being a Barcelona newspaper. And Dantetheperuvian is LYING when he claims that the "problem" is the I mentioned the FIFA Club World Cup in the Intercontinental Cup article, as the Intercontinental Cup article always made reference to the FIFA Club World Cup, by stating that the Intercontinental Cup is the only FIFA-recognised predecessor to the FIFA Club World Cup (and Dantethepereuvian has never complained about this, and this is there much before I edited the article). El cazador (talk) 00:12, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

PS: I did not realise the expression ipsis litteris was not used in English; this term means verbatim. By ipsis litteris, I meant I quoted the sources verbatim.

PS 2: Showing once more how Dantetheperuvian arguments are incorrect or plain lies, he said that "El Mundo Deportivo is clearly biased due it is clearly a pro-FC Barcelona daily and that team that never won the cup" . That is what he said. First, I already showed that the contents published in El Mundo Deportivo are the same published in newspapers of Madrid, Italy and Scotland, which were also included in the Intercontinental Cup article. Second, Dantetheperuvian claimed that I relied only on El Mundo Deportivo news, while he already knew that I had relied also on these other newspapers from Madrid/Italy/Scotland and also on FIFA.com sources . Third, as another proof of how incorrect Dantethepreuvian is, here we have the Mundo Deportivo newspaper (which Dantetheperuvian claimed was "biased for FC Barcelona and biased against the Intercontinental Cup as Barcelona never won that cup") , this very same newspaper hailing Real Madrid (the most hated rival by Barcelona fans) as the First World Champion (El Primer Campeon Mundial) after this club won the first edition of Intercontinental Cup in 1960. Published Monday September 5th 1960 , page 3: http://hemeroteca.mundodeportivo.com/preview/1960/09/05/pagina-3/1384556/pdf.html . Please, I once more please ask the administrators to please evaluate all the situation and see who is the one here who is really in a "crusade" to impose his personal views. El cazador (talk) 01:51, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

FIFA would not proclaim to Real Madrid as the "first world champion" because it never organised the tournament and who organised it could not because it was forbidden in their own statutes (this is known as "jurisdiction") and the regulations of the tournament, which is called itself in legal terms. Precisely that was one of the requirements imposed by FIFA to the UEFA-CONMEBOL axis before the tournament was approved and will be held for the first time in 1960. Now, it is completely false that Madrid declared itself "world champion" because it did not have legal basis to do so. If you want to show an honorary title you must present the proclamation document, not only the cup you get. That exists in the national teams football, so they are those with more hierarchy than club football. It is widely known in Spain that both the European Cup and the Intercontinental were used for political purposes during the Franco dictatorship and thus they overstate the titles achieved by Real Madrid. RM was interested to win just one cup more even if it do not give some symbolic title. Now, you should ask, instead of filling Wikipedia of useless information, why Real Madrid was not interested in the 2000 Club World Cup when it played with its reserve team? However, in Spain all the public opinion regards Atlético as "world champion" regardless of the legal aspect, why it is called de facto. Tell them it was a "friendly" or "worthless", if you are unworthy. Mundo Deportivo and the Catalonian press are so biased that always sought to discredit this cup (because his beloved FC Barcelona never won) and in turn sought to "formalize" the Fairs Cup, which itself was rejected by the Madrid press to be clearly lower in sporting level than the European Cup. Obviously IC becomes "prestigious" for the journal when its sponsored team participated in that cup (look here, here, here and there are more in that site). But why wonder if regarded Real Madrid's CWC was a "minor cup" and the Barcelona's trophy as "bigger than CL"?

It is useless to continue discussing because your intention is clear: to "prove" that the Intercontinental Cup is a "shit" and "Mundialito" (as he calls your favorite newspaper) is the "holy grail". Too bad for you in the real world the perception is different.--Dantetheperuvian (talk) 04:05, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

P.S. Rous' position is as it was than unilateral (and in 1960s-1970s FIFA and UEFA were in conflict of interest for control of the sport) than Blatter's position regarding the 1951 Rio Cup (neither it was legally a worldwide competition) in 2007. FIFA's official position has always corresponded to its Executive Committee and Havelange and Blatter also always regarded it in different terms than the pro-apartheid one.

@Dantetheperuvian and El cazador: This is not the venue to air your grievances over this article. Please keep your comments WP:CIVIL, and if you cannot work out your differences on the article talk page or on your own talk pages, then the appropriate venue may well be WP:RFM. I wish you both the best of luck. — Jkudlick ^tc_s 04:18, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

I only asked for the intervention of the article because he has done El cazador is a biased original research without basis in any reliable source. This user is seeking to extend it ad infinitum this talk as it did in pt.wiki.--Dantetheperuvian (talk) 04:27, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Dear Dantetheperuvian, with due cool-headed sincerity and respect of mine to you (believe me, I am being sincere), I think you are .... unnecessarily angry. Please, pay attention to the way you behave.... Wikipedia is not a forum to discuss whether Rous was "right" or "wrong"... Fact is: at least 4 large-sale newspapers of two different countries (in the Spanish case, both Madrid and Barcelona) state that Rous said that FIFA (the sole institution with worldwide jurisdiction in football) saw the Intercontinental Cup was a friendly match. This is a fact relevant to the history of the competition, its relation to FIFA, and also to the evolution of the idea of creation of the Club World Cup by FIFA ... Large-sale newspapers are valid sources according to Wikipedia rules, they are NOT original research. Ask any administrator about that. And I quoted the newspapers in verbatim , so I was not biased... Pay attention that I never claimed that the Intercontinental Cup was a friendly match, as I know it was always, throughout 1960 to 2004, by both UEFA and CONMEBOL. I never claimed such a thing. By the way, you claimed that I relied only on El Mundo Deportivo newspaper , and according to you, this newspaper "was biased as it was from Barcelona" and, according to you, "biased against the Intercontinental Cup as FC Barcelona never won it"... In the end, I proved to you that the same thing that El Mundo Deportivo published was also published by newspapers from Italy, Scotland and Madrid... And I proved to you that, when Real Madrid (Barcelona most hated enemy) won the IC in 1960, this same Barcelona newspaper (that you regarded as "biased against the IC") hailed Real Madrid as world champion... Not being able to contradict the contents of the El Mundo Deportivo newspaper, you tried to tarnish its image, and I provided evidence you are wrong... Now you come with outright disrespect for Catalunya, and speaking about Franco, Real Madrid supposed lack of interest for the 2000 FIFA Club World Cup ... What does all of that have to do with this discussion? Nothing. Clearly you are emotionally angry for what you considered an "attack" on the importance of the Intercontinental Cup, which you clearly cherish (which I never claimed unimportant, let alone worthless), and you are behaving emotionally, "attacking back" as if it was a forum... You are clearly "speaking with the heart" ... Cool down and pay attention to your words: you are once again attacking the El Mundo Deportino newspaper, even though I have already proved to you that the same thing that El Mundo Deportivo published was also published by newspapers from Italy, Scotland and Madrid... Well, I am sincerely speaking cool-headed in good faith. Wikipedia is not a forum to discuss: it is a forum to present information from reliable sources. I am convinced that the sources I used are valid (FIFA.com and large-sale newspapers from many countries), I quoted them verbatim (so I cannot be accused of bias), I never erased any content brought by you and I never would do it (I already put the de facto expression back once I was informed of the consensus on that). I am pretty certain that I am not making POV or any other kind of transgression. If I wanted to "attack" the IC, I certainly would not have brought the Mundo Deportivo source hailing Real Madrid as world champion of 1960...

@Jkudlick:: I would like to apologise to you and Dante for any excesses I may have made , but I kind of got angry when I felt Dante was lying. Anyway, I see that the user Dante is "speaking more with heart than with reason", and I do not expect him to change it... So I would like to make a request for mediation. Could you please help on that?06:00, 4 January 2016 (UTC)El cazador (talk)

@Dantetheperuvian and El cazador: I have read through the prerequisites for WP:RFM, and one prerequisite is that attempts to resolve content disputes via WP:3O, WP:RFC, or WP:DRN be tried first. All of those options require civil discussion on the article's talk page before turning to those options. While a short discussion did talk place, I'm not sure that anyone at 3O or DRN would concur that there was enough civil discourse to accept the case. It appears as though 3O would be the best option, but it would be best if one of you two creates the request. The instructions are on the page and are fairly straight-forward. Best of luck. — Jkudlick ^tc_s 06:18, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

@Jkudlick and Dantetheperuvian:: As for the "original research" accusation, I must say that, according to Wikipedia rules, "original research" are contents which are brought to Wikipedia without having ever been published elsewhere before. All my edits are based upon contents of large-sales newspapers (which are valid sources accoding to Wikipedia rules) and FIFA.com, which is quite an authoritative source in the matter, which I quoted in verbatim in my edits. As for the other accusations and arguments, I once again inform that Dantetheperuvian's near-xenophobic-styled attack on El Mundo Deportivo newspaper due to the fact that it is Catalunyan and supposedly "pro-FC Barcelona and anti-Intercontinental Cup", is complete non-sense, in that, as I proved, the same contents of that newspaper were also published in newspapers from Italy, Madrid and Scotland. The argument that I am unduly citing the FCWC in the IC article is incoherent, in that the connection/contrast/relation between the two competitions has always been there in the IC article long before I edited it (for example , when it claims that the IC is to sole FIFA-recognised predecessor of the FCWC). I see now that Dantetheperuvian has stopped trying to erase my edits, and I regard the issue as being settled as the article is now (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Intercontinental_Cup_%28football%29&type=revision&diff=698235018&oldid=698202724), without need now for further discussion, another proof that I do NOT want to take any discussion ad infinitum. Please, Dantetheperuvian, if you ever once again decide to erase my edits, please be fair and king enough to warn me of that, so that I can go on with mediation request. Thank very much. El cazador (talk) 17:42, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Leave the paranoia that the other user just removed the collection of links repeated filling that article. The wikilinks put just once.

"That when it claims the IC is to sole FIFA-recognised predecessor of the CWC" Sorry, but no one claims anything: the Intercontinental Cup IS the only FIFA Club World Cup's predecessor as written ad litteram in all official documents about the CWC provided by FIFA. Besides that, from the legal point of view, the competition's format that exists since 2005 is a result of the merger of the Intercontinental Cup with the 2000 FIFA Club World Championship (other FIFA's verdict which I reproduces literally) , that is the unique relationship between that FIFA competition and that UEFA/CONMEBOL competition. All about that proyect led by FIFA's some personnel for a "club world cup" does not make sense in the article titled "Intercontinental Cup" in the same way that the history of the Intercontinental Cup is unrelated to the Club World Cup at encyclopedic level although the vast majority of worldwide public opinion both are the same thing for better and for worse. The IC article as of January 2016 remains an original investigation because no reliable publication justified your "arguments" as well as being clearly POV because it focuses on one aspect of the competition (curiously the "degradation") based in opinion articles (another POV) instead of giving an overview of the competition and the facts after the "degradation", while curiously the cited FIFA competition's article presents itself as the sport's Holy Grail...

There is no xenophobia when declaring a journalistic production is biased: when a glass to the team sponsored by the newspaper and "minor" when he does the opponent participates defined "prestigious" (it has done with the "Mundialito" in the last 2 years), the newspaper is biased.--Dantetheperuvian (talk) 00:03, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, Dantetheperuvian, so I have no option but to please ask you to start a mediation process on the issue. According to the American congress, newspapers are primary sources when published as events unfold (http://www.loc.gov/creativity/hampson/workshop/primaryvssecondary.pdf). In this sense, they are more reliable than web-site tets written 4 or 5 decades later. They are not "original research". Perhaps you because you may not have any better argumentation, you keep arousing suspicions about the newspaper, even though I already proved that the same news have been published by other newspapers elsewhere. You said that the Catalunyan press was biased against the IC. Are you going to say now that Italian, Madrid and Scottish press are also "biased"? I do think you should try not to wonder about other people's intentions, and focus on the fact the objetcive of Wikipedia is to inform, as completely as possible, not to impose your point of view by telling only part of History. Once you try to erase contents which are backed by valid sources, just because they do not fit your views or because you suspect about "intentions" of the editors, you ended up simply making POV. On my part, I did NOT delete ANY of the contents brought by you, just the not-sourced "de facto" expression, but I put it back as soon as an independent part requested.

Once again, you are either not understanding what I write, or you are using filthy "tatics" in this debate, attributing to me actions I never had. I never denied that the FIFA sees the IC (Intercontinental Cup) as the forerunner or predecessor of the FCWC (FIFA Club World Cup) - although I think that, with the 2014 FIFA Executive Committee words on Copa Rio 1951, the IC is no longer the only one predecessor. What I did say is that, contradictionly enough, you are not opposed to mentioning the FCWC in the IC article when it is to say that the latter is the forerunner of the FCWC, but you do oppose such mentioning a lot when I quote in verbatim texts from FIFA.com (some of the FIFA.com texts which were linked in the article long before I edited) in which FIFA cites the IC as a symbolic world championship and the FCWC as the true world championship. With due respect, clearly enough you are kind of acting as if you were the "owner" of the article: the FCWC can be cited in the IC article only as long as you want; contents of FIFA.com can be cited only as long as you want. Clearly enough, if there is someone here who wants to tell only part of the facts and contents is you. As I told you before, I do not want to make any more additions to the IC article. I do not want to tarnish or "denigrate" the competition. I just want to tell the whole history and facts, and they are in the IC article now. And I do not want to talk to you forever. Still want to take out my edits? If my past history in Wikipedia is any guide, I can tell you that, due to the principle of neutrality/impartiality (the "tell the whole thing" principle), mediations usually favor those editors who do NOT want to take out sourced content. If you do think you are right, OK, please, you apparently know to operate Anglophone wikipedia better than me. Please be kind enough to initiate a mediation request and tell me. Kind regards. El cazador (talk) 02:20, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Gentlemen, I must insist that you remain civil in your debate and please move this debate to Talk:Intercontinental Cup (football). — Jkudlick ^tc_s 02:49, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

PS: Dantetheperuvian, with due respect, your own comments show how partial and biasedyou are. Look at what you wrote: The IC article as of January 2016 remains an original investigation because no reliable publication justified your "arguments" as well as being clearly POV because it focuses on one aspect of the competition (curiously the "degradation") based in opinion articles (another POV) instead of giving an overview of the competition and the facts after the "degradation", while curiously the cited FIFA competition's article presents itself as the sport's Holy Grail... ... So you think that 4 different newspapers (Madrid, Barcelona, Scotland, Italy) are all of them 'biased" and "unreliable" because they do no fit your view? And, according to you, I supposedly would only want to add the "negatives" of the history of the competition and that is the problem to you... So you ended up assuming that will only allow the article to tell what you see as the "positives" of the history of the competition but not what you see as the negatives ... You just assumed that you will only allow the article to show the part of the story that fits your view... Friend, if you want to add one million sources showing what you see as the "positives" of the competition, I sincerely will not object to it and I will not erase anything you bring... Inadvertently, you just assumed you will only allow sourced contents as long as they reflect your view... You do seem to be a very intelligent man, and I do think we should settle here on the present form. If you disagree, it is your right, and if this really is the case, I beg you demand the mediation process. Regards. El cazador (talk) 03:12, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

@Jkudlick and Dantetheperuvian:: Dear Jkudlick, I appreciate your help. I must say however, that in my opinion Dantetheperuvian is acting on emotional grounds to what he perceives as an "attack" on the competition. Look up and he has just declared that contents from newspapers of 4 cities and 3 contries are "unreliable" and "biased" (he never specified in what they would be unreliabe and biased besides the fact the he does not like or accept what they published) and has admitted he will only allow the article to show the parts of the history that he "accepts". I admit that I may have been wrong in having distrusted him since the beginning, but I regret to see that my fears were right ... Please, if this is to continue, I inform I do not know how to operate Anglophone wikipedia right, so I do beg you to open a mediation. Thanks. El cazador (talk) 03:12, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Question

Should categories with '(club name) footballers' be replaced with '(club name) players'? Leeds United FC fan (talk) 19:12, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Depends. If the club is only a football club (only has a football section), I would say yes. But if the club has other sports (i.e. basketball section, handball), I'd say no. MYS 77 ^✉ 19:14, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Many (it would seem, solely-football clubs) say ~~players~~ footballers (fixed). See (Category:Footballers in Mexico by club) Leeds United FC fan (talk) 19:16, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Diogo Luís Santo

I cleaned up the unref'd POV and added a ref myself, for his debut with Buriram United. However (supposedly), due to the Thai website's configuration, I was not allowed to copy/paste the title for his article here, so ref is in shabby display.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance --84.90.219.128 (talk) 22:09, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

@84.90.219.128: If you're on Chrome, maybe using F12 or using Ctrl+U to check the page's source code or right-clicking the text and selecting "inspect" will do the trick. MYS 77 ^✉ 12:55, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Intros

Now, from several examples I have seen, it seems again acceptable to write leagues where a player competes (i.e. "...is a X footballer who plays for Premier League club as a Y"). What brought on this (another) change of approach, please?

