Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 52

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Archive 45

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Archive 50

Club season articles

After running into this article and working on it a bit, I think it is time to (continue) the necessary work on an MOS of some kind for club season articles. I really care for some kind of established structure more than the design of tables and what not because what I saw is out of hand and I'm sure there are other like it (hopefully not as bad). If anyone is interested in tackling this, let me know so we can start a thread at the season article task force ASAP. Thanks in advance. Digirami (talk) 08:27, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Wow. That article is insane. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 12:59, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Average home attendance of 59392.583333333. Thats... informative?--Echetus Xe 13:17, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

No. If that figure would be informative, it would explain where exactly the cut-off point for that .58333333 person would be. Sarcastic jokes aside, there are too many uses of the club colors in the article. The whole thing looks like a giant black and blue stats dump. However... it has a prose section at the very top, which is good. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 13:23, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh my, it seems to have gotten much worse since I saw it a few months ago. So much original research and an excessive use of tables. I manage to include appearances, goals, assists and discipline in one straight-forward table here, all referenced below it. Whereas the Inter article has four massive coloured tables covering the same statistics, without references, and six more tables too. Unfortunately most club articles seem to be like that with some notable and excellent exceptions. Argyle 4 Life^talk 14:39, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Articles like the Inter one should be rewritten from scratch; WP:OR, WP:NOTDIR, WP:NOTSTATS, WP:PROSELINE are only a few of the issues that need to be addressed. I've been editing 2010–11 A.C. Milan season since August, trying to make it look like the Manchester one (although, as a non-native speaker, my prose is not as good). So, as far as I'm concerned, if we were to work on a MOS for club season articles, we should base on the Manchester or York ones. Luxic (talk) 15:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Wow; information and table overload. My eyes and brain just exploded! Jared Preston (talk) 16:55, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. A manual of style is very much in need. Despite being a relatively inactive contributor here, I have suggested as much on two occasions. You have garnered more support than I did, so I hope it is not ignored. If it is agreed that there is an article which conforms to the various general standards that Wikipedia requires then I will be only too happy to convert the Parma article I am updating at the moment, as well others. A MOS would be preferred, but I think we can all work from an example article too in the meantime. Currently, the Parma article is a mish-mash of a copy of the other Italian articles with a couple of improvements in places! † Omgosh30 † 17:38, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I've opened up a thread here and have thrown out some suggestions to get the ball rolling. Let's see what we can produce. Digirami (talk) 21:05, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Kettering Nomads F.C.

Just stumbled over this stub dealing with an English club currently playing at the 11th level of the pyramid. Can anyone with more experience on non-league football please determine if the club is notable or not? Thank you, Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 18:35, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually they play at the 12th level. The usual rule of thumb is top ten levels only, so unless the club has received sufficient source coverage to pass the GNG, it is not notable -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:45, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Top ten was also what I had in mind, but I was not entirely sure. Oh well... I will PROD it in a couple of minutes, so unless someone finds that they were notable in earlier times (which I highly doubt when reading their history) or contests the PROD, that will do... --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 21:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Ronaldo Guiaro

According to the last EN.WIKI entry (prior to my major cleanup) and PT.WIKI, this guy has 14 full caps for Brazil, but of course anyone could have written it.

Also, according to the ever-reliable User:GiantSnowman, www.national-football-teams.com is almost 100% spot-on regarding international players, and the player is not listed there, leading "us" to think he is not a full international.

However, how about this chap? He is not listed there either, and i know for sure he played in the 1990 FIFA World Cup (just ask Gary Lineker and Claudio Caniggia if he did not! :)), so maybe there is a chance Ronaldo G. is a Brazilian international...Inputs please.

Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 23:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words Vasco, making me blush! NFT is normally quite accurate but nor comprehensive (an important difference), but I can confirm that Guiaro has never played in a FIFA senior game, per FIFA profile. Regards, Giant Snowman 01:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply mate! Yep, that source also "rests" in Ronaldo's article, as a REF. Just was not sure if that one was incomplete too :) :) - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 01:21, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

- Just wanted to note that the FIFA profile pages only track appearances in FIFA World Cup finals, World Cup Qualifying (though it's terribly incomplete for early tournaments), King Fahd/Confederations Cup finals, Olympics, and Youth World Cup finals. It never tracks "A" international friendlies or Confederation Finals/Qualifying. It's quite possible this player has caps for Brazil, and I believe we can confirm through RSSSF. Jogurney (talk) 03:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
  - RSSSF does indicate he played several friendly matches for Brazil during 1996 (see here) but none of them are "A" internationals - mostly Olympics matches and not full international friendlies. So, zero caps is correct. Jogurney (talk) 04:02, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
    - I missed a few earlier matches he played in per RSSSF but these are also not "A" internationals (just Panamerican Games matches and another not full international friendly). My guess is the other editor added all of those appearances to get the 14 caps - but we should only be counting "A" internationals as caps. Jogurney (talk) 04:06, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Some "doubt-clearing"

Hi there teammates, without further ado:

1 - I would like to know if i'm doing the right thing (even though i feel you can't teach and old dog new tricks) when i improve (hopefully) articles, especially in what storylines are concerned.

I suppose there are GOOD articles, FEATURE articles and dare i say, NORMAL articles. Since i have wrote the vast majority of Roberto Soldado's article, i would like to know if it's "proper", since it is my humble opinion some folks raise the bar to high (some have called my writing style close to journalesque), as in for instance Nuno Mendes (footballer), an obscure player even in Portuguese standards. I thought the article was in pretty good shape when i "left it", now i see it's stretched beyond my wildest dreams, with refs for every sentence, refs which also exist as links (never understood that one, maybe i never will), speaking about almost every other game (!!), all in all very similar to that of Pedro Rodríguez Ledesma, a player of worldwide fame.

Is Mendes' article (just to name him, was really astounded with the difference last time i checked it!) the way to go? What about Soldado? I don't refer to the likes of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, etc, etc, don't intend on editing in those.