Mind you, I have only seen examples with Premier League players, maybe the PL deserves a special treatment? If so, why? Kind of confusing...

Attentively --84.90.219.128 (talk) 16:29, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps you are only looking at Premier League players, because I've seen plenty of players across the leagues where this is the case. I don't see how we are benefiting our readership by excluding the divisions their teams play in; is this not pertinent information that provides context? Mattythewhite (talk) 16:35, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I usually remove on sight. It easily gets outdated at the end of each season and the information can be seen elsewhere in articles (like career stats section), or the reader could simply look at the article for the team. However, it should be said that from what am aware of there is currently no consensus. Qed237 (talk) 16:54, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Stats usually become outdated on a weekly (at least) basis, yet wer're not talking about removing them. If we're not willing to update player biographies at least once a year, be it for the team's division or general updates, that's quite worrying. Mattythewhite (talk) 17:00, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Also, as I noted in this discussion, we can easily create a template that automatically updates clubs' leagues in articles (and I created one as an example {{EFCDP}}). Number 5 7 17:06, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I completed agree with QED (info may need update in every season, info about club can be found in own article or charts of stats below). I do see Matty's point of view, when he mention stats also needing update and not being removed (even though stats' charts are all about adding, not replacing). The template is not a bad idea, no sir 57 --84.90.219.128 (talk) 17:24, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

League is not needed as this is covered in the team article. I remember changing leagues on players articles well after the new season started because it got fogotten... Kante4 (talk) 13:05, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Al Ahly SC

WP:DENY, as blocked sock.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Al Ahly SC - team massive deleted ! text / tables - everything, someone who wants to try find more references and undo the text and add references ! More then 60-70% of the article text deleted ! Here the users are mainly to delete then to improve and try to help referencing !--Fanatic of Football (talk) 23:01, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

There are a lot of problems with articles for team outside the English-speaking world, particularly in Africa. Unfortunately there are very, very few reliable sources available online, plus thereare a small number of editors with strong biases for and against teams, particularly big clubs like Al-Ahly. This means that it is extremely difficult to verify what information is true, and most editors of English Wikipedia are not familiar enough with African football to know what looks right and what doesn't. If there is doubt, then it can't be included. If you can help find reliable sources that would be brilliant! Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 23:21, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Fanatic of Football If you're looking for references in English about clubs outside of the UK, you might as well give up. Unless it's a Barça or Real or similar, it is difficult to find anything written in English, it's the systematic bias present in wikipedia. Still, you can use references in other languages, see WP:NONENG. For Al Ahly,I guess Arabic or Egyptian Arabic would be more appropriate. See the page biggest editors in "Revision history statistics" and contact them, maybe they are locals and can add sources. Also, wikipedia references don't have to be online, I'm sure someone has written books about Al Alhy, just find them and add them.--Threeohsix (talk) 11:24, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Threeohsix Ilikeeatingwaffles This is a complete source about Egypt football in ENGLISH: [17]. It is notable enough ? It is I think. You have everything, but mainly statistics and tables about teams and players ! Not too much text. And as you see the page url does not change, indifferent what page on website you change.--Fanatic of Football (talk) 11:52, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm, a certain user who worked on Egyptian articles pointed to that source a few weeks ago. God knows what happened to them. Lemonade51 (talk) 14:57, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Template:2001 UEFA Team of the Year

Just checking, are Template:2001 UEFA Team of the Year notable? Qed237 (talk) 23:01, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

No, fanvote on their official site. Not notable for me... Kante4 (talk) 23:08, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

http://www.uefa.com/community/news/newsid=1584401.html Emyil (talk) 23:20, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

@Emyil: We know what it is and that there are source for it, the question is if it is notable enough for that template? As Kante4 says it is a fanvote. Qed237 (talk) 23:26, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, fanvote but what of it? This is fanvote too but even so FIFA give award. This squads official announced by UEFA.Emyil (talk) 00:05, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Pau López

In your opinion, is this notable for his biography (please see here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3387875/Pau-Lopez-Espanyol-player-red-stamping-Lionel-Messi.html)? In case several people deem it so, I'll insert it in his article, with the proper approach an encyclopedia merits (own words, neutral point of view). As much as I think his actions were appalling, several vandals have since managed to "up the ante" in that department.

Attentively, thanks in advance --84.90.219.128 (talk) 18:50, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

The Daily Mail is not a reliable source. However the same incident reported elsewhere might well merit brief inclusion in the article. Giant Snowman 19:35, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Done! --84.90.219.128 (talk) 20:02, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Assist Stats on Premier League Team pages (Arsenal 2015-16)

Hi Everyone

I am here to get consensus in regards to a dispute I've been having in regard Assist stats. I updated Arsenal's 2015-16 page with assist stats which I gathered from a Whoscored.com and premierleague.com. I feel that this edit would be a value contribution to the Arsenal's 2015-16 page but this edit was removed. the reason I was given was that the definition of assist in Premier League changes year by year and sometimes players that gets a penalty/free kick is even included assists.

The stats that I have used are from the premier league itself and if they have listed them as official assists I don't see why they shouldn't but included. I would understand if the stats were just from some random website but the Premier League agree on these stats.

I hope I can get consensus on this matter so my edit can stay on the Arsenal 2015-16 page.

Thank You

ArsenalFan1989999 (talk) 10:30, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Just to give my view shortly, and reason for reverting the assists. Assists has been discussed many times and Premier League are special. They change the definition for assist every season and currently even include players that was given a penalty. After discussion at the Premier League season articles a few years ago the assists was removed from the league season articles, and I think this should apply on club articles as well. With different reliable source having different numbers and no clear definition, I think it should not be included. Qed237 (talk) 13:28, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

The following link comes from the Premier league website and this link give you statistical information about the league. (http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/players/index.html?paramSearchType=BY_CLUB&paramSeason=squad&paramClubId=3) How more reliable can you get if these stats are coming directly from the League itself. if the Premier League are calling them assists why can't WikiArsenalFan1989999 (talk) 15:55, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Anyone with an opinion? 19:11, 6 January 2016 (UTC)Qed237 (talk)

Looks like nobody else has an opinion on this matter. ArsenalFan1989999 (talk) 10:28, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't think these should be included. Assists have a varied definition from competition to competition and from website to website. What the Premier League calls an assist, the Bundesliga might not. The Champions League's official stats may record an assist in one instance whereas Opta's statisticians may disagree. It's not as clear-cut as saying "The Premier League says this is an assist, so it must be". – Pee Jay 11:52, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, this is a perennial issue - but simply put there are no reliable sources for assists, and should not be included. Giant Snowman 12:36, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd rather say there are no reliable definitions for assists than reliable sources, to be honest. Goals, yellow cards, red cards, subs and stoppage time do not change from league to league, so I guess it's not safe to add assists to a season page. For an example, here in Brazil, there are no clear stats when related to assists, nor Soccerway (the only website which actually shows assists) gets it completely right. MYS 77 ^✉ 13:40, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

FA Cup Trophy

Do we need a separate article FA Cup Trophy for section FA Cup#Trophies. I am having a dispute with User:Rabono26, which unfortunately has involved to much reverting when I have restored the redirect at FA Cup Trophy so I will leave it now and hope for input from others. Qed237 (talk) 20:03, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Qed is not so much having a dispute with me as mindlessly reverting my clearly explained changes. Only after several reverts did I find out why, and his explanation is hardly convincing - "Trophy should not have its own article". This is not the only part of the dispute either, he is objecting to multiple changes, without giving any explanation. This is now all being handled on the FA Cup talk page, so please comment there. Rabono26 (talk)

Explanations have been provided, but it requires that you are willing to listen. Other editors has also said to oppose you, but your comment is my version is obviously superior and that is not helping any discussion. Qed237 (talk) 21:25, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Don't try to confuse people here. The comment above is about a completely separate issue (Laws of the Game). And in both cases, your explanations for edit warring have either been non-existent, partial, or have only come very late in the day, after the edit war stopped and myself or others have begun discussion. The facts are clear here as to which of us was being least helpful (if being unhelpful is defined as mindlessly reverting multiple times without discussion or explanation). As for being willing to listen, I had explained all my edits when I first made them, yet only now is it becoming clear that you actually agree with quite a lot of them - which is odd to say the least if you were listening from the outset. Rabono26 (talk) 22:01, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Both can be blocked for edit warring, to be honest. As for the trophy, I don't think it needs a separate page. If you want to raise the information about the trophy, please do it in its own section, Rabono26. MYS 77 ^✉ 21:26, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

As I said, all issues are now being discussed in their own sections on the FA Cup page, which I started. Rabono26 (talk) 22:01, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

You were trying to make unsupported mass changes to several articles, of course you should have started the discussion (per WP:BRD and common sense). What do you want? Applaudes? Someone saying "Good doggie"? No need to keep making yourself try and look good and talk about what you did (and accuse me of being an a**hole and mindless and so on), when you did what you were supposed to do after edit warring despite given reasons and refusal to listen. Qed237 (talk) 23:33, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

If at the end of all this a separate article is kept on the trophy, the title should be FA Cup (trophy). The trophy is just called the FA Cup..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:38, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Soccerbase

Hi, just a heads up about an issue I've recently noticed with Soccerbase. They seem to have altered the "To" dates on manager profiles to one day before the previous figure; for example, compare the Gary Mills profile on 26 September 2015 with the Gary Mills profile on 12 January 2016. The amended dates can obviously impact on the match figures, as seen with Mills' spell with York. As Soccerbase are notoriously inefficient at actioning requests via email, could people here message them to sort this out? The email address is: desk@soccerbase.com. Thanks, Mattythewhite (talk) 00:28, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Needing help renaming a category

Can I ask some admin please to rename the Category:FK Spartak Zlatibor Voda managers to Category:FK Spartak Subotica managers? The club, FK Spartak Subotica had the name of Spartak Zlatibor Voda for sponsrship reasons for some years, but they moved back their club name a couple of years ago. FkpCascais (talk) 02:06, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Now listed at WP:CFDS. They'll be renamed in a couple of days assuming no one objects in the interim. It's actually pretty easy to do if you use Twinkle. Jenks24 (talk) 03:43, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! FkpCascais (talk) 02:06, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

About the so-called site "reliability"...

The Preston legend Tom Finney signed for Lisburn Distillery in 1963 and played one game for them in EC1, a 3-3 draw against Benfica.

This is a rather obscure fact, and Internet football databases are largely to blame for that.

I have checked the top five "megasites" aggregating hundreds of thousands of players and results: transfermarkt, weltfussball, footballdatabase, zerozero and mackolik. How many of them had the fact right? The answer is NONE. All had a certain "Thomas Finney" of Northern Irish nationality. Mackolik even gives his birth year as 1934, seemingly out of thin air. To be sure, Thomas Finney appears on the UEFA website where all the sites copied from indiscriminately. Whoever did the copying was unable to make the connection to the Preston great, probably because he was 41 and in retirement at the time. Yet this fact can be found with minimal effort on the net, for example here [18].

I could not believe my own eyes, so I consulted an offline Toooor database (sold for around € 120 together with other stuff). Wrong again.

Do you know which site eventually got it right? The lowly eurocups-uefa.ru, which probably would not be considered reliable because it's in Russian (although the line-ups are written using the Latin alphabet). Which just goes to show that there is no point in dividing sites into reliable and non-reliable, at least as far as the EC are concerned - everyone is just copying everyone else, and genuine research is rare and found where you least expect it.213.156.113.58 (talk) 22:57, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

"Today someone checked an obscure but interesting 60 year fact and found a discrepancy on the internet. Wikipedia rocked to its very foundations. Mass hysteria..." or not. Reliable does not indicate infallible. And if the Distillery match can be referenced (which it can) then it should be referenced in his biography using another reliable source. The fact that a Russian site was right in one instance (and by 'right', I can only assume you mean it actually listed him as Tom Finney and provided no link to any of his profile) confers no significant authority or reliability. Koncorde (talk) 03:58, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Aaaaaand if he is indeed a Preston legend, some websites related to Preston may have more info about him, right? If not, then he's not that much of a legend. MYS 77 ^✉ 11:34, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Not sure what you're saying there - are you suggesting that Tom Finney isn't a Preston legend? I don't think you'll find many people agreeing with you there...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:40, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Benefit ofthe doubt, MYS77 is from Brazil. They have had a lot of their own legends to memorise :) Koncorde (talk) 11:51, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

@ChrisTheDude: I think you didn't understand what I said/I expressed myself in a controversial manner. I suppose legends are treated the same way worldwide. I mean, if you search for some info about Santos FC legends, you'll find it completely easy on the internet. It looked pretty strange to me that a Preston legend actually has so little info even on Preston-related websites. Thanks Koncorde, I think you got what I tried to say here :) MYS 77 ^✉ 12:42, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Logos for defunct teams?

What's the protocol for logos identifying historical/defunct teams in articles? The Atlanta Silverbacks just ceased operations, and we're still using their last badge in the Infobox. But that had a relatively limited use in the club's quarter-century history, it just happened to be in use when the roulette wheel stopped. It would make more sense to me that once an article becomes about an historical team, not an active one, we switch to a logo that defined the team for a longer period. According to sportslogos.net[19] the previous logo was in use from 2002-2012, with its replacement in use for two years. So in this case I would expect to revert to the older, more established logo at the top of the article. Has this been addressed before? SixFourThree (talk) 18:25, 12 January 2016 (UTC)SixFourThree

I didn't get it... why would we revert the last official logo of a defunct club to another one which were not used even before the club ceased to exist? MYS 77 ^✉ 18:59, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I think I understand your question. It's all the same team, they just jumped leagues (so sportslogos.net gives them a new page, which is confusing). The question is: should the articles be using their most-identified logos, or their final logos? SixFourThree (talk) 22:47, 13 January 2016 (UTC)SixFourThree

I see no point in reverting logos in the infobox just because a team ceased operations, but I do not see a problem in displaying all the historical logos in a wikitable built into Atlanta Silverbacks#Colors and badge. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 00:08, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

If you don't mind my asking, why not? Surely there's a difference when we're talking about an historical entity. Without a "current" logo to use, I think there's an argument that the historical record should reflect the bulk of its history. But honestly don't know if there's a protocol, which is why I raised it here. Thanks! SixFourThree (talk) 22:47, 13 January 2016 (UTC)SixFourThree

The only example I can think of is the infobox at Wimbledon F.C., where a caption reads: "Badge used 1981–2003; see below for others" (the link leads to the Club identity section). Malpass⁹₃! (what I've been ^up to/_drop me a ^___) 23:00, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I think we should stick to the final one. That's what was used when the club folded. Just like Parma FC, they used a logo for just one season before it went bankrupt, and now it was refounded under the name of SSD Parma Calcio 1913. The logo displayed is the new one, because the older club's history was (correctly) merged into the new one's. MYS 77 ^✉ 23:02, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Still not sure why "that's what was used when the club folded" should carry any outsize weight. That Wimbledon solution seems a good one, though. I didn't know if there was a consensus, but at least there's precedent. Thanks! SixFourThree (talk) 19:26, 14 January 2016 (UTC)SixFourThree

Wimbledon FC used the same logo for its whole history, and only changed it a season before its bankrupcy. Some other teams didn't have the same logo for their whole history, so I think it should always be discussed, to gather some consensus, in the club's talkpage. Each case seems different than other in this situation. MYS 77 ^✉ 19:35, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Last-minute goal

Does this article have any real merit? As it says on the talk page "this article seems to be becoming unsustainable, with any goal scored at the end of a game included, regardless of notability". IMHO, the article needs serious trimming with a clear definition of what is meant by "last minute" and criteria for the importance of the match. Is Watford v Leicester in the Championship on 12 May 2013 really notable? DKBY2015 (talk) 10:49, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd have expected a redirect to Glossary_of_association_football_terms#L. -Koppapa (talk) 11:10, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. I don't see the need for this article at all. A last-minute goal is a goal scored right at the end of a game. Sometimes it affects the result, sometimes it doesn't. Full stop. It's a dictionary definition, expanded into an excuse for writing horrendously recentist little match reports. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:18, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Agreed! --Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 11:23, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I also agree that there is no need for a full-blown article, and a listing in the glossary would more than suffice -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:22, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Last minute goals can be fairly notable, and given the size of the article I don't see why it has to be merged. Article needs cleanup of course but largely okay the way it is. Inter&anthro (talk) 19:52, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Marco Ballotta

Interesting question, I wager,

since we have the category ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL GOALKEEPERS WHO HAVE SCORED, I am wondering should this (former) player have it or not. Keep in mind, he only scored goals as a forward at a very amateur level, and since a footballer must pass WP:NOTABILITY to have an article here...

I opted against removing it after someone else added it, but if I was wrong, please remove it (or notify me to do it so) and sorry for any inconvenience. Thank you in advance, attentively to y'all --84.90.219.128 (talk) 01:46, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I also agree that's correct. He only scored goals from 2008 to 2015, all of them while playing as a forward. MYS 77 ^✉ 11:47, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Template:Top international football goalscorers

How would it be to have a template like this (with a consensus of minimum 50 international goals scored), just like we have one in Template:International cricket centuries (having a consensus of minimum 25 international cricket centuries scored)?

Seeing that the title links to a completely unsourced list (List of top international association football goal scorers by country) I would say no. We cant build templates on something that is not reliable sourced. Qed237 (talk) 12:09, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Also "Top international football goalscorers" does not seems like correct title as it implies all top goalscorers, while your list is cut to max one per country. If it is "top goalscorers" all should be included even if two from same country. Qed237 (talk) 12:12, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Now, the title is appropriate, I guess. — Swastik Chakraborty (User talk) 12:20, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is slowly turning into a sports statistics website, which is not what it is supposed to be at all. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 13:13, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

If it is so, then such a section of Wikipedia should be named "Statopedia" :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SWASTIK 25 (talk • contribs)

I think ArsenalFan700 has a good point, we need to focus more on adding text and improve articles than these kind of templates. I dont think it is useful. Qed237 (talk) 14:22, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Aren't these lists a form of WP:LISTCRUFT? MYS 77 ^✉ 16:38, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd say go ahead if the template is just for the lists themselves, but I don't think they belong on the player articles themselves.--Echetus Xe 16:52, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Agree with the logic given by User:Qed237 & User:MYS77. It's a form of WP:LISTCRUFT. — Swastik Chakraborty (User talk) 20:15, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Repeated Content

Hi there, I was editing Premier League Golden Glove when another User and I got into a debate. I was wondering, is it necessary to have the statement "The Premier League was formed in 1992, when the members of the First Division resigned from The Football League. These clubs set up a new commercially independent league that negotiated its own broadcast and sponsorship agreements." on related pages if it has little to no relevance to that page. The exact same extract appears on Premier League Manager of the Season, Premier League Player of the Season, Premier League Manager of the Month and Premier League Player of the Month to name a few. CDRL102 (talk) 22:03, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

There's a reason why these lists are all featured lists – maybe the FL criteria will help refresh your memory. Specifically criterion 2 ("engaging lead that introduces the subject and defines the scope"). —Bloom6132 (talk) 22:12, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Just because they're featured doesn't mean that they are well written. For instance it's almost certainly not required for the Golden Glove. I mean the fact that there is 13 years between the Premier League starting and the first Golden Glove being awarded should have been a clue that there was little relevance for that sentence. In contrast the Manager of the Month and Player of the Month articles are largely coherent in outlining that the only reason for those awards is due to the split of the league and the new sponsorship. But, it could also be outlined differently and in a more concise fashion as:

"The first award of X was sponsored by Carling in 1994/95 season supplementing the existing Football Writers' Association and Professional Footballers' Association Player of the Year awards"

Currently it's a whole lot of verbiage. Koncorde (talk) 22:19, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

"Just because they're featured doesn't mean that they are well written" – you're absolutely right. But in order to be featured the list must meet the criteria, including "professional standards of writing" and an "engaging lead". So your point is moot. —Bloom6132 (talk) 22:38, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

"Currently it's a whole lot of verbiage" – the reviewers who commented on the list during the FLC stage did not think so … —Bloom6132 (talk) 22:40, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

My point is moot but I'm absolutely right? Articles can always be improved. Even "Featured" ones. The English used in the certain parts is terrible.

"Thierry Henry, Cristiano Ronaldo and Nemanja Vidić have been Player of the Season on two occasions each and are the only players to have won the award more than once, with Ronaldo having achieved this in consecutive years (2007 and 2008)."

Which basically says "these three players have won it twice, nobody else has won it twice. Ronaldo won it twice in a row".

"Eight players were the Premier League's leading goalscorer and won the Golden Boot alongside the Player of the Season award.[11][12]"

That's amazing, in one season eight players were all top goalscorer and golden boot and player of the season? Altogether?

"Four of these players – Kevin Phillips,[13] Henry,[14] Ronaldo and Luis Suárez – went on to win the European Golden Shoe in the same season.[15][16]"'

Yes, apparently altogether in the same season. 4 European Golden Shoe winners. What a year that was.

Please don't pretend articles are monoliths of perfection. Koncorde (talk) 01:35, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Additional food for thought - when sponsorship stops in 2016, what then? Koncorde (talk) 21:30, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

And fixing of said articles is reverted without discussion because they were made featured lists several years ago...jeez. Koncorde (talk) 16:34, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Avezzano Calcio logo

Please who helps me load the logo of Avezzano football from version it. I did not succeeded. --Marica Massaro (talk) 20:02, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

"Sporting positions"

Should we remove the "Sporting positions" navigation boxes such as those present in Luís Figo and Wayne Rooney? SLBedit (talk) 00:15, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Keep being the captain of a high profile team is fairly notable and carries a fair deal of prestige. Inter&anthro (talk) 00:20, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I ask because I have seen that information being removed from other articles. SLBedit (talk) 01:06, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah I've seen it removed too, but since being a captain, especially of Manchester United and England in the example of Wayne Rooney carries a lot of prestige and coverage (see here, here, here, here etc) in my opinion it should be kept. Inter&anthro (talk) 02:27, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I read it in November or December at this very page that we should remove all captaincy templates. If I misunderstood it, thus misleading User:SLBedit, please notify me so that I revert myself. Sorry for the inconvenience if I was wrong. --84.90.219.128 (talk) 05:25, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

They should be removed - if it is a notable position then there should be a navigation box instead (e.g. {{Manchester United F.C. managers}}) but there is plenty of consensus at TFD that captaincy navboxes are not notable. Giant Snowman 09:14, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

"In my last decade at United... due to the changing nature of the game.... a captain simply could not play in each and every game so the armband tended to move around. These factors led to a spell where Giggs, Ferdinand, Evra and Vidic wore the armband at different times. Towards the end of my time, when Vida became more prone to injuries, he and Patrice more or less alternated as captain."
— Alex Ferguson, in his book, Leadership (page 106).

It is very important yes, but it is just not suitable to a nav box.--Echetus Xe 14:50, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I also believe they should be removed or replaced. If the position is notable, a template can be created, as is the case for team managers. Also, they are unsourced. Mattythewhite (talk) 15:23, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

They should be removed. Kante4 (talk) 18:13, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Template:La Liga Champions

Is this really needed? Kante4 (talk) 18:11, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

comment @Kante4 is there any set guidelines for what templates should be used or not? There seems to be a disagreement about them every week. Inter&anthro (talk) 19:01, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, no it is not needed, take it to TfD. About the guidelines, I am not aware of any but it is general notability and common sense. Qed237 (talk) 21:19, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

@Qed237: Done. Kante4 (talk) 21:50, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Clean up Infobox national football team (continued)

Three weeks ago, at a time of nearly complete inactivity in international football, two editors decided to "clean up" the infobox national football team by eliminating the Elo rating and biggest win/loss results, both of which have been part of the infobox without interruption since July 2006. One person convinced a second originally-opposing individual, while a third editor threw in a quick remark opposing removal of the Elo information. This went under everybody else's radar, and the proposing editor went ahead. Two editors tried to revert the deletion, but were dismissed with "Elo rating is removed because it is barely (if ever) used outside of Wikipedia" and "I don't see any opposition to this". The first argument would be reasonable, but hasn't been true for a while and the football Elo ratings are generally well respected by statisticians and betting agencies (statisticians of sort). Ignoring most blogs, check for example: [20], [21], [22], [23], [24]. Nate Silver in particular has become a big fan (e.g. [25], [26]) and has implemented derived ratings to other team sports. The second rationalization only reflects a nadir in interest in international football.
I don't have much of an opinion on the biggest win/loss, it's cute but trivial and can be put somewhere in the main text, but I believe the Elo history and current ranking is relevant in the infobox, primarily for all the failings of the FIFA rankings, which are now the only source of information: 1) The historical record of the current FIFA ratings dates back only to 1993, letting glancers-by for example believe that the Hungarian football team reached its zenith last week. This by itself should be enough. 2) The FIFA calculations from 1993 to 1999 were completely different (and even more naive) than the current calculations, so shouldn't and can't be compared to the rankings afterwards. 3) For many teams the worst FIFA ranking is the default entry ranking (check e.g. Croatia and Ukraine at 125 and 132 in the world. These are completely meaningless numbers. 4) The FIFA rankings are constantly derided by about anyone with some knowledge of football ([27], and too many other links;-) and are widely acknowledged by statisticians as being the least reflective of a team's actual strength or accomplishments among methods used (e.g. [28] and other links mentioned here). The FIFA rankings may be official, do (painfully) determine the seeding of teams, and get an extraordinary amount of attention, but all that also applies to, say, Jack Warner and Sepp Blatter. They should not be the single indicator of a team's current and historical strength if we can avoid it.
I don't think the tiny bit of "clutter" in the infobox should outweigh the loss of information due to this deletion. Afasmit (talk) 17:12, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your research. You make a convincing case that the Elo rating is statistically more interesting than the FIFA one, but unfortunately it has several other drawbacks. One is its lack of any official entity maintaining it, which results in editors being forced to conduct WP:OR if they wish to update the rating during an eloratings.net downtime (as your first referenced article by Nate Silver mentions). Another editing-related problem is that it does not have set dates when the ranking is updated, but rather it is a countinuous ranking (i.e. updated after every single match) which makes it hard to keep up-to-date on articles. This is of course related to the lack of an official entity, causing vagueness on when 'it is official' and when it should be updated. About whether it is notable: I realize that many football statisticians like to use it, after all it is a superior system to rank relative strength, but that's all it is: an interesting statistical method, rather than an actual official, published rank. That's why I believe it certainly has its place on articles about football statistics, but not on every team page. Elo isn't the only non-official ranking system out there, it just happens to be the only one that was mentioned on Wikipedia. –Sygmoral (talk) 18:52, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

I really don't think the biggest wins/defeats of a National team should be removed from the infobox. I find it an easy way to access the information, now it is missing from every article. I think this was a very poor decision honestly. Neither do I feel the ELO ratings should be removed. I really do not understand why this was deemed necessary. Why fix something that isn't broken? I really hope this infobox gets restored to its original form. It is missing valuable information which was easily accessible. I for instance like to check on this sort of information for teams and it is no longer handy. I am sure there are many other Wikipedians who would agree. Regards, (Subzzee (talk) 09:41, 6 January 2016 (UTC))

I have unarchived this conversation, this is a major change and should be reviewed. If all this information is going to be removed form the infobox, an alternative has to be agreed upon. Simply removing huge chunks of the infobox and then forgetting about the information is not okay in my view. Historic records were removed without any alternative suggested. (Subzzee (talk) 14:44, 14 January 2016 (UTC))

That alternative is to list the biggest win/loss somewhere in the article itself, instead of in the infobox. An infobox should only list concise information, preferably already mentioned elsewhere in the article. Neither arguments were true for these statistics, and neither were they for the Elo rating. That rating does not even necessarily need to be mentioned in the article because it should not be considered of higher relevance than various other rating systems (aside of the official FIFA ranking). It is still available on World Football Elo Ratings etc, of course. The point is, most people missing the Elo ratings in this infobox are only missing them because they are used to them being there, not because they would originally have expected them. Information on Wikipedia should not be only relevant to Wikipedians (..except for Meta pages of course). –Sygmoral (talk) 17:16, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I am not as worried about the ELO ratings as I am about the historic information that was removed. I don't think it necessarily needs to be in the infobox either, but I think we should talk about how and where to include these records before wiping them off the page. Maybe we can work that out now, I do think for practicality reasons that information should be moved to fixed place on the page for all articles, so that it is easy to find. The infobox served a good purpose in that respect of course. So how and where in the page would you put this information instead? (Subzzee (talk) 19:51, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

So, we are not going to discuss how and where to include this information? It was information that was included for almost all National teams across Wikipedia, we should decide onhow to handle the information before wiping it off the site completely. (Subzzee (talk) 21:58, 15 January 2016 (UTC))

It's not really wiped off the site unless someone manually removes it from where the template is called. I would say it is up to the editors to move this information to elsewhere in the article. Where and how exactly depends to some degree on the article: for example Belgium's article is quite extensive and has moved several sections to subpages, such as the Records page which includes this information. Other articles may be shorter or perhaps a bit less organized, and would include this in a section (rather than subpage) called Records, Statistics, or something similar. Another alternative is to create a new page listing all the highest margins of victory between national teams (if that doesn't exist yet), then it's even easier to compare between all of them. Before working on that though, we'd have to make sure this page would be deemed noteworthy enough, so that it isn't just deleted soon. –Sygmoral (talk) 01:06, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

The records page for the Belgian team looks very nice. I would love to see that quality level reached for all member federations, but it is not at that stage yet for many of the members. But this is definitely something worth working towards. Until then this overhaul presents a huge amount of work, as does everything I guess, but in the meantime the information is not available. I am willing to work on this if we can agree to a universal design and layout. (Subzzee (talk) 20:31, 16 January 2016 (UTC))

I take it we use the Belgian model for all other team pages? (Subzzee (talk) 18:02, 17 January 2016 (UTC))

Well not all NFT pages will need a separate article for their records, since most will only includes these for now, but if you mean creating a new 'Records' section for those with a similar layout as the sections in the Belgium article, then I do believe that would work. –Sygmoral (talk) 02:23, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Player tables: why light-blue?