I think the level of detail for Mendes is reasonable, considering the large number of clubs he's been with, and the article is well-referenced. His career should have sub-headings though to make it easier to read. Eldumpo (talk) 12:54, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

What would you suggest? I left them out because he hasn't stayed at many clubs for an extended period of time. The quality of an article depends on how far you want to take it. In Mendes' case I want to get it to GA standard so I needed to make it as comprehensive as possible. I doubt anyone outside of Britain has heard of this guy, but he has an excellent article. Argyle 4 Life^talk 14:28, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

You could try splitting it into about four sub-sections: Initial career / Move to France and back to Portugal / Plymouth Argyle (or England) and return to France / Portugal (since 2007) - or something along those lines. I appreicate this suggested split would probably need some tweaking of the paragraphs. Given the small time he's been at most clubs then perhaps having the years in the title of each sub-section would be useful? Eldumpo (talk) 16:06, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

2 - Why can't we have HEARTS in box for Heart of Midlothian F.C.? I have been having a war with an anon user (getting really tiresome) in two players from this club (the only ones i edit in). Why can't we, if it's the way the club is known worldwide? I guess i could add thousands of REFS to back this statement up, but it's a given for most English-speaking users so i don't see the point :) OK here's four (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/scot_prem/default.stm - see league table, http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/scot_div_1/9397646.stm, http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/scotland/9396041.stm, and http://www.soccerbase.com/tournaments/tournament.sd?comp_id=12 - another league table).

Attentively, ty in advance for your inputs - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 22:22, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Hearts is correct. Adam4267 (talk) 00:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I go with Heart of Midlothian in the infobox to avoid confusion with Hearts of Oak. Argyle 4 Life^talk 14:28, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I usually also go with Heart of Midlothian in both infoboxes and season articles for Aberdeen FC which I create, seeing as that is their proper name. Not just Hearts though, I use the proper full name for every club. Swaddon1903 (talk) 20:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Jason Bradley

This source states that Jason Bradley made one appearance for Sheff Weds in the League Cup. However, I've been through all Wednesday's League Cup on soccerbase games from about 2005 to 2008 and there's no sign of him being on the bench. Is the Tamworth source just ill-informed? --Jimbo^[online] 11:56, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

His name isn't in any of the League Cup match reports on Sheff Wed's official website either, so it's almost certainly an error. J Mo 101 (talk) 13:09, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

He isn't listed at the comprehensive Sheffield Wednesday Archive, so never made a first-team appearance in any comp for the Owls. Giant Snowman 13:54, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Note that this archive is only up to the 1994-95 season [1] Eldumpo (talk) 16:08, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, that's annoying. Giant Snowman 13:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Definitely didn't play for Wednesday, the match reports for their three League Cup ties that season ([2], [3], [4]) have no mention of him. BigDom talk 15:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Didn't play according to Sky Sports Yearbook either. Brad78 (talk) 23:31, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Should the article be nominated for deletion? —W F C— 03:21, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Article is now PRODed. Although it has previously been through AfD. --Jimbo^[online] 11:48, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Articles that have been PRODded are not eligible for AfD; however, it has been CSDed instead. A deletion bonanza! Giant Snowman 14:51, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Charlie Allen

Still patrolling uncategorized pages, this fellow caught my eye. The article (which is in a very bad shape, btw) claims that he is the son of Martin Allen and that he has recently signed an 18-month professional contract with Dagenham & Redbridge; however, the Daggers' website does not seem to mention him at all, and the article creator, Mrchallen (talk · contribs), together with his contribution history, also leaves room for claims on self-promotion and a possible hoax. Can anybody bring some light into this somewhat obscure case? Thanks, Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 00:30, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Definite WP:COI, also fails WP:GNG and WP:NFOOTBALL so a candidate for WP:PROD. Giant Snowman 01:09, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Appears genuine, if this message and replies on Martin Allen's Twitter is anything to go by. Still not notable until he plays, obviously, and if he does, the re-created article will need a little bit of a cleanup. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:21, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Abdulsalami

Does the Manama Club in Bahrain really have a player called Stephen Abdulsalami? Looks like vandalism to me... 83.80.18.68 (talk) 09:10, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

No source? No info. Giant Snowman 10:35, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Adrián "mix-up"

Even though Adrián López Rodríguez's international appearances are referred to in one of the references, they are wrong.

I questioned User:Mega60, who has an "abnormally" comprehensive database of international appearances for Spanish footballers, and he said that he never appeared for Spain at any youth level, there is a confusion (quite normal for non-Spanish fans) between him and Adrián López Álvarez, his teammate at Deportivo de La Coruña for several years. Cross my heart and hope to die (at least be severely injured :)), MEGA60 is correct on this, trust me.

Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 15:07, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I was a little suspicious that I couldn't find any additional sources that he played for any Spanish youth teams, but I assumed the club's official site would not be mistaken. While we're on the subject of this player, should the player be referred to as "López" rather than "Piscu" in this article? It seems as though the English media doesn't use his Spanish nickname, although it may be helpful to differentiate him from his former team mate. J Mo 101 (talk) 15:42, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I have inserted a WHOOPS tag in Piscu's page. Also, judging from his SOCCERBASE entry and the ref i added regarding his FA Cup match against Hull, he is (at least sometimes) referred to by his nick. Cheers! - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:05, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Zanzibar national under-20 football team

Umm... What should we do with Zanzibar national under-20 football team? I am a little clueless right now... --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 16:27, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Romanising official names of tournaments

I think there is no point in providing Latin transliterations of the various official names of World Cups, continental tournaments, or other football competitions. See the article 2022 FIFA World Cup. The infobox there has the English title first (2022 FIFA World Cup), then the Arabic title, as Arabic is the official language in the host nation (بطولة كأس العالم لكرة القدم 2022), and then a romanisation of the latter (Batulat Ka'as 'al-ʻĀlm Likorat al-Qadam 2022). IMO, we can leave the Arabic inscription for the sake of completeness and comprehensiveness, but there is no reason to keep the Latin rendition thereof, because it adds nothing informative and relevant to the subject of the article. Besides, if one knows Arabic, one won't need the romanisation to read that; if one doesn't know Arabic, one won't be able to comprehend it anyway. I've seen that done in other articles as well - for example, there was once a transliteration of the Ukrainian title of UEFA Euro 2012, which is currently not there in the respective infobox. --Theurgist (talk) 00:51, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with your rationale. It seems like overkill and makes the infobox quite messy. Perhaps for completeness though some text on the official name(s) of the tournament should feature somewhere in the main text? Eldumpo (talk) 09:02, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Solidarity Contribution (football)

Could someone rewrite it? Matthew_hk t c 10:29, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Personally I don't think that very minor regulation deserves its own article....... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:46, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks like it was taken out from Transfer (association football). It should probably be a section within that article. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 11:06, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Yep, needs merging and turning into a redirect, along with a tidy up for the non-footballing layman reader. Giant Snowman 15:08, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Help!