Wikipedia's style for tables uses shades of grey. Most templates that create a table structure keep this default style. But football player tables do not: they have a light-blue background. Why does the default style not suffice for this table? And why should it be light-blue? I notice that the hockey player tables use a similar layout but with a bright green even, that almost hurts the eyes.

The reason for these colors is simple: the original creator of those templates, ~10 years ago, thought they looked pretty, and from then on, editors reverted any changes to it 'because there is no consensus' (check the oldest 40 or so edits of the Template:Fs start template). No consensus was ever needed for the original color, but the efforts of editors trying to change it to a neutral light-grey were consistently reverted due to 'no consensus to change it from the arbitrary original color'. I can understand those reactions, but it does not lead to the best result. No careful thought was ever put into deciding the original color, while careful arguments were made for the light-grey changes. "But it's always been that way" is a bad reason to use as a veto every time, so can we try and figure out a more sensible color for those table headers? Suppose there was no background color, what background color should it have, and should it be different for each sports discipline?

I propose making both of them (and any other arbitrarily colored sports table headers in templates) a standard Wikipedian light-grey. Simply because I see no good argument to use anything else. –Sygmoral (talk) 19:22, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

@Sygmoral: Well, there actually was a pretty big discussion about this nearly nine years ago. Check it out here. MYS 77 ^✉ 19:59, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for that link! It doesn't really come to a conclusion, unfortunately; several people feel (as I do) that this light-blue should be replaced with a light grey (as per Wikipedia look-and-feel), and several other people feel it should just stay the way it is (usually without a real argument though). The most interesting thing I read there was from the original template creator who says "It was arbitrary [...] Light blue was used because it was the colour of the team I first tried it with." I get the feeling that it has stayed light-blue because people say: "I don't care so let's just keep it". –Sygmoral (talk) 23:05, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

A related question is whether articles should be allowed to change the default header background (either light blue or light grey) into the background that they already use for other tables in the same article. If articles can do this, then the player table headers need to be customizable too, otherwise editors can just create their own headers (without a template) anyway. But perhaps such custom backgrounds should be discouraged anywhere in an article, and this may need a mention somewhere in the guidelines since a lot of articles do use it. Editors will also keep putting them back unless there's some authority showing they shouldn't (I had changed the black-on-red for Albania into white-on-red for accessibility, but this was reverted in less than two hours). None of this would be an issue anymore if all tables just stay with the default light-grey style. –Sygmoral (talk) 14:38, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Sygmoral, I have some questions about your views and your actions on this issue.

You say that the gray is preferable unlike the light blue. However you changed the "default" colour (light blue) with a "optional parameter" ([29]). Why don't you put the gray as a "default" colour?
About the "optional parameter". Is it useful? In the past (since March 2015‎) given the opportunity to change the color of the template in articles, without consensus ([30]‎) and this led to nonuniformity in national football teams articles and MOS:COLOUR violations.
The light blue remained because the propose to give the gray colour, likely to create confusion with other tables of the articles (as supposedly the other tables has the default gray). Do you suggest something on that?

It is good to answer the above questions and to clarify your position if you want to become a constructive dialogue. --IM-yb (talk) 15:29, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for joining the discussion.

I kept the default light-blue back in March, because changing that default would have required consensus. All I did was increase configurability to the template at that point. That way, articles that already use custom backgrounds could also apply it to their player tables, while all other articles remained unaffected.
Is it useful? Well, that depends on the answer to another question. Should articles be allowed to use team colors in their table headers/footers? If yes, then the parameters are required in order to make the player tables fit the color scheme. If not, then the parameters are not useful. I admit that I had not anticipated that so many articles would apply background colors only to the player tables. I only had articles in mind that were already using background colors for other tables, so that they could make the Player Tables match.
There is no reason for the player table to 'stand out' with color, as some people claim. Where is the precedent for this in any featured content on Wikipedia? Background color is normally only used for navigation or hierarchy (navboxes, some infoboxes). There is a Table of Contents on every article where people can easily find the Squad or Players section. So it is not a good reason to keep it. The only reason I keep hearing is "we're used to them like that", not that it's actually better. I'm sure that was also Ed g2s's point when he suggested multiple times to change it to Wikipedia's standard grey - 10 years ago already! –Sygmoral (talk) 17:11, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Any more thoughts on this? If this discussion dies out, I will re-add the customizability in the Player Table Headers, since there was no consensus to remove them in the first place (the editor himself explicitly said he was being bold by removing it).

But I'll be just as happy if we can decide that no table header anywhere in the body of an article should have color - in that case, this template should be made into standard-grey, and all articles using header-backgrounds elsewhere should be urged to change those to the default wiki style. –Sygmoral (talk) 20:10, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Sygmoral respect the decision please. You are not alone here. Wikipedia is collective. There is not consensus for "optional parameter". --IM-yb (talk) 21:36, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

@IM-yb: as I said before, that 'decision' was made in a single day by two people, so hardly a representation of that collective :) That's why this thread is here, to try and reach a decision carried by more people. –Sygmoral (talk) 01:16, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't see the need for change here. Making the colour change optional will just lead to a hotch potch of different colour schemes, and I would prefer it if it was consistent. Number 5 7 22:24, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

@Number 57: Consistency is what we should go for in any case, indeed! Can I read between the lines then and say that you would prefer that articles did not use background colors at all? Examples of color users: Italy, Spain, Belgium, Greece, ... Then, if custom background colors are ruled out, can you follow my arguments to use a standard Wikipedia-grey instead of the current arbitrary light-blue (see my answer (3) above)? I can of course make concrete visual examples before I'd make such a change. –Sygmoral (talk) 01:16, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

TBH, I'm quite happy with the light blue – that's what I don't see the need to change. Not everything on Wikipedia is grey, nor does it have to be (sometimes colours improve an article). Number 5 7 11:24, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Given the benefits of using a CSS class over inline styles, do you have any other reasons for keeping it blue, other than your personal preference? That doesn't really seem good enough. ed g2s • talk 15:52, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't have a clue what you mean by CSS class, nor why there would be any benefits; how would it make the template simpler to use? Number 5 7 16:00, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

No problem. A CSS class allows you mark HTML with a named identifier so that you can define it's appearance in a separate file (a CSS file). This allows you separate the content (the table structure and contents) from the appearance. Users can then use difference CSS files (usually called 'skins') to change the appearance of Wikipedia. This may be done for accessibility reasons (e.g. a high contrast skin for users with vision problems). Here's an example of the problems inline styles cause. This is on WikiWand, a popular Wikipedia reader:

You can see the table beneath without inline styles respects the user preference for white text on a dark background as the dark skin can simply change the colour definitions of the 'wikitable' class. You get same issue in the official Wikipedia phone app if you use the 'dark' theme. If you mix colour definitions in with your HTML this customisation becomes impossible. ed g2s • talk 16:09, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree, we should use css classes as much as possible, and try to avoid using inline styles if possible. also, the default grey is also more neutral, and avoids making every national team look like Argentina. Frietjes (talk) 16:23, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I considered at first whether we could find a compromise by using the wikitable's style without the borders: that way, it would largely look the same as it does now, just with standardized table headers. Having no borders on a wikitable is not possible though, and after suggesting this option on the Common.css talk page, the reaction was: "Cell borders are basically required for accessibility." So I am getting the impression that there isn't really a way around it: if we want to bring these tables to Wikipedia standards, it will have to be a regular wikitable. And we'll have to do it at some point anyway; why not do it now then. Here's what it would look like on the example ed g2s posted:

0#0	Nat.	Pos.	Player
36	MF	FRA	Ismaël Bennacer
37	MF	POL	Krystian Bielik
43	GK	ENG	Ryan Huddart
44	GK	MKD	Dejan Iliev
45	FW	NGA	Alex Iwobi
46	DF	ENG	Chiori Johnson
47	MF	FIN	Glen Kamara
49	GK	ENG	Matt Macey

0#0	Nat.	Pos.	Player
50	FW	ENG	Stephy Mavididi
51	DF	ENG	Tafari Moore
52	DF	ENG	Stefan O'Connor
53	DF	ESP	Julio Pleguezuelo
54	MF	FRA	Jeff Reine-Adélaïde
55	MF	ENG	Tyrell Robinson
59	FW	ENG	Chris Willock

I'd personally switch the Nat. and Pos. columns on this particular template, but that's another thing.

Let's also see what the National version could look like:

0#0	Pos.	Player	Date of birth (age)	Caps	Goals	Club
1	1GK	Joe Hart	(1987-04-19) 19 April 1987 (age 37)	57	0	Manchester City

2	2DF	Nathaniel Clyne	(1991-04-05) 5 April 1991 (age 33)	9	0	Liverpool
3	2DF	Kieran Gibbs	(1989-09-26) 26 September 1989 (age 35)	10	0	Arsenal
5	2DF	Gary Cahill (Vice-captain)	(1985-12-19) 19 December 1985 (age 38)	40	3	Chelsea
6	2DF	John Stones	(1994-05-28) 28 May 1994 (age 30)	7	0	Everton

4	3MF	Eric Dier	(1994-01-15) 15 January 1994 (age 30)	2	0	Tottenham Hotspur
7	3MF	Dele Alli	(1996-04-11) 11 April 1996 (age 28)	4	1	Tottenham Hotspur
8	3MF	Ross Barkley	(1993-12-05) 5 December 1993 (age 30)	19	2	Everton

9	4FW	Harry Kane	(1993-07-28) 28 July 1993 (age 31)	8	3	Tottenham Hotspur
10	4FW	Wayne Rooney (Captain)	(1985-10-24) 24 October 1985 (age 39)	109	51	Manchester United

It may look less pretty than before, but it looks very Wikipedia, doesn't it? I'm not really happy about those breaks between the positions though, perhaps they should be changed or removed (I've seen several women national team articles explicitly put the position inside those breaks: Goalkeepers, Defenders, ...). –Sygmoral (talk) 13:39, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

If you want accessibility, the MLS team rosters have been using an accessible layout via the {{Football squad start2}} family of templates for years: see e.g. Seattle Sounders FC#Current roster. The coloured background to the header is currently optional. It was trialled elsewhere, but at the time there was a fair amount of don't like it and/or don't see the need for change. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:00, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for those links. It's a bit contradictory that an accessibility-dedicated template such as this allowed for the header to have a customizable color though, as the Seattle Sounders one is barely readable :) I also don't like a few other things ... I believe what we need is a compromise. And I don't just want to create a new template family; that would be missing out on a chance to improve accessibility for thousands of articles, with as little design compromise as possible. –Sygmoral (talk) 19:23, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately I think it looks too terrible to be acceptable. Number 5 7 13:57, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, I would also prefer not to have all those borders inside. I have tried a new argument to get that in the stylesheet. In the worst case it is still possible to achieve it without a change to that stylesheet, although then we'll still be going against the design guidelines. But a lot better than it is now. –Sygmoral (talk) 19:23, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Borders are acceptable for every other table, infobox, image frame on the site. It's just how the default theme is designed. If you prefer a borderless theme then that can be applied as a personal preference, but we shouldn't hard code inconsistencies into our content. ed g2s • talk 15:31, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Not every table on Wikipedia has borders on the 'inside' though: infoboxes and navboxes don't, they only have a border on the outside. I admit those aren't traditional 'data tables' though, more like 'layout tables'. But hey, we already have match results without borders don't we? Those don't have table headers though, so it's not exactly the same, but anyway - here's what I was thinking about:

0#0	Pos.	Player	Date of birth (age)	Caps	Goals	Club
1	1GK	Joe Hart	(1987-04-19) 19 April 1987 (age 37)	57	0	Manchester City

2	2DF	Nathaniel Clyne	(1991-04-05) 5 April 1991 (age 33)	9	0	Liverpool
3	2DF	Kieran Gibbs	(1989-09-26) 26 September 1989 (age 35)	10	0	Arsenal
5	2DF	Gary Cahill (Vice-captain)	(1985-12-19) 19 December 1985 (age 38)	40	3	Chelsea
6	2DF	John Stones	(1994-05-28) 28 May 1994 (age 30)	7	0	Everton

4	3MF	Eric Dier	(1994-01-15) 15 January 1994 (age 30)	2	0	Tottenham Hotspur
7	3MF	Dele Alli	(1996-04-11) 11 April 1996 (age 28)	4	1	Tottenham Hotspur
8	3MF	Ross Barkley	(1993-12-05) 5 December 1993 (age 30)	19	2	Everton

9	4FW	Harry Kane	(1993-07-28) 28 July 1993 (age 31)	8	3	Tottenham Hotspur
10	4FW	Wayne Rooney (Captain)	(1985-10-24) 24 October 1985 (age 39)	109	51	Manchester United

I feel like this is a good compromise between the Wikipedia style and what the player tables currently look like. And I believe we'll need such a 'compromise', to avoid reverts until next summer or so. Unless you're planning on enforcing things by protecting the templates ... :) –Sygmoral (talk) 20:16, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Any thoughts on this layout to make the NFT player tables more neutral and bring them closer to Wikipedia standards, while retaining the smooth overview due to no internal borders? Here's also a similar layout for the version for clubs:

0#0	Pos.	Player
36	MF	Ismaël Bennacer
37	MF	Krystian Bielik
43	GK	Ryan Huddart
44	GK	Dejan Iliev
45	FW	Alex Iwobi
46	DF	Chiori Johnson
47	MF	Glen Kamara
49	GK	Matt Macey

0#0	Pos.	Player
50	FW	Stephy Mavididi
51	DF	Tafari Moore
52	DF	Stefan O'Connor
53	DF	Julio Pleguezuelo
54	MF	Jeff Reine-Adélaïde
55	MF	Tyrell Robinson
59	FW	Chris Willock

–Sygmoral (talk) 02:34, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Is match information really unnecessary?