Good morning folks. I've never proposed an article for deletion and would like it if you could help walk me through it. The article I want to propose for deletion is İzzet Affetmez. He's only played in the TFF Third League (the statistics in the infobox saying he has made appearances for Sivasspor are incorrect; see http://www.tff.org/Default.aspx?pageId=526&kisiId=705747 (click on "Total")), the fourth tier in the Turkish football system, thus he has not played in a fully-professional league (plus he currently plays in the amateur leagues). I doubt this would be contested, but I just wasn't sure what to do. Thank you. Invisibletr (talk) 14:55, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

No problemo! Have a read through Wikipedia:Proposed deletion#Nominating for information about how to nominate, and if you have any problems, just let me/us know. Thanks, Giant Snowman 15:10, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I've added the PROD tag to the page, notified the author, and listed the page on the main WikiProject page. Is there anything else to do beside waiting? Invisibletr (talk) 15:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Nope, you've done a great job! Giant Snowman 15:32, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the help! :) Invisibletr (talk) 15:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Is there a correct tournament format?

It seems that there are various preferences for formatting of tournament matches. There are two templates template:footballbox and template:footballbox_collapsible. Is one preferred to the other and if so, which should be used? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:24, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I was always under the impression that footballbox was to be used in tournament articles and footballbox collapsible was best for club season articles. Digirami (talk) 02:32, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Not quite. Footballbox_collapsible is quite successfully employed at 2010–11 DFB-Pokal, 2010–11 FA Cup and a couple of other domestic cup articles. Then there is also the plain wikitable like in 2010–11 FA Cup Qualifying Rounds, Template:OneLegResult as in, for example, 2011 Svenska Cupen or 2010–11 Swiss Cup, and, of course, Template:TwoLegResult as seen in the various UEFA cup competitions.

Since there is no tournament/cup season MoS of any kind at the moment, you are pretty much free to choose the formatting which is fitting your needs at best. The only widely-employed consensus, as far as I know, is to use the regular uncollapsed Footballbox for matches from the quarterfinals or later rounds since these are usually more likely to be decently sourced than early round matches.

Walter, what is the tournament you want to format, if I might ask? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 03:11, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Well only because you asked so nicely: 2011 Canadian Championship. This year, due to some complaints from last season's champion, it won't be an interlocking home-and-away series as in past years. It will take the form of a home-and-away "semi-final" followed by home-and-away final. That means there will be a total of six match reports.

Since I'm familiar with the Pokal more than the other tournaments I prefer that style, but I was very active with the World Cup matches and they use footballbox so before I keep getting the other editors angry at the Canadian tournament I wanted to be sure. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:56, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I can understand using the collapsible version for national cups with lots of games, but for a tournament with six games I wouldn't even bother using it. Additionally, I would only endorse using the collapsible version in national cup competitions and not continental ones. Digirami (talk) 00:55, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Golden Team

Hi, I have been editing the Golden Team article (Hungary 1950's national side, Puskas et al) - the original article seemed verbose and more like a story than an encyclopedia entry. Can someone cast an eye over the current revision and let me know if I'm on the right tracks? Coopuk (talk) 15:45, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

You've made some good changes, but we still need more reliable sources to verify information; I have also have an issue with the random use of large photographs of several players. Giant Snowman 16:18, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Great work and long overdue. However, the most pressing concern for me is the almost complete lack of inline references. Other than that, there's still a long way to go but your work is great. Thanks! Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 22:34, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Question about coaches notability

Hi guys, This may have been asked before but I wanted to bring up the issue of notability of coaches/managers. My reason is that I just watched this video about a certain R. Giggs, but Rhodri not Ryan (his brother) who is player manager at Salford City. I understand that notability is not inherent and he therefore isn't notable as Ryan's brother. I was wondering whether the same guidelines for players should be used in the case of managers, i.e. managing a club for at least one Football League game, for coaches who have not had a playing career in the Football League. There may be some other way that he meets the GNG. Thanks. 03 md 05:44, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Since he's finally got a proper job, there seems to be a handful of coverage of him in the press that is about things other than his prison sentence (one of the reasons for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rhodri Giggs). He'd probably pass the GNG for that. As far as I understand it; our guidelines apply to players, coaches, managers and even match officials as long as they have participated in a fully professional league. Nanonic (talk) 06:27, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

If somebody has the time, there are plenty of stories about this chap at NonLeagueDaily.com - unfortunately Uni work is a-calling for me! Giant Snowman 13:58, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

If it were speedied under CSD G4, I know that there are some admins who would delete. Having seen this discussion, I have taken a more moderate approach. —W F C— 04:20, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Template:2018 FIFA World Cup England bid venues

As the 2018 FIFA World Cup will be in Russia, is there any point in retaining this template? -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 07:08, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Definitely not. Number 5 7 10:39, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

There wasn't much point in it before, but now there definitely isn't any. BigDom talk 12:43, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Now up for deletion, here. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:14, 21 February 2011 (UTC) ⋅

Club names

Ok, I looked at Robinho and Patos pages and saw that somebody plotted A.C. Milan as AC Milan and not Milan which is rediculus, is it supposed to be plotted as Milan or AC Milan? – Michael (talk) 18:04, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I think it is the most common name that doesn't cause confusion so probably AC Milan. Adam4267 (talk) 19:39, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

But we don't do it that way man, we usually plot it as Milan and we plot F.C. Internazionale Milano as Internazionale and not Inter Milan, that's how it's usually done. – Michael (talk) 20:39, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Both articles appear to use A.C. Milan on first reference, then Milan for subsequent uses. A sensible approach, and one I approve of. Oldelpaso (talk) 20:48, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

It is a contentious issue and as far as I can tell there hasn't been a project-wide consensus reached. Here's a link to the last time it was discussed here (a search through the archives will show that it's been discussed many times). Personally I think using the names that are most often used in English media and are the least ambiguous for all readers (not just knowledgeable fans) is the way to go, thus AC Milan and Inter Milan. SQGibbon (talk) 03:16, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