GiantSnowman had recently undone one of my edits and [another user's on the rational that per WP:FANCRUFT this information is not needed. I'm not so convinced, especially since this same editor added in this edit some excerpt of a player signing a contract which hardly appears more significant. Me and the editor had a disruption about the issue although his/her argument was not that convincing in my opinion. Is this information really that unnecessary? Inter&anthro (talk) 22:19, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

As I've said to you, we do not need details of every game/goal/assist - just the notable ones. What makes these goals notable? Nothing. Are they covered in significant detail by reliable sources? No. This is an encyclopedia - we don't need run-of-the-mill sports commentary. Giant Snowman 22:27, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Oh, and as for my 'contract' edit you seem to have an issue with - a young player signing his first professional contract, in a news article devoted solely to that event, is clearly notable. A well-established first-team player scoring some goals is not. Giant Snowman 22:31, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman: I never said the information was unneeded to the article, it was your logic. Since you said that a player scoring their first brace of goals in a match for the first time in a career isn't notable cause they will probably score more, than by (you're) rational a player signing a contract for the first time is not notable either since they will probably sign more in the future as well. Inter&anthro (talk) 22:35, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

James Ward-Prowse could retire and move to Outer Mongolia tomorrow and it wouldn't make the goals any more notable. My 'future' example on your talk page was simply to make you think about where the line gets drawn. Giant Snowman 22:38, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Its not just any goal, its only the second time he's ever scored and his frist major contribution for his team for the season. Inter&anthro (talk) 22:43, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

"his frist [sic] major contribution for his team for the season" - who says? You? OR, POV, FANCRUFT. A long-established first-team regular playing well is not encyclopedic content. Giant Snowman 22:45, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

It clearly says so here. Scoring only his second and third goals of his career and first brace in his career is clearly notable. Inter&anthro (talk) 22:49, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, I was at the Southampton v WBA match and before the match we were saying that it was about time that JWP scored. After nearly 100 league matches, his goal record is extremely poor for a midfielder. You could tell by his reaction what the first goal meant to him. This is confirmed by this article. DKBY2015 (talk) 22:58, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Again, a player scoring two goals is not intrinsically notable - however this is, hence why I have updated the article. Giant Snowman 12:53, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

GiantSnowman I tried to initiate this discussion on Talk:Roberto Firmino but I appreciate that someone of your experience has a lengthy watchlist and it would have been buried. I'm not for for documenting every goal Firmino scores, he's a forward after all. He scored two in a match against the league leaders. That is not as run-of-the-mill as finishing from three yards at the end of a 2–0 win over a lower team. It just so happens that this brace came after his first goal, so I can see why you would think it's becoming a checklist '''tAD''' (talk) 15:27, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Almightey Drill's assessment, Firmino's goals weren't just against some average club and they were both pretty good and in a 3-3 draw with league leaders Arsenal. They deserve to be included in the article. Inter&anthro (talk) 16:31, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

As well, if we assume that tomorrow Firmino "could move to Outer Mongolia", this would be just about the only thing he ever did for Liverpool. He is paid to score goals and if we're writing a biography of him, it's handy to include this game at the very minimum; I am not for complete accounts of every goal because that is tedious and near unreadable. If next season he scores 70 goals, then we can remove this brace as just a couple in a drawn league match. '''tAD''' (talk) 16:40, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

@Almightey Drill exactly. Scoring a goal against Bolton Wanderers or Aston Villa probably shouldn't be in the article, but scoring a brace against Arsenal is clearly more important and notable. Similarly is Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, & Neymar's goals in El Clásico are clearly more notable than the hundreds of others these footballers have scored in their career. Inter&anthro (talk) 17:07, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Excusing when Firmino scores a volley from his own penalty area in the 2018 FA Cup Final to defeat Bolton 6–5 after trailing 0–5 with eight men at half time '''tAD''' (talk) 17:11, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Guys, why can't you see the issue here when you use phrases like "they were good goals" or "it was against good opposition" - so what? That is POV, OR, FANCRUFT. Maybe he doesn't do anything notable this season. Will future historians look back with awe about the time someone scored two goals in a game? Probably not. "He is paid to score goals" - exactly, so what is notable or significant about someone doing their job? Giant Snowman 17:23, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not just my opinion it is the sources opinion as well (see here & here). Stop accusing editors of breaking Wikipedia's policies when we have been citing everything, and also stop using WP:FANCRUFT as a guideline when it is clearly an essay. Inter&anthro (talk) 17:39, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't know what NESN is but it's a glorified Wordpress site, while 'This is Anfield' is a fansite. Any significant coverage in reliable sources? You have not cited that the goals were good or rare or the opposition was good or poor or it was a hood match or not - and until you do you are simply putting across your own opinion as a fan. Giant Snowman 17:47, 17 January 2016 (UTC) Giant Snowman 17:47, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Sure more reliable sources here, here, here, and here. Firmino and his goals are a main theme in each one. Inter&anthro (talk) 18:29, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Also I know this doesn't make any difference but I am not a Liverpool or Southampton fan, I support Chelsea and Inter Milan. I'm in favor of adding this content because it improves the articles, it has nothing to do with me being a fan. Inter&anthro (talk) 18:29, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I have to side with GS here. I mean, just go into the article and read it. The sentence about his brace is just there... does not seem significant at all. The first bit about his 100th appearance is good but then the next one is just "He earned praise for a brace." What about the brace? What was the praise? Give me something!!! We're an encyclopedia so thus not a dumping ground for random information and currently it looks like it. Look at the Cristiano Ronaldo article, read it, and look at how it is described when he scores. Not every goal is put down and when it is there is, something describing it, like a quote from the manager or something else significant like the goal being in a final or something. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 19:06, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

@ArsenalFan700 it both instances it clearly did not say it was just a brace, in the Ward-Prowse's case one was a well taken free-kick, and in the Firmino case it was a curling strike from 20 yards. Before you and your frosty friend accuse me of talking shit and making this stuff up as fan fiction it clearly says so in the sources. What's more both players were praised by their managers after the game, and in Firmino's case the goals weren't against any opponent; they were against league leaders Arsenal and could change the whole title race. In both instances these are clearly not "everyday" goals, these instances are clearly notable and deserve to be in the article. Inter&anthro (talk) 19:16, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

What? I am not against the inclusion and I won't say it is fan fiction or whatever but go back to it: "Ward-Prowse earned praise from manager, Ronald Koeman, after scoring a brace in a 3–0 win home win against West Bromwich Albion on 16 January 2016: a free kick and a penalty" What was the praise? What is so special about the free-kick? Something I hate on wikipedia is the sometimes "lazy" (in quotations because I am not saying you are lazy but just in general) writing sometimes. As for the Firmino one, go back and read that one. That does not need to be added. It is important to the title race but to Arsenal, not Firmino or Liverpool and if so, we should be able to source why it is for them both. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 19:22, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

For the 'lazy text' in the Ward-Prowse article that was GiantSnowman himself/herself who added it here, not me. I fail to see how the Firmino goal is not notable; it was a great strike (says it in the sources, not just my POV) and it influenced the title race. What more does it have to be? Inter&anthro (talk) 19:29, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

You are really overstating how much his goals influence the title race. Jack Butland made a great save today off Giroud and kept the cleansheet as Arsenal drew 0-0... do we need to go into Butland's page and write about his save and how his cleansheet has affected the title race? What about the goal yesterday from Gestede for Villa against Leicester? I mean, we are only at the midpoint of the season and those goals did not do anything major in the title race... hell, Arsenal maintained top position still after the match. As for Ward-Prowse, this is not a "he did it!" thing... I am just saying in general how banal the sentence is and how if it has to be included it should have more detail. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 19:39, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

@ArsenalFan700 I don't really understand your argument, are you saying that the instances need more detail to be notable or that they're not notable enough to begin with? Ward-Prowse only scored one league goal before this match. Scoring a brace is pretty notable in his career. So is Firmino's goal, who also scored a brace - against Arsenal and was a curling strike from 20 yeards! What more does it have to be to be notable? Inter&anthro (talk) 19:44, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I am talking about both goals separately. For Ward-Prowse, you can add it, but there is a mention of praise from Koeman... what is it? You just said it is significant cause he only had one league goal before this match... add that then. For Firmino, you said it is significant for its impact on the title race but I am saying you are overstating how much of an impact those goals had, especially since we are only in January. Arsenal entered that match in first and ended it in first and Liverpool are no threat at this moment in the table so I don't look at that as a reason to include the goals. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 19:50, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

@ArsenalFan700 Whatever I'll add the information to the Ward-Prowse article when I get the chance then Inter&anthro (talk) 20:10, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Cheers. But do try and see I am not trying to be an ass or anything about this. That is why I gave the Ronaldo article as an example. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 20:12, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

@ArsenalFan700 Sorry for getting heated in the discussion. While I'm sure GiantSnowman, you, and others are very hardworking and make all these edits in good faith its just frustrating because there editors whom always seem to have a problem with my contributions. Sorry again about my tone, hope it didn't offend anyone. Inter&anthro (talk) 20:25, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

The content in the Ward-Prowse article is sufficient as it is, it does not need tarting up further. Something similar (if the sources exist) in the Firmino article would also be fine. Giant Snowman 20:20, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

You sure? As far as I was concerned since I came here you should always try to add something to show significance. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 20:22, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Alright, I just slept on it, and now I realize how much of an idiot I am. Woops. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 13:27, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Edit war regarding List of top international association football goal scorers by country

Recently, I've been engaged in edit wars several times with User:GoalsGalore while editing the List of top international association football goal scorers by country regarding the counting of official caps and goals of the soccer players. You can check it in the article's revision history. The user states that, the caps & goals that aren't officially acknowledged or counted by FIFA but by the football association or federation of the respective players' country, should also be included in the list. Should those be counted as fully official statistics, though not counted as official ones by FIFA? Please help me find a solution to it. Thank you. — Swastik Chakraborty (User talk) 10:49, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

@SWASTIK 25: You should probably contact the editor you are having a dispute with on his/her talk page or the articles talk page. If you have already done that and it isn't productive the next logical step could be to bring the discussion here and/or contact an administrator. Also while this is an essay and not a guideline, familiarizing yourself with Wikipedia:BRD would be good to avoid future edit wars. Inter&anthro (talk) 15:28, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

As for my opinion on the issue Wikipedia usually uses FIFA-recognized statistics before information that's not recognized by FIFA. Inter&anthro (talk) 15:28, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

@Inter&anthro: This edit war has been going on for a while and discussion at the article talkpage was just between the two arguing and it seems like the discussions on their talkpages has only resulted in more anger between the two editor. With that in mind I think it was the right decision to turn here now for input from other editors. Qed237 (talk) 16:11, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

This topic seems more like two people fighting than a true attempt for consensus, to be honest. As for my opinion, I think we should stand with FIFA's appearances and goals, because the other sites aren't that precise (NFT only has a little bunch of non-FIFA friendlies). MYS 77 ^✉ 16:30, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

@Qed237: Sorry about that, I was unaware of the extent of the edit war, I probably should have looked deeper before commenting. I agree with MYS77's comment. Inter&anthro (talk) 16:33, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I have opened a new discussion on the article talkpage and I would like input there. Seems like the general RSSSF source say one thing, and the specific RSSSF page for footballer "Sunil Chhetri" says something else. Qed237 (talk) 16:40, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the RSSSF source, specially for Indian football, was probably done up by Arunava Choudhuri who is a good journalist in India but who knows what his criteria is for goals and games. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 17:30, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Cristiano Ronaldo

Given that after this (please see here http://soccer.nbcsports.com/2016/01/18/video-should-ronaldo-have-been-sent-off-for-this-petulant-kick/), it's already the FOURTH unpunished assault this season alone (between punished and unpunished, since his arrival in 2009, I think he's nearing 15 ejections+"should-have-been" ejections), I think this should be part of his article, in a separate section (temperament) or just in the club career.

I say this because, after a quick glance to his article, I did not see one single mention to these many incidents. You folks don't think this merits inclusion? With all due respect, I do, but I am not going to be the one to insert anything, just writing a simple opinion and/or alerting my fellow editors, never edited in this article nor do I have the intention of doing so.

Attentively --84.90.219.128 (talk) 18:34, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I see several mentions of red cards in his career. Paragraphs relating to 2014-15 even talk about him receiving his 9th red card. While I agree that maybe more could be said on the matter (I am sure there are reputable sources willing to discuss his "fiery" temperament or petulance) there is also a point to be said that some details just become prurient. As it is the article is already massively bloated.

I'd accept a few sentences in a single paragraph under Playing Style relating to his temperament, but it should be in context with the fouling and behaviour towards him, and not out-weigh his sucesses elsewhere. Koncorde (talk) 21:37, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Meh, i don't think it should be added. Kante4 (talk) 21:42, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Most of the red card instances are already covered in the article, there's no need to make a special section in my opinion, especially since Ronaldo's team mates are Pepe and Sergio Ramos are his team mates. Inter&anthro (talk) 22:04, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I believe you folks, mine was just a really quick glance, so I did not notice anything being written on the matter. Thanks, happy editing --84.90.219.128 (talk) 22:48, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

List of footballers with 100 or more caps

I've noticed that in this document published by FIFA regarding the list of footballers featuring in the FIFA Century Club, the name of Hussein Saeed is not included. Can anyone give the proper explanation for it? — Swastik Chakraborty (User talk) 13:54, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Maybe because some of his international caps were non-FIFA matches? I suppose so. MYS 77 ^✉ 14:16, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

It looks like he was "recently added" a few edits ago here, but he should not be in the list as he is not in the source. As MYS77 says, it is likely that some of his caps were not official matches (not recognized by FIFA). Qed237 (talk) 14:19, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Part of the reason is because FIFA DOES NOT AWARD CAPS! This is in contrary to what you Swatik25 continue to believe which is a hindrance to stats being put about here on Wiki. FIFA simply gives recognition to players they know that have made at least 100 appearances in FIFA recognized matches. There are a number of players from other countries who belong in FIFA's century club but aren't because records are lacking. GoalsGalore (talk) 14:24, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

@GoalsGalore: Calm down, and please dont WP:SHOUT, we can read your text perfectly without shouting. The reason is that sometimes teams play friendly matches outside FIFA rules for different reasons. Sometimes they want unlimited substitutions to test players, then FIFA dont count it (or 50 players could get capped in the same match), and sometimes they want to play "behind closed doors" and not have any points counted towards the FIFA rankings. The nations themselves chooses for different reasons do play outside the regular rulebook. Qed237 (talk) 14:29, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not shouting. It may seem like it but I'm trying to make it clear to Swastik25 than FIFA simply does not award caps! What you've said is still besides the point. Yes, certain countries play unofficial matches and so on, but at the end of the day, FIFA uses info from the FA's themselves, records from competitive fixtures (FIFA and continental competitions), and even third party sources to come up with a list of players who have made at least 100 appearances in FIFA recognized matches. Simple as that. At the end of the day, it's the FA's that award caps and their "official total" is as per appearances in what they consider as official matches and their total might be different from FIFA's total. GoalsGalore (talk) 14:39, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

And in these cases we have to follow FIFA do get same definitions for all players, otherwise FA would create a lot of XI matches and matches for fun to get records. "Oh we have record of biggest win", when a national team meets a team from tier 10 in domestic league and counts it. Qed237 (talk) 14:55, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

This immature User:GoalsGalore focuses more on quarreling with me than discussing serious matters. Anyway, I agree with what User:Qed237 has stated. — Swastik Chakraborty (User talk) 20:03, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Discussing serious matters... hah! You can't even comprehend simple logic, let alone discuss "serious matters". I've also answered your question above. Try and comprehend that! But knowing you, you're still gonna insist on your flawed beliefs. As for what Qed237 said above, what FIFA recognizes as official is a starting point but isn't and shouldn't be the only definition of what an official match is and therefore dictate the caps count for a player should be. If records are available of which FA's recognizing certain non-FIFA matches. That's what you need to go with. If not then, yes, we should just go with FIFA recognized matches. Saying that an FA would just arrange match after match against select sides and clubs just for their players to earn caps is silly. I understand what you're trying to get at, but No FA does that and therefore isn't a concern and shouldn't be a reason not count matches that aren't recognized by FIFA but are for any FA question. GoalsGalore (talk) 20:16, 15 January 2016 (UTC

I disagree. Not every nation has a certain set of rules for what is and what isn't an official match for them and not all nations keep track of caps like that... FIFA however has their certain rules for what is and what isn't an official match that counts for all the nations within it. If someone makes their debut in a non-FIFA official match just put something about it in the article itself instead of editing the infobox. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 23:38, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Stick with FIFA stats. At least they are based on certain rules, while we can't assure that some FA's have the same criteria. MYS 77 ^✉ 14:52, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

FAI Women's Cup

I have been updating the above article and that of the inaugural winners, Benfica W.S.C.. However both articles have been persistently vandalised by User:CraigWhyteisthelegalownerofIbrox, (ridiculous name). Three sources including Rsssf list and or state first final as 1989 and I can find no evidence suggesting otherwise. However this vandal disputes this claim without offering any evidence and has reverted edits several times. Really can't be arsed getting into edit war with idiot. Any suggestions welcome. Djln Djln (talk) 22:26, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

@Djln: I'm not an expert, but it doesn't seem you've tried to resolve the issue with the editor on either their, yours, or the article's talk page. If this doesn't work out it would be a good idea to contact an administrator and/or post the instance on the edit warring board. Inter&anthro (talk) 04:03, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

@Djln: I took a closer look and while it does seem that your edits are more helpful than those CraigWhyteisthelegalownerofIbrox is making please do not name call in the edit summaries like what happened here, I would be hypocritical for telling another editor to follow WP:CIVIL because I violated it so many times myself but keep it and WP:NPA in mind. Thanks. Inter&anthro (talk) 04:09, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

At the risk of perpetuating "edit war with idiot" (sic), the second reference in your Benfica article states they also won the cup in 1987? As has been pointed out previously, but you've seemingly chosen to suppress/ignore that. I'll do you the kindness of ignoring the rest of this intemperate rant, happy editing. CraigWhyteisthelegalownerofIbrox (talk) 22:17, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Craig, three sources, none of which are blogs, including the well respected Rsssf list/identify 1989 as the first tournament/final. If you have any hard evidence to contradict this other than a what is clearly a mistake in a blog, then produce it and I will be more than happy to accept it. However, I have researched into it in depth and there is no mention of a 1987 or 1988 or earlier tournaments anywhere. It is a shame you have chosen to take this aggressive route over this matter as I have noticed you have made positive edits/contributions elsewhere. Djln Djln (talk) 14:36, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Football League Manager of the Month awards

Does anyone know if there is a source, possibly a book, which would help to fill out articles such as Football League Third Division Manager of the Month? The LMA list awards this side of the millennium, here. Any ideas for where to look for from whenever they were created up to the year 2000?--Echetus Xe 13:33, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid I can't help with a source, but just a suggestion – would it not be better to merge Football League Third Division Manager of the Month into Football League Two Manager of the Month? It's the same division, just renamed. I think it would be more helpful to the reader to have it all on one article. Number 5 7 18:05, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Agreed with Number 57. I added the "tags" in both articles, and the move can be supported (or rejected) in its talk page. MYS 77 ^✉ 19:17, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Club Management & Staff

Hello everyone. It was just a quick question in regards to the Coaching / Management / Directors section. Every team I look at in the Premier League have different layouts. Is there a standard layout to use or a better one ? I can then make these uniform across the board. GL3N (talk) 21:02, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Disambiguation between two players in the same team

Hello all. Maybe some of you (among the French editors, most likely) have heard, but Red Star F.C. just signed a new goalkeeper named Pierrick Cros. The thing is, the team already has a defender bearing the exact same name. I've included the player in the current squad section of Red Star article but should there be a disambiguation between the players in the said section or should it be left as I've done it ? I know this is similar to the Tal Ben Haim and Tal Ben Haim II case, but these two were disambiguated by UEFA. This is not the case yet for the Cros' players. Thanks for your input on this. Tuttiseme (talk) 15:54, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I've moved Pierrick Cros to Pierrick Cros (footballer, born 1991) while the other one stays as Pierrick Cros (footballer, born 1992). Pierrick Cros is a disambiguation page now, as one doesn't seem to be more famous than the other when compared. MYS 77 ^✉ 16:42, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I think Tuttiseme is more asking whether some form of qualifier should be added to the players' names within the squad listing of the club article or whether it should simply show two players with the same name......... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:21, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Exactly, Chris :) But thanks MYS77 anyway for fixing the pages titles that could have been misleading.Tuttiseme (talk) 10:01, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, but there are no "nicknames" for any of them (at least until now). Maybe the club's website will list them differently, and we can "copy their layout". MYS 77 ^✉ 11:46, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I would say it is completely reasonable not to have any visual disambiguation, provided they link to different players, if this is how they are shown in reliable sources. There was also a case in 2012 with two players by the name of David Vaněček at Czech second league side FK Baník Sokolov - see here. C 679 08:15, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Dunfermline had two Scott Thomsons for a while in the early-mid 2000s, who were disambiguated by their middle initials (Scott M. Thomson and Scott Y. Thomson). That disambiguation is a little unusual for football articles, but that is how they were known at the time (e.g. this BBC match report). Jmorrison230582 (talk) 08:41, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Deloitte Football Money League

Haul~cywiki (talk · contribs) is complaining that Swansea City should be listed under Wales, but I oppose because they play in England and the source shows England, not Wales. SLBedit (talk) 23:51, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

It would be useful if independent moderators could settle this dispute. Contrary to what is claimed, the source does NOT 'show England', and if it did, it would be incorrect! It is a simple fact that Swansea City AFC is located in Abertawe, Cymru, and not England! Please refer to User talk:SLBedit for further details.Haul~cywiki (talk) 00:02, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

~~Please don't ignore the source or "play stupid" with me.~~ SLBedit (talk) 00:09, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I find some possible original research in the article. It is true that the source provided does not list Wales as a country providing one of the top grossing clubs, but the source also only lists the top 20 clubs while Swansea City is listed at #29 for the 2013–14 season, and #26 for the 2014–15 season; therefore, we cannot be certain from which country Deloitte would represent Swansea City. In fact, all seasons after 2008–09 list more clubs than appear in the referenced source documents, and I cannot quickly locate any documentation to support the inclusion of more than 20 clubs per season. If such documentation can be located and referenced to support their inclusion in the tables, then those clubs should be allowed to remain; otherwise, the addition of those clubs is original research and is improper for inclusion. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 05:29, 21 January 2016 (UTC) UPDATE: I've taken the liberty of commenting out the entries I feel are OR. This will hide them from view while allowing them to be quickly recovered should a reliable source be found and cited for their inclusion. 05:40, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

The locations of tables including the additional information were pointed out to me by another editor, so the commenting has all been removed. However, Deloitte still only displays the countries for the top 20 clubs in their lists. I would say that since the club plays in Wales, then it is a Welsh club. The Toronto Raptors are the only Canadian team in the NBA, but they are not referred to as an American basketball team. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 07:23, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I have never even heard about "Deloitte Football Money League" before, but in continental tournaments such as UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League they have an English flag as they represent the English FA (they won their place in English league or cup) and all their points will count towards the English ranking. This is the same reason for giving Monaco a French flag and not the Monaco flag. I would personally say that they are a Welsh club, but they represent England. Qed237 (talk) 14:52, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Excellent point, especially considering it's the TV deals of the English league that's put them on the list in the first place. Perhaps what makes the most sense is to list them with the Welsh flag and a note that they play in the English league? No matter how you slice it, IMHO, it seems just plain wrong to put the English flag next to Swansea or the French flag next to Monaco in any context. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AF4JM (talk • contribs) 15:21, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Could you please read my comment in Talk:Deloitte Football Money League#Swansea City? SLBedit (talk) 17:50, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Issue with Template:Goal

Husn shujaat made a change that added a box to {{goal}}. The issue is visible in articles that use {{football box collapsible}}. SLBedit (talk) 22:31, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

The error was somehow because of the addition of templateData. The table has been removed. Please let me know if the error still persists. Husn shujaat (talk) 23:28, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

@Husn shujaat: the issue is gone. SLBedit (talk) 23:49, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Husn shujaat: and @SLBedit: thanks for dealing with this quickly. I want to make sure that the error is solved while still having TemplateData in the template, so VisualEditor users can use it. I found a couple of issues that may have had something to do with the error: (1) There was a redundant <noinclude> in the main template page. I removed it. (2) According to the events in the history of both the main page and /doc, there was a period of time of about an hour where <templatedata> existed in both the main template page and the /doc page. That also may have caused an issue. Both were deleted by the two of you, so the versions are "clean" now.

I would recommend that @Husn shujaat: can try to add templatedata again to the /doc page -- and that page only. Make sure you do not add duplicate templatedata to both the /doc and the main template page.

If another problem arises, can someone try to take a screenshot? This is a really weird technical issue that I'd like to make sure never happens again... thanks for your help! Mooeypoo (talk) 00:07, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

@Mooeypoo: Thanks for clarifying it all! Husn shujaat (talk) 19:56, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

National football squad player template

Can someone please take a look at the this template? It's been modified recently and the rows are now taking up twice as much height. TheBigJagielka (talk) 18:38, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Done Sorted. TheBigJagielka (talk) 19:57, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Players on loan

Should players on loan listed in a reserve team article be moved to the club's main article? After all, a club loans players, not a team. Here is the discussion. SLBedit (talk) 18:45, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Defunct clubs category

Wondering about the defunct clubs in foo category, I have just created Teplitzer FK which was firstly in Austra-Hungary, then Czechoslovakia and then Nazi Germany. It disbanded in 1940, long before the advent of the Czech Republic in 1993. Is it a "defunct football club in the Czech Republic"? "in Germany"? "in Czechoslovakia"? "in Austria-Hungary"? I note that the last two categories do not exist, but one for the Soviet Union does. Any input appreciated. Thanks, C 679 12:09, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I would put it the defunct categories for both the Czech Republic and Germany. The reason there aren't categories for Czechoslovakia and Austria-Hungary is that (AFAIK) we don't do "defunct" categories for defunct countries – instead we just have a category for the country that contains anything that existed during that country's existence. Therefore I'd also put it in Category:Football clubs in Czechoslovakia (there isn't one for Austria-Hungary, but I think it would be a good idea to create one). Number 5 7 12:14, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Definition of Youth soccer

At Megan Campbell and Megan Connolly (footballer) there seems to be a debate/edit war about defining "college soccer" as "youth football". I would say youth football is under-18/ schoolboy/schoolgirl while college soccer is 18 to 21 and should be regarded as senior especially in the USA or Ireland. Campbell and Connolly are both senior Republic of Ireland internationals so how can their club teams be listed as youth teams. Campbell had a senior career playing at national league, Champions League and senior international level, before playing college soccer, yet college career is placed in youth years chronologically before her senior career, this makes no sense to me and is misleading. Is there any guidelines around this issue Djln Djln (talk) 21:06, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I would add college years in the youth parameter. After that time, they are "senior" players. Doesn't matter if they are called up to their national teams, college is under senior. Kante4 (talk) 22:58, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Surely once a player becomes a senior player they don't revert to junior status just because they go to college Djln Djln (talk) 23:45, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
I have just tried editing both articles with all their careers in the youth years section but now has been reverted. There has to be cut off point somewhere. Once a player has played in national leagues, Champions leagues, senior internationals, I would have thought this gives them senior status regardless of them being college or not . Sorry for ranting but it really pisses me off when I put the effort into writing good articles only for some pedantic, anally retentive dickhead, most of whom couldn't write a semi decent article to save their lives, comes along and effectively vandalised it. Nothing ever gets done to stop these idiots who ruin Wikipedia for everybody else.

Djln Djln (talk) 01:02, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Please keep your psychological projection to yourself! If you can't work collaboratively it might be best all round if you get yourself a free blog at wordpress or similar. SevcoFraudsters (talk) 01:35, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia needs people who make positive contributions but it would be so much better without the antics of trolls Djln Djln (talk) 02:51, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I would describe calling someone a "pedantic, anally retentive dickhead" as the antics of a troll, rather than an indication of a positive contributor. Joeykai (talk) 03:05, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Pot calling kettle black if ever Djln Djln (talk) 09:39, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
College soccer must be considered as "youth football". They're not senior competitions, and the only women's senior football league in Ireland is Women's National League (Ireland), as well National Women's Soccer League, Women's Premier Soccer League and United Women's Soccer are the only senior competitions in the USA. MYS 77 ^✉ 03:30, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I find it really strange to include College Soccer at those players under youth. Also there are other (regional) senior competitions in Ireland and i bet in USA too. Maybe they switched back to an amateur/non notable league but doubt any source would call their stations a youth one. -Koppapa (talk) 06:49, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

This was covered here. There was also some pontificating about a separate college infobox field, which sadly seems to have fizzled out. NCAA recently got rid of their age limits, but they still have five-year 'eligibility clocks' etc. which ensure it's de facto an under-23 competition. It's obviously only open to full-time college students as well. SevcoFraudsters (talk) 10:39, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

College soccer = 18 to 21 adults, youth soccer = under 17 kids, two completely different age groups. Seriousl am I the only one that gets this. Djln Djln (talk) 09:49, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
Comment - Personally, I think college sport falls into a sort of interim status. It's not senior, but it's definitely not youth either. – Pee Jay 12:03, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