^^I understand what you're saying, but for most of the pages, it's pretty much in our best interest to use the real club name whether it's used in English media or not. For other pages like Deportivo Toluca F.C. we reference that as Toluca and also shortened references with the French club pages as well. But yeah, I think we need to stick with what we're doing with the Milan clubs and referencing them as Milan and Internazionale. – Michael (talk) 17:28, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite see how this is in our best interest? Could you expand on that (i.e., what specific interests are being served)? In the meantime, the real names are "Associazione Calcio Milan" and "Football Club Internazionale Milano" which I'm sure you're not advocating that we use. As for which shortened version is best, I think the key for us here on Wikipedia is the one that is least ambiguous. If you're a casual English speaking fan then all you've heard is "Inter Milan" and "AC Milan". When you come across just "Milan" then there will be confusion. It's a simple matter to add "AC" and avoid any chance of confusion. And while I do occasionally see AC Milan referred to as just "Milan" in English media, I never see Inter referred to as "Internazionale". That just seems to be going out of our way to be obtuse to the general reader. If we at least used "Inter" that would probably be good enough for the average reader. SQGibbon (talk) 18:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Here are a few instances of English-language sources referring to "Internazionale". [5] [6] [7]. Eldumpo (talk) 19:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that, though I'm not sure if that really changes anything. I searched the first website for "Inter Milan" and it came up with just over 4,000 hits vs. 289 for "Internazionale". The second is a Dutch site (with translations into many languages). The third lists "Milan AC" as the very first thing on the page. The first link is the only one of these that I've heard of (and that is clearly an example of English media) and its preference was clear. SQGibbon (talk) 07:34, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Manchester City or Man. City

An editor continues to insert Man. City as a previous club into the roster on Real Madrid C.F. whereas it was listed as Manchester City before. Which should it be listed as? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:47, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Definitely Manchester City. "Man City" is slang, and would be equivalent to putting "Barca" for ex-Barcelona players -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 16:06, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

You should use the proper full name for the club, unless it is excessively long. Most players on loan from Wolves are listed as (on loan from Wolves), whereas a few others are listed as (on loan from Wolverhampton Wanderers). It really doesn't matter but I'd always use the full name. All of the other Manc players on loan are listed as (on loan from Manchester City) so I don't see any real reason to start using Man City.--Echetus Xe 16:10, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Would someone mind making the change at the article please? I do not wish to make this into an edit war. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:22, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Manchester City, without a doubt. Argyle 4 Life^talk 16:27, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Walter, I've changed it for you. Regards, Giant Snowman 16:33, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, saw that. Thanks. We'll see how long it stays. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:39, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I've also informed the editor in question about the rules regarding 3RR/edit-warring. Giant Snowman 16:41, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Non-Fifa football

There seem to be a lot of articles on Non-FIFA football that are in need of some sorting.

The are a number of problems but the biggest are the lack of reliable sources for results/lineups etc and the lack of any evidence of notability. For example Occitania national football team provides 3 links - 2 are pages which no longer exist and the third is the football team's own page. This is written in Occitan, making it difficult to even get a translation.

Another issue is duplication - do we really need three articles about a single tournament: FIFI Wild Cup, 2006 FIFI Wild Cup and FIFI?

A final problem is that a number of these 'national teams' or 'official teams' are more like representative teams cobbled together for the opposition to get some practice in - for example Bonaire or Tasmania or Nevis

What I'm looking for is some sort of consensus on which of these articles to rewrite, which to delete and which to merge. The pages I'm thinking of are on these templates (including the linked title text). Also this list

{{Non-FIFA governing bodies}}

thanksStu.W UK (talk) 20:32, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I wonder why Zanzibar is listed, yet Martinique and Guadeloupe are not. All of them are football associations that are associate members of a confederation (CAF or CONCACAF), but none are members of FIFA. Jogurney (talk) 21:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Zanzibar are members of the NF Board whereas the other two aren't Stu.W UK (talk) 21:59, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd love to see some secondary evidence as to the actual size/importance of the NFB: I can't help suspecting that it is little more than a sprinkling of people in various places who keep in touch and occasionally arrange a competition between the clubs that they are connected to, but with a bit of flag-waving thrown in to get more local publicity than a tournament of international amateur teams would normally get. No major publicity (apart from local press and end-of-bulletin duck-on-a-skateboard broadcasting), no major sponsorship, no employees or published constiution, a website with the vast majority of its pages still under construction. They may have ambition to do something great in the sport, but so do most of the kids running around in my local park on this Sunday morning: it doesn't make them notable.

If that is an accurate assessment of NF Board, then what is the status of the teams who take part in their competitions. If I still lived on the Isle of Sheppey, could I gather a few pals connected at local clubs, declare ourselves to be the Sheppey FA, send an e-mail to the NFB, design a logo based on the insignia of the now defunct local council (see: we are a distinct area which has been repressed by national government), arrange for one of the teams, with a couple of ringers, to go on holiday to the venue of the next VIVA cup, and thereby declare ourselves a pseudo-national team? I suspect that I am not exaggerating much.

Thus I think I would tend towards a high bar for inclusion: the body organising the team that they claim to be "representative" must have some sort of acceptance by large scale (proportionate to the status of the game and population of the area) affiliation, recognition in third party sources as having meaningful existence beyond ad hoc gathering of a team for one competition, etc. The defence that they played in the name of their region in an international competition is not sufficient; this is one step up from a five a side beach football kickabout in beniodorm between English kids and German kids, with some Swedes and Dutch lads playing a bit further along the sand. Kevin McE (talk) 12:51, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Right well I've made a start with some low-hanging fruit FIFI has a PROD, 2006 FIFI Wild Cup has merged with FIFI Wild Cup. UNPO Cup and a team which played at that cup are up for AfD. Europeada was already up for AfD. Guangxi and Inner Mongolia are also up. If all those prove relatively uncontroversial I'll pick through the remainder. Stu.W UK (talk) 02:15, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Wonderful turn of phrase Kevin! end-of-bulletin duck-on-a-skateboard broadcasting I expect to see an essay with such a title next week;-)--ClubOranje^T 04:58, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

An important genre for those of us who experienced the Reginald Bosanquet/Michael Barratt era of British broadcasting. Kevin McE (talk) 10:42, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

What is the correct way to reference a club name?

I have seen full link to the club's article and a link without using FC, etc., and I've seen just the city name. Which is correct? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:24, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

The full club name without the 'FC' is usually best. The reader knows that Nwankwo Kanu plays for Portsmouth the football club and not Portsmouth the city.--Echetus Xe 22:25, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I do however follow a tendency that came out from a discussion that I had with Vasco and that ended up in some sort of agreement in having the short club name version in the infobox (Ex.: Portsmouth, and using a full name version (Ex.: Portsmouth F.C.) in the article text. FkpCascais (talk) 23:04, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

In normal English usage, the only time you'd use the F.C. version would be for clarity in a sentence like "Fred Smith was born in Portsmouth and began his football career with Portsmouth F.C.". Apart from very rare examples like Sydney FC, which is generally referred to as that, using FC after a club's name is completely unnatural in either written or spoken English. You'd use the full name without the FC in the infobox, e.g Wigan Athletic or Sheffield United, and on first mention in prose, and thereafter, once you'd established context, it'd be fine to abbreviate to the city name provided it was unambiguous to do so, e.g Wigan Athletic could be referred to as Wigan but Sheffield United wouldn't be referred to as Sheffield. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 23:17, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

For French clubs, clubs are commonly identified and known by their location, for example Olympique Lyonnais are known simply as Lyon, Olympique de Marseille as Marseille, FC Girondins de Bordeaux as Bordeaux. The major clubs usually set the precedent and the club's who are located in the same city usually identify themselves by location, but also by one of its letter acronyms. For example, since Olympique de Marseille is known as Marseille, GS Consolat, also located in Marseille, refers to itself as Marseille Consolat. — Joao10Siamun (talk) 03:18, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

For German club names, WP:KARLSRUHER is the reference to use.

However, how should North American teams as, let's say, Toronto FC, FC Edmonton, Montreal Impact, Vancouver Whitecaps FC, FC Dallas, Sporting Kansas City or Seattle Sounders FC be handled? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 03:47, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Usually FC is only used when a football club has the same as a club of a different sport that is more popular in that city i.e Sydney Swans & Sydney FC, Dallas Cowboys & FC Dallas, Toronto Maple Leafs & Toronto FC. But not when their is another distinguishing word i.e Hull F.C. and Hull City A.F.C. which is quite confusing. Adam4267 (talk) 14:33, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I've never heard that rule. In every Canadian football city there are at least two teams more popular (ice hockey, and Canadian football) and in some, more (Toronto also has an NBA basketball team and a professional baseball team). --Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:52, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

You also have other kind of exemples, like the editors (specially Bulgarian and Romanian) that have the tendency to simplify clubs as exemple: PFC Slavia Sofia to simply Slavia completely ignoring the fact that there are many other "Slavia´s" around, and for cases like Dinamo´s, Spartak´s, Mladost´s, Rapid´s, Lokomotiv´s, etc. I just hate to see them simplified to a point of not including the town. The town name MUST be included for cases such as these ones, when there are other clubs using same name but from different towns and countries... FkpCascais (talk) 23:25, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Migration of content from other Wikipedia-like website to Wikipedia; notability of the Filipino United Football League

Is there a policy for migration of content from other websites with a similar purpose as Wikipedia (i.e., a knowledge database for a specific topic) to Wikipedia itself? Slamdunk03 (talk · contribs) recently seems to have done just that, copying a bunch of articles (#1, #2, #3, #4 and probably a few more) from this site; however, is this a breach of, for example, any copyright policy?

On a somewhat related matter, does 2011 LBC United Football League fulfil the general notability criteria? While its member clubs might actually just pass, I am not so sure about this league season article, especially since there is no main article for this league at the moment. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 23:54, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

erm, plagiarism is plagiarism as far as I'm aware. However in this case only basic facts have been copied i.e. year of formation and club roster. You can't copyright information like that. I don't know if the articles are notable enough to warrant an article though.--Echetus Xe 01:11, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Considering the wiki you linked to lists wikipedia as their primary source of information on their 'about' page, I'm not sure it's something to be worried about. The league's website states they are sanctioned by the PFF and they aspire to their champions playing in AFC competitions so I think it is safe to assume they run the highest (and second highest!) leagues in the Philippines. This article confirms that the national team captain plays for Kaya Futbol Club and alleges he received offers of trials from Plymouth and Brighton so they can't be that bad. The same league also run a cup competition but I couldn't work out the eligibility rules for that. The first competition seemed to be used to decide which division clubs were placed in, but there's been another one since with far less explanation given. I have no idea whether that means their league merits a season-by season article, but its predecessor, the Filipino Premier League, only lasted one season so maybe the difference between league article and season article is meaningless! Stu.W UK (talk) 02:38, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

This has now gone to AfD for those who are interested in that sort of thing Stu.W UK (talk) 13:38, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Notability of FIFA-licensed players' agents

Does anyone think simply being a FIFA-licensed players' agent is sufficient to satisfy the notability requirement? I noticed an article, Guram Kachakhidze, which appears to have been created by its subject (or a relation), that makes only one verifiable claim to notability - that he is a players' agent. The article also makes unverifiable (and likely false) claims about playing international football (I checked English and Russian language sources and couldn't verify it, and some rudimentary Georgian language searches were similarly unproductive). Thank you in advance. Jogurney (talk) 15:51, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I would say that simply being an agent is not enough, unless it is being reported/commented upon in multiple sources. If he was only born in 1984 then you would expect his time playing for Georgia to have been within the internet-era and thus sources should exist if this is true. Eldumpo (talk) 16:56, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

WP:NFOOTBALL doesn't cover the notability of football agents, so we'd have to turn to WP:GNG for notability guidelines. With specific regards to this fella, he certainly doesn't meet WP:GNG, and claims about his career aren't verified by NFT or FIFA. I'll PROD. Giant Snowman 17:21, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you both. I agree that it won't pass the GNG (I tried pretty extensively to find internet coverage of him and found very, very little). Jogurney (talk) 19:12, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Draws with penalties...

For draws the end in a penalty shoot-out, such as the example below, should they be considered draws because the score is tied after regulation, or should they be considered whatever the results are after the shootout (in the case below, a loss for Libertad and a win for Nacional)? Thanks. Digirami (talk) 18:43, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

16 January 2011 Final	Libertad	2–2 (3–5 p)	Nacional	Montevideo, Uruguay
22:30 (UTC-2)	Maciel 7' Canuto 90+2'	Report	García 5' Coates 14' Anderson Silva 40' Porta 72'	Stadium: Estadio Centenario Attendance: 10,000 Referee: Roberto Silvera (Uruguay)
	Penalties
	Sarabia Bonet Aquino Ayala		Cauteruccio Pereyra Porta García Lembo

It counts as a draw Adam4267 (talk) 19:07, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

How do reliable sources describe it? We can't make that judgment. Giant Snowman 19:08, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

That is how FIFA and UEFA define shootouts in knockout competitions. Adam4267 (talk) 19:13, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I believe that is how Soccerbase classifies shootouts, and that is where we get our management win/draw/loss stats from.--Echetus Xe 22:04, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

That's hardly a watertight argument. There are more managers where we don't get the stats from Soccerbase than the ones where we do. I'd say it was a draw - but perhaps it's worth adding some sort of note? Brad78 (talk) 22:27, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I took a glance at the Laws of the Game, and on page 129 it says that "kicks from the penalty mark are not part of the match". I guess that means that draws that end in penalties count as draws. Digirami (talk) 03:44, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

So is this game that ended as a draw considered a draw or a win after penalties? Ceriy (talk) 04:07, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I think they would say that they drew the match and won the penalty shootout. Digirami (talk) 08:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

You Tube videos?