There was a call a few years ago to get 'collegeyears' as a separate parameter - however as that has not happened they should be classed as 'youth' for now. In most countries 'youth football' runs up to under-21 or even under-23 level i.e. the same age as college that Djln mentions. Giant Snowman 12:41, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I believe that the definition of playing "senior football" is the playing on the senior national team (or the U-23 men's teams in the final Olympic tournament), in a fully-professional league, or at the highest level if an FPL doesn't exist in that country. Even national U-21 teams are considered by FIFA to be youth teams. I agree that college football is in the limbo between "true" youth football (i.e. U-19) and senior football, but it is not at a skill level that would be considered "senior." — Jkudlick • t • c • s 13:23, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
- Just to correct that, senior football is not limited in terms of whether the league is professional or not. in England there is a formal cut-off point very low down the pyramid at which a league ceases to be "senior" (in Suffolk, it's level 11), and results in cups being split into senior and junior (e.g. London Senior Cup and London Junior Cup), although both are for adult teams. In Scotland it's not really an appropriate term at all, as Junior football is really "senior", if that makes any sense. Number 57 13:54, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
  - Well, they ARE Scottish. ;) Thanks for the info on English senior football. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 13:57, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
  - My understanding of "senior football" in the infobox is simply that it refers to adult as opposed to youth football. Where the break between the two comes is a different question....... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:06, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
I just think it makes more sense for a players clubs/teams in infoboxes to be listed in chronological order, regardless if they are youth, junior, senior or college. The current system may make sense for the majority of articles but there are always exceptions. Every article should be assessed individually. I don't understand why some editors are so hung up on rules and are completely inflexible. Djln 90.206.42.141 (talk) 15:12, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Well the football biography infobox system isn't for "the majority of articles" but all of them, so if you concur with that, then you should be able to accept why it makes sense. Always good to see the pros and cons, though. Thanks, C 679 17:12, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Cloud679, another sheep identified, rather put up with misleading infobox then break a precious rule Djln Djln (talk) 18:41, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Please remember to be civil. Your statement could be seen as an ad hominem by others. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 13:25, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

@Jkudlick: It is definitely a personal attack when he above called me a "pedantic, anally retentive dickhead" Joeykai (talk) 17:09, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

RfC on a football-related article

There is an RfC at bottom of Talk:List of Serbia international footballers (including predecessor teams) which would benefit in having a wider participation. The issue is that the list includes the players and stats of the Serbian national team and all its previous incarnations, namely Yugoslavia and Serbia&Montenegro. FIFA and UEFA ruled out that Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro and now Serbia are all one same football associaion (FA) and, consequently, same national team. Here is the chronology of the events:

The FA was formed in 1919 as FA of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
In 1929 it got renamed to Yugoslavia.
In 1940 Croats left and formed their own national team that played till 1945, then Croatia returned.
In 1991 Slovenian and Croatian players left and formed their own national teams.
In 1992 so did Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Yugoslav national team that played after these secessions till 2003 was considerd by FIFA and UEFA as the only official sucessor of Kingdom of SCS and Yugoslavia national teams and kept one same membership spot at both, while the other newly-created national teams started from scratch and had to apply membership.
In 2003 Yugoslav national team changed its name to Serbia and Montenegro.
In 2006 Montenegrin players left the national team and formed their own national team, and the Serbia and Montenegro national team was renamed to Serbia, the national team that still plays nowadays. All these name changes follow the country name changes that ocurred in consequence of the political events in those periods.
Nowadays FIFA and UEFA consider Serbia to be the one and only direct successor of those previous national teams and atributes to Serbia the past honors and statistics grouping them all together. Croatian FA objected this decition wanting a sort of solution as found for Czechoslovakia, but their objections were rejected. The decition of FIFA and UEFA was backed by several reasons, ammong them the fact that the FA headquarters were allways in Belgrade, Serbia, on same adress and their membership spot at both organisations was allways kept the same, or because Serbs were allways the majority of the players in all periods, many players having played for two or even more encarnations. Country name changed but many just kept playing and the national team for them was allways the one and same.

This list reflects that situation and lists all players with their full stats, just as most websites do as well, like eu-football.info or reprezentacija.rs, and FIFA and UEFA for exemple add all together the honors and stats of Yugoslavia and Serbia&Montenegro in Serbian profiles (FIFA and UEFA respectively). We can read at UEFA official website the explanation of how Serbia is the successor of Yugoslavia. There is also one practical reason why the list of players is done this way, and that is because if we separated periods many players will have their total stats broken as would appear in different periods.

Another editor is challenging the list wanting to separate different periods. Comments are appreciated. FkpCascais (talk) 01:37, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Czechoslovak First League

Coming across the season articles on the Czechoslovak First League for the time during the German occupation (1938/39 to 1945) I'm wondering about the correctness of the article names. The articles are named 1938–39 Czechoslovak First League and so on but Czechoslovakia did not exist as an independent country during this time and there were actually separate leagues in Slovakia and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Rsssf.com lists the league as the Bohemia/Moravia championship. The current naming during this era seems incorrect. Any thoughts of what the article names should be? Calistemon (talk) 06:27, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Good question, according to my book Jeřábek, Luboš (2007). Český a československý fotbal - lexikon osobností a klubů. Prague: Grada Publishing. ISBN 978-80-247-1656-5. "V sezoně 1938/39 po zániku Československé republiky z ligy vystoupil jediný slovenský celek ŠK Bratislava a ta pokračovala jako soutěž pouze českomoravská." - roughly translates as "in the 1938/39 season after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, the single Slovak side SK Bratislava left the league and it continued as a competition for just Bohemia and Moravia". So I agree, naming as the Czechoslovak First League is inaccurate and should be changed. Thanks, C 679 19:39, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Could we split the article in two seperate ones and name one Bohemian and Moravian championship and the other Slovak championship? Both could stay linked in the seasons template below to emphasis that, also Czechoslovakia did not exist during the period, they are a part of the former country' football history. Calistemon (talk) 21:11, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I would have no problem with that; if you have the time and inclination, please go ahead. Thanks, C 679 18:23, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I will have a go at it next week when I have, hopefully, a bit more time. I looked at the Czech and Italian Wikipedia and they just call it the "National League" (Národní liga) for those seasons while the French one calls it the Bohemian and Moravian championship. Calistemon (talk) 22:09, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

The same page (112) from the source mentioned above includes the following: "Liga měla následující názvy (The league had the following names): Asociační liga (1925, 1929/30–1933/34), Středočeská liga (1925/26–1928/29), Státní liga (1934/35– 1938/39 a 1945/46–1948), Národní liga (1938/39–1943/44), Celostátní mistrovství (1949, 1950). Mistrovství republiky (1951, 1952), Přebor republiky (1953-1955), I. liga (od r. 1956 dosud)." So it looks like the league was known as the Národní liga (national league) between '38 and '44. Following naming conventions on French Wikipedia may be a case of original research. Thanks, C 679 14:42, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Národní liga seems reasonable, too. Where would it leave the Slovak league table however? In the same article or, if not, under what article name? Slovak national championship? Calistemon (talk) 21:04, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

I have started a requested move on Talk:1939–40 Czechoslovak First League. Calistemon (talk) 13:00, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Hyde F.C. references

Could someone take a look at the refs on the Hyde F.C. page, there is quite a few invalid etc! Not edited on here for a good few months as i'm very short of time! Would apprieciate it if someone could take a look, there are also a lot of deadlinks due to the football club changing websites but ill sort them out at a later date, cheers TheHydeTiger (talk) 17:03, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@TheHydeTiger: Done, although edit conflicted as you apparently decided to try and do it yourself. Whoever made that mess deserves a good trouting though. Number 5 7 17:27, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@Number 57: Thank you, I was editing elswhere in the article just cleaning bits up, your right it was a bit of a mess, it was a surprise welcome back to wiki for me! I must not have been on for a long time, because I have never seen this ping malarky before! TheHydeTiger (talk) 17:31, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Zlatan Ibrahimović‎ heritage

Just wanted to let this project know there is a current dispute at footballer Zlatan Ibrahimović‎ discussed at Talk:Zlatan Ibrahimović#"Croatian/Albanian mother" if anyone has something to say. Qed237 (talk) 14:44, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

An editor and one IP now blocked as sockpuppets, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Biar122. Qed237 (talk) 15:11, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I would now like more comments again, an other editor is including this content about albanian mother and I dont think it is the sock. Qed237 (talk) 16:25, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Why do we have such an issue with editors inserting Albanian heritage into footballer articles? Does it happen for other topics too? Number 5 7 17:10, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I think it's a case of too many people crying wolf over players with reputedly Albanian heritage. We've seen claims of Albanian heritage for far too many players recently, and most of the sourcing has been piss-poor. Unfortunately, the same is true of the claims of Zlatan's Albanian parentage. – Pee Jay 19:00, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Ashton Gate revisited

There is currently another requested move about Ashton Gate Stadium. Please see Talk:Ashton Gate Stadium. Simply south ...... time, deparment skies for just 9 years 21:39, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Inter Milan vs Internazionale (again and again and ...)

In July 2015, I asked whether the a club's article name is its common name Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Football/Archive 96#Inter Milan vs Internazionale (again) and as far as I remember, the consensus was that yes, article name should be the same as its common name and if it isn't, then the article should be moved to its common name. I even started a move request for Inter Milan to Internazionale which was denied because consensus was that Inter Milan is the common name. Instead of accepting the consensus and using the common name in for example Xherdan Shaqiri, several editors start changing the name to Internazionale. I do not want to edit war and so I'm asking for help. What should I do in this case? --Jaellee (talk) 18:30, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not saying this to be cute or make a point, but surely if there's this much controversy regarding the name of this particular club, surely the only logical answer is to allow the club's article to be titled under the club's full name, FC Internazionale Milano. Clearly there are camps on both sides with arguments of comparable validity. I say we should simply leave well enough alone and let the chips fall where they may; if the Xherdan Shaqiri article ends up falling into stability on the side of "Inter Milan", so be it, and equally for "Internazionale". But I stand by my assertion that the club's article (and all articles associated with the club) should use the full name in the title. – Pee Jay 18:46, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

*sigh* Just read the discussion concerning the move request. I was accused of being disruptive with my move request and a lot of editors popped out of the woodwork which fiercely defended the name Inter Milan. If there is indeed such an overwhelming majority of people who think that Internazionale is correct, one of them should start the move request and it should be easy to get the article moved. I would even vote for a move. But consensus is at the moment the name Inter Milan and I really wonder if "consensus" is worth anything if no one makes a move to enforce it (even if they don't like the result). --Jaellee (talk) 23:23, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I think the issue is that WP:FOOTY members are generally in favour and outside editors are generally not, so when we discuss it here, there's always going to be a majority in favour. Whilst I can understand the COMMONNAME claim, I will always struggle to understand how anyone can think this trumps the consistency argument – the name stands out like a sore thumb amongst Italian club names. Number 5 7 23:34, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

European Football Yearbook

Does anyone have access to European Football Yearbook 1988-1989 and 1989-1990? Xaris333 (talk) 12:59, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

V. Kavi Chelvan

I have a question regarding notability for V. Kavi Chelvan. He has only one source (external link to soccerway) saying he played 5 matches in Malaysian Super League (a WP:FPL for some reason and could not find that consensus at FPL talkpage, only this) and 2 matches in Indonesian super league (also FPL, but no discussion, just same as Malaysia).

However the team names in both leagues are the same so I looked at the leagues and teams. In 2011 Malaysia Superleague (soccerway) Harimau Muda B competed and they are Malaysia U19 according to Soccerway, while in 2012 Indonesian Super League (Soccerway) Harimau Muda A competed, which is Malaysia U22 according to soccerway.

The other apperances in the infobox is not supported in any source so is this footballer notable? Even if he played in FPL it seems like he just played in a youth team. Qed237 (talk) 12:26, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

From everything I have found, the Harimau Muda teams are/were the national youth teams of Malaysia (A=U-21, B=U-19), which do not meet WP:NFOOTY and would disqualify any league in which they take part from being fully-professional. I also have not been able to verify any of the other information in the infobox at any source so far. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 15:24, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I think it's a bit more complex than that. They are national youth teams (U21), but they are playing in fully-professional leagues in order to develop national talent. From what I can see, it seems highly unlikely that the players were not full-time footballers. Number 5 7 15:41, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Poor article

2013–14 Panetolikos F.C. season is a very poor article consisting of a infobox, two rows of text and a squadlist of 3 players. After talking to User:GiantSnowman for guidance, I redirected it to the main article as it was not likely to be updated and had very little content. But now I have been reverted by User:PanchoS saying I should go to AfD if I dont think it should exist. The problem is that I think it is notable and as GiantSnowman said on my talkpage AFDing a notable but incredibly outdated/poor article that nobody can/will work on seems strange. So what should I do? AfD so everyone can vote "redirect", "keep" or "delete" or whatever they want, or should I even leave it?

I read WP:BLAR that states: Removing all content in a problematic article and replacing it with a redirect is common practice, known as blank-and-redirect. If other editors disagree with this blanking, its contents can be recovered from page history, as the article has not been formally deleted. If editors cannot agree the article should be submitted to Articles for Deletion.

Any thoughts? Qed237 (talk) 11:47, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

The article, in its current state, does not show any notability. However all know it is a notable topic - but one which very few, clearly, edit in. As the redirect has been reverted the next steps are questionable, but the more I think about it the more I feel we should delete at AFD. Giant Snowman 12:23, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

As the one who reverted the deletion by redirecting, I just rewrote the article's lead containing at least a single proper source. No doubt, the article remains a stub, but there's nothing wrong with having a stub for a notable topic. Other editors who are more into Greek football may one day improve the article. You're free to file a WP:AfD putting forward your arguments for deletion. Cheers, --PanchoS (talk) 13:03, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I would definitely support taking it to AfD. It's articles like this that damage the reputation of Wikipedia. JMHamo (talk) 19:12, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

List of retired numbers in association football

If anyone is interested, List of retired numbers in association football needs a major cleanup. SLBedit (talk) 01:19, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Arsenal F.C.

If someone could take a look at Arsenal F.C. that would be appreciated. Qed237 (talk) 21:12, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

@Qed237: It's a bit complicated. While the media tells that him indeed returned to Arsenal, the official announcement only tells that "he will be assessed by a specialist in central London on Wednesday" ("curiously" in London). MYS 77 ^✉ 22:09, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Like any injury - it's usually assessed by the parent club as a matter of good practice, and in the case of a serious injury they do often return to their parent club. However his registration is still held by West Ham until otherwise noted, as the "returning to the club" is often just a mangled bit of interpretation by the press. However it is unlikely that anyone is going to update their squad lists or anything any time soon on the official websites.. It's a bit of a silly argument to be having. Koncorde (talk) 01:25, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

@Koncorde: Still, your answer makes a lot more sense and is a lot more simpler. Thanks for clarifying :) MYS 77 ^✉ 02:55, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Templates nominated for deletion

Can somebody please give some input at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2016 January 30? I fail to understand why they're being nominated for deletion. MYS 77 ^✉ 14:46, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Charly Musonda (Jr.)

Isn't this guy strongly available for having a page, giving the amount of coverage he has? I created a draft about him, and I think it can avoid a PROD for a week or two, giving he's now on loan to another team and may make his pro debut soon enough. What do you guys think? Move to an article namespace, per WP:GNG, or wait a little bit more? MYS 77 ^✉ 06:28, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

If he doesn't yet meet GNG, he seems pretty darn close, but there's no harm in waiting until he plays. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 15:38, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

@Jkudlick: Thanks for your response! Anyway, as nobody aside from you replied, and I still think that he can merit an article through GNG, I submitted a draft for review. MYS 77 ^✉ 03:32, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Hainan Seamen

Regarding the new stub Hainan Seamen, could someone pls speedy, AfD, PROD, source, comment at its talk, etc? Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:54, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

@Anna Frodesiak: As they fail the football club notability guidelines, I've PRODed the article. Joseph2302 (talk) 00:02, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Unofficial caps (FIFA or national association)

At Alexander Fransson there is a dispute where some editors wish to remove information saying that his caps are not officially recognized by FIFA as he played in unofficial friendlies (with more than six substuttions). This was discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 92#Unofficial matches in which we clearly decided to have notes.