Quick question: you-tube videos are to be removed, right? (See: Ilija Spasojević, help.) FkpCascais (talk) 23:17, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Usually, they are nothing but homages paid by overzealous fans who want their favorite players "wiki-immortalized", with videos of their greatest plays. I usually "give no chance" and remove them all...

P.S. I have added one YouTube video myself (the only one) at Juan Esnáider, to show the great deal of disrespect he had for his coach when being replaced. I think that's a different matter. --Vasco Amaral (talk) 00:37, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Most likely YouTube videos should be removed, yes; however, please refer to WP:YOUTUBE just to be sure. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 01:08, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

most of the YouTube links I've seen have been to prove a point (ref missed a call, linesman missed an offside). In those cases, the link is support by the commentators of this position. However, the footage is illegally redistributed fan footage. It shouldn't be too difficult to find the same in print. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:14, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

NO! Read my essay: WP:VIDEOLINK :)

But yes, most of the time. This removal seems OK but let me know if an extended reasoning is needed and I will try to formulate one based on guidelines and policies. BTW, videos might be entertaining even if we cannot use them here.Cptnono (talk) 01:26, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for your inputs. So, resumingly, a video is usefull in cases where there is no copyright violation and when there is a (special) reason for its use, however most of the ones I found were a publicity-like ones thus violating the non-promotional wiki rule. However, same as in the cases where some general info websites are numbered under "External sources" (NFT, WorldFootball, Transfermarkt, etc.) I have increasingly started seing editors inserting videos section just next, where tipical promotional videos are listed. I supose that is out of context and worth deleting, right? FkpCascais (talk) 04:11, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a example for the other scenario? I assume my answer will be "Why are editors adding links to videos instead of adding text verified in a reliable source" but there have been instances where media is acceptable as an external link. Some videos may be worthy of inclusion in the body with the appropriate template, as a citation, or in the external links section. More than likely see WP:ELNO points 1 and 11, though. Cptnono (talk) 08:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I can´t remember right now which exactly players had the videos because they waren´t on my watchlist and I ended not doing anything regarding that back then, but I remember seing a couple of articles of minor players having videos. The first case I found from my watchlist was this one I reported here (Ilija Spasojević). FkpCascais (talk) 21:32, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

German characters again

User:Luwilt has seen fit to move the German U19 youth leagues to new titles, namely from "Under 19 Fußball-Bundesliga" to "Under 19 Bundesliga (football)". He has done the same with what is now at Historic ranking of the Bundesliga (football) and added some text to the Fußball-Bundesliga talk page, all the while citing the old tune of "breach of the English language policy". Needless to say, he did not bother with changing any of the affected templates etc. Edit Also note this entry.

Any thoughts? I'd like the moves to be reverted, as there should have been at least a discussion about this before any action was taken, but I'm not sure how to go about it.

Side note: This issue annoys me immensely, but I guess I will have to live with it cropping up every few weeks. Madcynic (talk) 17:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Revert the moves as against consensus, and point the editor in question to our previous discussions about the matter. Any problems, get some admin help. Giant Snowman 17:26, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Article titles should generally be following what the English-language sources are showing for that topic. For the two articles above, only German-language sources are used in the references, so unless there are English-language sources showing different, it seems reasonable for the titles to include the ß. Eldumpo (talk) 17:30, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks like I can't revert (or I just cannot figure out how to). Help, please? Madcynic (talk) 21:08, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Both reverted. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:42, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

He did the same to Under 17 Bundesliga (football). Can we have it moved back please, too? Calistemon (talk) 07:25, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Ignore that, done it myself. Calistemon (talk) 07:27, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Notability re footballers from 1870s

I am currently on a mission to find out as much as I can about the 55 or so players who appeared for "England" or "Scotland" in the England v Scotland representative matches (1870–1872) (often referred to as "pseudo-internationals"). So far I have completed Edgar Lubbock and Charles Nepean, and will shortly do R.S.F. Walker. Most (if not all) were public school boys and well-connected so there is usually a fair bit that can be found about them and their background. I have two questions:

Is appearing in these matches alone sufficient to make them "notable" or do I need to find some other reason to justify an article?
As the matches were not recognised as full internationals, they cannot go in the "International footballers" category - would it be appropriate to create a category such as Category:International representative footballers (1870–1872)? -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 17:21, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The England v Scotland article linked above appears to have plenty of references outlining the notability of these early matches, although technically these are not regarded as full "A" internationals and thus someone could nominate an article for deletion if it did not meet GNG, although given the number of sources available for the games, it would seem more likely that all players would meet GNG. I agree that creating a new category is reasonable, but not sure whether it should be a different name to include England and Scotland in the title - given that other 'international players' will not be included in the category. Eldumpo (talk) 17:41, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

2010 Liga de Ascenso Apertura templates

The above article has a number of templates within its various tables which means it's not easy to just go in and make edits. Does anyone know what the rationale of having tables/templates set up like this is, and if it is deemed useful, how do you go about editing them? Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 12:11, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Exactly which templates are you talking about? Digirami (talk) 20:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Under 'Stadia and Locations' there's a wikitable with {fb team}} entries. The 'General Table' is perhaps linked to the first as there are t entries. Also, you can see there are red links to templates in the blue qualification boxes. Also in the 'Results' section you can't just go in and edit team names, or at least they don't show up on screen. Hope this makes some sense. Eldumpo (talk) 22:58, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The fb team templates should be used in a set of templated league tables and/or re results tables only. Any other occurance should be handled by plain old wiki syntax, so the template instances in S&L should be removed. As for the redlinks in the qualification boxes – {{Fb cl3 qr}} should be used in this case as it is capable of accepting any text via its "competition" parameter. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 23:09, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for response. I'm not really up on wiki syntax and templates, so at some point would you be able to make the changes you suggest to the article? Basically I just want the article to get to a position that it can easily be edited. If some templates are desirable then preferably there should be some hidden text explaining matters? Eldumpo (talk) 23:42, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Done. I also moved the article to 2010–11 Liga de Ascenso season since the same teams compete in the 2011 Clausura. However, there is still a lot of work to be done here. The "Teams" section needs prose about the team changes between the 2009–10 season and this season. The "Classification phase" section needs an end-of-season update. The Apertura Liguilla section should be expanded to incorporate the data of at least the Final and probably the other matches as well (depending on the availability of adequate sources). Finally, the Clausura section is still non-existent. Help from people more familiar with Mexican futbol than me is thus gladly appreciated. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 17:31, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Image fix

Resolved

– Image creator has uploaded a correct version. Giant Snowman 12:55, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Copied from Wikipedia:Cleanup:
Image: The image has incorrect information - it should say "Silvestre" instead of "Sol Campbell" (as seen on its relevant article) - I'd edit it myself but I don't have the correct program to do so, so thought it best to bring attention to it here. Apologies if this is in the wrong place! Ը२ձւե๓ձռ¹⁷ 13:44, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The image needs amending over at Commons, so I've asked the original uploader to do so, as well as renaming the file (France are FRA, not FRE). Regards, Giant Snowman 23:36, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

"Live scores" or not?

We have Template:Match in progress but I think it's counter-intuitive to be using an encyclopedia as a scoreboard. The template indicates "Wikipedia is edited in real time, and thus editors regularly update the scores of current sports-related events while they are in progress". Any opinions? Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:10, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, the old live-update problem. Scoreboard-like updates are usually discouraged per WP:RECENT, however this policy is hard to apply in this case because of too many people, usually IPs, following the match(es). So unless semi-protection is applied, there is not much we can do about it. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 20:35, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

the majority of the updates to 2010–11 UEFA Champions League knockout phase‎ are coming from registered users. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:38, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Edits like that are discouraged and while I don't do them myself, they aren't really doing any harm. It would be more hassle than it was worth putting in place page protection, and reverting any changes citing RECENT or any other guideline isn't very helpful either. BigDom talk 20:41, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

The futility of trying to prevent in-match-updates, and the illogicality of assuming that the casual reader will that realise italics indicate that the displayed score is not the result, lead me to create that template last year. However, the documentation is news to me (creation of and edits to the /doc aren't notified to the watchlist, or maybe I was distracted on the day that they were): I have changed the doc file to make clear the compromise implicit in the existence of the template. Kevin McE (talk) 21:07, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Notability

Hello lovely WP Football people. Having just seen a whole spate of stub, nearly identical Polish FC articles get created, I've started wondering -- what is the notability threshold this project has for pages of football clubs? I figured I'd ask before Prod'ing the articles -- because frankly, they don't even have articles on the Polish wikipedia.

Thanks for your help. --Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû _(blah?) 20:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

My threshold is first division clubs of any nation should be listed. Also, professional teams that are verifiable. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:57, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

General rule of thumb is that if a team qualifies for the national cup (i.e. in England the FA Cup, in Poland the Polish Cup etc.) then they would be considered notable. Giant Snowman 21:02, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Just for clarification – is notability achieved if a team qualifies for the "proper" rounds of a cup or is it sufficient to qualify for any round, including qualification rounds? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 21:08, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Participation at any stage: eg any level 10 team in England, not only those that have reached first round proper at some stage. I doubt most nations use such a split name anyway. Kevin McE (talk) 21:15, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

RSSSF has a listing of every club that participated in the cup from 1926 through 2000, and if these clubs aren't listed they are very unlikely to have ever participated since most of them are competing in the 6th level of the Polish pyramid. I've proposed Czarni Wierzchosławice for deletion, but it looks like there are plenty of others. Jogurney (talk) 21:19, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I see. ...are the articles the op mentioned above all displayed in the template at the bottom of the Czarni article? If so, all of these are definitely PROD candidates, and the template should then be deleted as well, simply because the 6th level in Poland is fully amateur. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 21:25, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I saw that User:Bosmanek83 created several stub articles about low-level Polish football clubs recently - so I assumed that's who the OP was speaking about. In any case, please check to see if any of these clubs have played at a professional level or in the cup in the past. I found another article Bosmanek83 started that was salvageable because the club had reached the 2nd round of the cup in the past (although it was now playing in the 5th level of the pyramid). Jogurney (talk) 21:37, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes they're all Bosmanek83's articles. I think s/he is trying to flesh out the clubs that play in Liga Okręgowa which is 5th tier, and few, if any, of them even have articles on the Polish wikipedia. You've already prodded ~~most of them~~ at least one, I see, which saves me the trouble. :D --Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû _(blah?) 21:56, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Raising the bar (until the sky is no longer the limit)?

User:Roslagen, an "expert" in expatriate categories, is now creating the "LIVERPOOL F.C. EXPATRIATE FOOTBALLERS". In what way is this valid might i ask? Luckily, from what i have seen in Fernando Morientes' article, the category has been proposed for deletion...

Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 02:53, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Now deleted - see CfD here. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:33, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Two Paul Smiths, both English, both midfielders, both born January 1976 (and both at Sheffield FC in 2007). Previous disambiguators have been contrary to WP:COMMONNAME (Paul Antony Smith/Ian Paul Smith), based on low profile information (Paul Smith (footballer born in Hastings)/Paul Smith (footballer born in Easington)), or just odd (Paul Smith (footballer born 1976)/Paul Smith (footballer born 1976a)). Now one of them has been moved back to the non-unique Paul Smith (footballer born 1976), leaving the guy invariably known as Paul, who had a slightly more illustrious career, at Ian Paul Smith. How should we distinguish between them? Kevin McE (talk) 20:01, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Full DOB? Giant Snowman 20:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

In a situation like this there isn't going to be a guideline-compliant pair of names, so it doesn't really matter what they're called. I'd have no problem with using full DOB, though it's interesting that the page names had been stable at the player's full name for more than three years before the recent move of one of them... The important bit is to make sure they've both got a hatnote to the dab page (and possibly a hatnote to each other as well) and that they're described clearly enough on the dab page for the reader to work out which one they want. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:43, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

This list is insane!