What do you think? Notes or no notes? Display caps per FIFA or national association (include unofficial matches)?

Any opinion appreciated. Qed237 (talk) 00:31, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

For what it's worth, there was another (long) discussion about something similar a few months before the discussion you linked: see archive 90, and more recently in archive 98. From them, I get the impression that the consensus usually ends up being: go with FIFA, and optionally add a note for any other official sources. –Sygmoral (talk) 01:36, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Keep the FIFA recognized caps in the statistics, add the unofficial caps to the article if notable. Inter&anthro (talk) 19:49, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, on wikipedia, when it comes to player notability, a player is notable if he has played a fully-pro game or a game at senior level. Now, if someone was to not have played in a fully-pro league but still made his debut at a senior level internationally but in a game not recognized by FIFA, would we say the player passes WP:NFOOTY? If it is yes, then we count non-FIFA games, if no, then we don't. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 23:42, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

@ArsenalFan700: I have seen some cases where the player was AfD'ded and subsequently removed for making a single international appearance in non-FIFA match. I still think we should not count them, but I'll wait for other opinions. MYS 77 ^✉ 00:07, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. I can't find them right now but I know there have even been AfD's with regards to players who play for non-FIFA members and were thus deleted cause non-FIFA member players should not be given articles. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 00:10, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

FIFA have a pretty tight grip on the current definition of a full international but grey areas remain for matches in the past where, for example, one team considers a match to be a full international. Hack (talk) 01:48, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to see a guideline introduced where the player is eligible for an article if the international appearance was counted towards FIFA ranking, i.e. matches approved by both FAs (this includes international friendlies and lesser-known international tournaments as they are used in FIFA's calculations for the ranking). TheBigJagielka (talk) 15:39, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

For me, I don't see why exhibition games arranged by a football association shouldn't be counted for. Alexander Fransson have represented the Swedish football association and Sweden in football games arranged and notified by the association he is a part of. For Sweden, and rest of the countries in Nordic (exception for Denmark), it's kind of special since we're playing spring-autumn - and therefore have the biggest availability to play national exhibition games during winter. For example, Brazils exhibition games at Emirates Stadium, that aren't arranged by FIFA counted for. If you ask any swede, anyone from Nordics, they see these games we play in Janaury as regular exhibiton games, no matter what if they're arranged or not by FIFA - it's the same rules and everything! All the records, statistics used in official statistisc pages for Swedish players are counted in these exhibiton games played in January for us, and it's countable for every Swede. I wonder how many records that are counted for Swedish players everywhere who will be counted totally different on Wikipedia than anywhere else if we only should go after games arranged by FIFA. I can't see how it's important for a reader to think Alexander Fransson haven't represented Sweden just because it was in games that wasn't arranged by FIFA, when everyone i Sweden is saying he's an international player nowadays. I think it's silly and it makes it not realistic at all. English league games are counted for down to the fourth division, because the games are professional and recognized by the FA, aswell as these national caps are for Sweden. It's important stats for us, and should be counted for! These games Sweden is playing in January shouldn't be compared to games as England vs England U21 or such, they I understand and agree shouldn't count - but these games are something different. @Mattias321: // Psemmler (talk) 21:45, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I get your point of view but when each team make 10 subsitutions it is not a real game anymore and not the same rules as regular matches. Qed237 (talk) 21:53, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

You're allowed to make more than three substitution in FIFA exhibition games aswell. // Psemmler (talk) 22:06, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I would only support loosening the notability threshold if we think it's likely that players in unofficial international matches get significant coverage in reliable sources. I know many of these matches are played behind closed doors (e.g., no media coverage at all) or involve fringe players (because of the literal substitution rules) who probably don't warrant non-routine coverage (even if the match itself gets some coverage). I've seen far too many articles on players who appeared in a handful of official international matches that don't appear to satisfy the GNG, and I fear this change would open the door for editors to create many more. (Hopefully, if someone notable appeared in an unofficial international match, he also played in a FPL so we won't have a notability issue.) Jogurney (talk) 23:05, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

@Qed237: Define what a "regular" or "official" match is because that in itself is very debatable. Using more than 6 subs may not be an official match for FIFA but could still be for one or both FA's involved. There could be other reasons that a match isn't a "regular" or "official" match for FIFA but still is for any FA in question. So if Fransson made an appearance for Sweden in a match which the Swedish FA counts as official, then he's a full international and has gained a cap for that. This is also the irritating thing when dealing with User:Swastik25. For him, FIFA recognition is the be all and end all of what an official match is and therefore messes up player caps/goals. GoalsGalore (talk) 12:30, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

FIFA has a limit of 6 substitutions in friendlies, which seems like an okay limit. But unofficial friendlies with unlimited substitutions, I dont see those as "real matches". Qed237 (talk) 14:24, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. At that point, matches just turn into scrimmages. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 15:26, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

But apparently, Qed237, many national football associations, like the Swedish Football Association, do that. I think that's what this is all about, if the national football association counts the match as official, then it should be included in the infobox. Then of course, there should be a note, like in the Alexander Fransson article, that explains how many of the player's caps and goals which were unofficial according to FIFA. // Mattias321 (talk) 15:35, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

But FIFA is a bit inconsistent themselves. Look at this list which includes all matches that the SvFF counts, but FIFA doesn't. Then compare it to all of Thomas Ravelli's caps (here) and you can clearly see that his match against USA in 1984 is unofficial according to FIFA. However, in this list that FIFA published, it clearly says that he has played 143 caps for Sweden, when the actual number should be 142 according to FIFA. // Mattias321 (talk) 15:35, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

There are hundreds of FA's and trying to find consistency among them is next to impossible. However FIFA for the most part is consistent and seen as most international statistics is based on NFT.com from FIFA data, it should remain streamlined. Sure you'll have a few exceptions like above but occurrences of those are very unlikely. Once we decided to just let some FA games count and some not it sets a dangerous precedent. I agree that if they'd like they can add a note below but for counting stats and official documentation FIFA only matches should be counted.--Shreerajtheauthor (talk) 01:07, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it could be a little bit inconsistent, but we can not ignore the fact that the Swedish FA counts those matches. In Swedish media, it says that that Anders Svensson has played 148 caps, not 143. Therefore I think a "143" in the infobox would provide a false fact and it would give a misleading picture. // Mattias321 (talk) 16:31, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I think we should count caps by National Federation count. Just an opinion. -BlameRuiner (talk) 11:41, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

The six sub rule is relatively recent. In the 2003 match between England and Australia, Wayne Rooney's debut, England subbed their entire team at half time.[31] Hack (talk) 14:22, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

@Hack: Yes, you are indeed correct. But still, all those recent matches which have more than six subs per team are not official, according to FIFA. How will we ensure that all FA's are counting stats correctly and with at least some criteria? Only FIFA does that. MYS 77 ^✉ 14:54, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

You can't easily do that. FIFA don't readily share that information with the public. Hack (talk) 16:41, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

@Hack: FIFA does keep/maintain a Record of Official matches, and NFT.com uses that to determine a FIFA cap. If User:Mattias321 or others have an interest in the Swedish FA, we should not allow exceptions because then it allows for bias. We should follow what FIFA says.--Shreerajtheauthor (talk) 19:46, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

You just linked a copy of the international match calendar. That doesn't prove anything Hack (talk) 01:41, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I still think we should go with the national football association in the infobox and add a note, but what should we do with the number of caps and goals in the national football team squad templates? We can once again take Sweden as an example. If we follow the given source (like we should do), Sebastian Eriksson has capped 7 times for Sweden. But according to FIFA, he has only played 3 official matches. // Mattias321 (talk) 11:16, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Please note that FIFA's statistics isn't reliable at all. For example, Thomas Ravelli have played 148 caps for Sweden, both according to Swedish FA and FIFA, however Henrik Larsson have according to Swedish FA played 106 caps (which is the right one), but according to FIFA he has apperently played 107... Anders Svensson, as mentioned, the record holder, have according to Swedish FA played 148 games but according to FIFA only 143 official games. How Henrik Larsson have been able to play more official national caps than caps overall is something I don't know. // Psemmler (talk) 18:50, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

There seems to be one error in the FIFA statistics of players that have made more than 100 caps, but national-football-teams.com are correct in measuring by FIFA standards. Henrik Larsson has made 106 caps [32]. Smartskaft (talk) 18:00, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

But as i mentioned earlier, Smartskaft, National Football Teams.com aren't always too be trusted. According to NFT, Thomas Ravelli has played 143 FIFA-matches. But that includes his match against USA in 1984 and his two matches against Thailand 1997 and those three matches aren't official according to FIFA. According to NFT, Roland Nilsson has played 118 FIFA-matches which is completely wrong! Firstly, he has played 116 matches according to The Swedish Football Association. Secondly, those 116 matches includes his match against Thailand in 1997 and his match against Denmark in 2000, both unofficial according to FIFA. So he has played 114 according to FIFA, 116 according to SvFF and 118 according to NFT... // Mattias321 (talk) 18:59, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Giannelli Imbula

Could an Admin please protect Giannelli Imbula... getting hammered. Thanks, JMHamo (talk) 23:04, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

@JMHamo: Done. Number 5 7 23:11, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Bits and pieces

1 - this one just out of curiosity: which are the countries were a goal is (unfairly in my book) worth two? England, Spain, Germany and (if any other, I know that for instance Portugal is not among them)... Thanks for any possible clarification provided.

2 - infoboxes: regarding the place of birth, shouldn't we write just city/town/village and country, leaving other geographic details to the storyline proper and thus making box more compressed. Again, I feel this is just a matter of preference, am I correct?

Attentively --84.90.219.128 (talk) 21:59, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow you, but in England, Spain, Germany etc, a goal is worth a goal, not two goals. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:08, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Points for the European Golden Shoe award, kind fellow user. That is what I meant. For example, last season Ronaldo scored 96 points in such a manner (48 league goals). I think that in some leagues a goal is worth 1 1/2 points, go figure... --84.90.219.128 (talk) 22:10, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

It reflects the comparative difficulty of scoring in those leagues. The Rambling Man (talk) 05:32, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

It's in the article. UEFA ranking top 5 have factor 2, 6-21 have 1.5. -Koppapa (talk)

FC vs F.C.

On a recent move request discussion (Talk:St. Mirren F.C.#Requested_move_20_January_2016) brought forward by @BrownHairedGirl:, we came to the consensus that we should remove the full stop from 'St.' because of the guidelines for WP:COMMONNAME and MoS, this was also the case for Talk:St. Johnstone F.C. and Talk:St. Cuthbert Wanderers F.C.. During the discussion though, the point was raised that, under the same guidelines, the full stops should also be removed from 'F.C.'. User:BrownHairedGirl did some research surrounding this and notes:

Quote; Having looked at some parallels, I see that articles rugby clubs are overwhelmingly named "Foo RFC" (without any dots). For example:

Category:New Zealand rugby union teams -- no dots
Category:Irish rugby union teams -- 10 use dots, but 80 use "RFC"
Category:English rugby union teams -- 43 use dots, but 125 use "RFC" or "RUFC"
Category:Scottish rugby union teams -- zero use dots, but 89 use "RFC" or "RUFC"

We don't see any reason for this convention in rugby, and not in football. I realise this has been brought up before (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football/Archive_7#Naming_Policy_of_Club.27s_article & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football/Clubs#Article_titles_-_FC_vs._F.C._vs._nothing) and I wanted to know if a consensus had been reached on the issue. I also noticed that on Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(sports_teams) it appears that the convention for a prefix or suffix is to not include full stops. Should we change 'F.C.' to 'FC'? Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 15:48, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

No. Although I agree that the dot is hardly ever used in the "St." formation, clubs commonly use the dotted version of F.C. (or A.F.C.) in their names (I spent many years looking out of the window at work at this). The use also helps draw a distinction between clubs where the letters are meaningless (in the case of AFC Wimbledon there are no dots as the club has stated that the letters AFC do not stand for anything) and those where it does. Number 5 7 16:37, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

The two are not the same Stevie, MoS in British English, convention is not to use a dot when the last letter is included in the abbreviation, so the St. / St argument is not the same as F.C. / FC. I also don't see in Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(sports_teams) anything that says you should / shouldn't use "."s, other than that the guideline doesn't use them. I simply don't believe that it would be possible to gain consensus (and enforce it) around whether to change 'F.C.' to 'FC' or vice versa and it would create a lot of aggravation for no real benefit. I think in general its best to ask for editors to act individually and ask themselves these questions instead:

Is there a particular WP:COMMONNAME argument that can be applied per AFC Wimbledon, which would lead to bespoke changes? If so, start an RM
If I changed all clubs from one version to the other in a particular country what is the likelihood of this creating a major shitstorm? Imagine if someone went through all english teams for example, for these, best to leave alone and pick winnable battles
If this is a less popular area, is there a clear leaning towards one or the other, even if by chance, and therefore, would it be beneficial to be bold and just align?

Any way you do this, you will end up with some countries containing them and some not and I think that is where it should be left, before we get into arguments over whether the multitude of foreign language prefix / suffix abbreviations should have "."s in them! Fenix down (talk) 17:02, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

WP:TITLECHANGES has quite nice and clear guidance - "If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed". I don't think that there's any good reason to spend the time or effort trying to determine whether 'F.C./FC' are more or less common, precise, ambiguous, for most clubs. I don't see either F.C./FC as particualrly better or worse titles, and I struggle to see how anyone could be persuaded either way on this issue. As Fenix down sensibly notes, there may be exceptions (AFC Wimbledon) or clear national conventions which can warrant changes, but we should remember that the core principle with article titles is that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 09:59, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

The convention for British clubs has always been F.C. not FC so it should stay as that (notable exception AFC Wimbledon which just proves the rule). What is key here is consistency for each country. Giant Snowman 12:58, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Belvedere F.C.

So there are 76 players in Category:Belvedere F.C. players, but no article at Belvedere F.C. ! Any ideas?--Echetus Xe 18:37, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

It was PRODed in 2013 when the entire content read "Belvedere Football Club is an Irish youth association football club based in Fairview, Dublin. Originally founded in 1971, the club plays in the Dublin & District Soccer League(DDSL)." -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:06, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Irish version of Wallsend Boys Club? Number 5 7 20:49, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Seems so. But are there sufficient sources to create an article..........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:12, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

It would appear to be an absurd situation to have a category but not a main article.... The Rambling Man (talk) 22:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to ping @Djln:, who created the category so should probably be involved in this discussion -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:50, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

I am currently working on an article to go with category. Wallsend Boys Club is a good comparision. Others included Home Farm F.C., Stella Maris F.C. and Cherry Orchard F.C.. I hope to complete and post the article over the next few days. Thanks for the interest. Djln Djln (talk) 13:00, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Also please don't forget notability for articles and notability for categories are different. Giant Snowman 13:18, 2 February 2016 (UTC)