List of association football competitions is one of the links on the widely-used template Template:International football. It is insanely long, has random changes in style and layout and is incredibly detailed for some countries (Australia - why?), but almost entirely bare for entire continents (eg Africa). Any suggestions what to do with it? Stu.W UK (talk) 02:19, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I would say delete it - we have the category for it. Number 5 7 09:37, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Requisite league notability for season articles

Despite this, it seems well-established that any league in English football league system is sufficiently notable to have its own article. At what level is a league notable enough to have its own season article(s)?It looks as though it goes down to level 8 at the moment. † Omgosh30 † 10:53, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

How best to cover limited subject matter

I just wanted to get some external opinions on the situation at List of football clubs in Liechtenstein. I have no objection to a stand-alone article, but my belief is that given what we currently have, the best way to cover the topic is by redirecting to List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries#Liechtenstein, which has some basic information, a decent paragraph of prose, the clubs plus a suitable image. I've promised the person who has twice removed the redirect that I will give him a couple of days to demonstrate that a separate article is worthwhile, and will abide by that, but want to gauge opinions on whether an AfD would be worthwhile if that doesn't happen. Thanks, —W F C— 13:30, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Brett Ormerod

Brett Ormerod this week scored his first top flight goal for Blackpool and had now scored in all four English divisions for one club. A BBC online source reported that he was the first player to achieve this in the English league, and the Wiki entry was edited to reflect this. I have reworded the entry to say that he is the first to score for Blackpool in all four divisions. There are several previous examples of players who did the same for one club, the earliest apparently being Northampton's Barry Lines who completed the task in 1966. J1960 (talk) 10:03, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Well done. † Omgosh30 † 10:44, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Play nicely or not at all. Giant Snowman 19:03, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much anything looks like sarcasm when your username is 'Omgosh30'.--Echetus Xe 17:06, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Editor on a spree

Just something to be aware of: [8] -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:48, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

What the heck are these?--Echetus Xe 18:51, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

These are used in all kinds of season articles, usually for league and results tables. See also Category:Fb team templates for a full overview. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 18:59, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

...why? —W F C— 08:22, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Why make things easy, when you can make them complicated? -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 08:25, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Approach techniques

Given the number of replies i have had, even when discussing technicalities (instead of the vandal reporting which i know is out of place here), i am almost afraid to ask this, but here it goes...

Again, i totally disagree with User:Matthew hk, who engages in the following: adding intricate references on players regarding their transfers, with transfer funds, bonuses, percentages of transfers to this or that team involved, etc, like an economy journal. I always thought the references in footballers regarding transfers should be about: 1 - how many years of contract; 2 - is it a purchase or a loan; 3 - how much did the transfer cost? and nothing else.

In Matías Fernández, Matthew went as far as REMOVING the UEFA.com reference (which had everything, the text including amount of deal, number of years signed), inserting a totally complicated one, in PORTUGUESE! In what way is this correct?

Inputs please. And don't worry, the user which is mentioned here has been notified of this, i also invited him to participate in the forum. Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 02:37, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Vasco, I suspect you are asking about this edit. My view is that the article need not discuss the contract in as much detail (especially the club's sell-on clause), but others may feel differently. I also agree that the UEFA reference is preferable because it is in the English language, but again others may disagree. I've also had some differences of opinion with this user in the past, but I think he is typically right but just doesn't communicate as clearly in English. Ultimately, I don't think this is a big problem, as both of you are trying to improve the article, and you just had different opinions on what content to include. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 03:49, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I also had similar issues, and I get easily frustrated when editors are removing sources (or replacing them in this case), so I allways defend adding sources instead of replacing them. If one likes one source but other editor prefers another, why not keeping both? Obviously I´m not talking about having 33 sources for one sentence, but 2 is OK and never too much... FkpCascais (talk) 05:55, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

English references are always preferable. Then again, avoiding the UEFA website like the plague is completely understandable, given how often ~~their utter incompetence (m)ucks everything up~~ links from their website go dead. —W F C— 08:27, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I think it's fairly normal for us to include the variable part of a transfer fee, always assuming it's reliably sourced: "Bloggs joined Template FC for a fee of £5m, potentially rising to £6.5m depending on appearances and his new club avoiding relegation", stuff like that. In the case of Matías Fernández, I'd be tempted to use both sources (the Portuguese one has a bit more detail), but rewrite in better English: how about "...moved to Sporting on a four-year contract for an initial fee of €3.635 million, with a further €500,000 payable depending on appearances. Villarreal would retain 20% of the profit on any future sale of the player." cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:38, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I have reinstated it per STRUWAY's approach. Regarding WFC's statement, i don't think links go dead unless site undergoes a configuration (they did one "makeover" last year, since then it's been A.O.K.). Thanks for your help, cheers, happy weekend - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 12:55, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

List of football clubs in x

User:Retepretep has recently created a load of these lists, for instance: list of football clubs in Zanzibar and list of football clubs in Papua New Guinea. Isn't this sort of thing exactly what categories are for? I would have nominated them for deletion, but as a list of football clubs in England has existed since 2004 I thought I'd see what people thought here first Stu.W UK (talk) 13:57, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I've no objection to them in principle. In practise, there's no point in borrowing the non-prose parts of sections such as this, and then removing some of it to create a stand alone article, as has happened here and here. —W F C— 14:16, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

The English list, while out of date, at least contains more information that a category would; the two examples that Stu.W UK has listed do not, and are probably candidates for deletion. Giant Snowman 14:40, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I've started a related AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of football clubs in Liechtenstein. —W F C— 15:06, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I think a second question I should ask is if anyone can explain what the point is in having a list of all football clubs from a country? Particularly as [[Category:Association football clubs by country]] exists. Stu.W UK (talk) 14:35, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Because in this case a list can contain more information than a category without getting excessively crufty - for example, the league the team plays in, year of formation etc. Bettia Talk 15:44, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree. With references, a list of clubs can provide more information that the category and I often find them useful. The problem with the lists up for AfD is they are unreferenced and contain no more information than the category. Jogurney (talk) 16:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Like List of football clubs in Germany ArtVandelay13 (talk) 16:08, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Apparently FSV Oggersheim plays at Level 0 of the German system... Giant Snowman 16:13, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

They're very good. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 16:57, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

They must be to do it without even having a team.--Echetus Xe 17:04, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Quite amazing. However, their magic trick has just been uncovered. Seems as if level 11 is the new level 0... --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 17:49, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Adam Matthews references

Hi, I can't seem to work out why the in-line citations on the Adam Matthews appear as letters rather than numbers - any clues? Giant Snowman 15:29, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Reference formatting change?. Nanonic (talk) 15:41, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Aha, interesting, thanks very much. Giant Snowman 15:47, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Goal Average?

This series of edits introduced "Goal Average" to the 1950 FIFA World Cup article. These edits were the editor's efforts on the 1954 article but were all reverted when I pointed-out that without a reference, it's just WP:OR. The editor's definition is "Goal average is a different scheme that predated goal difference. Using the goal average scheme the number of goals scored is divided by the number of goals conceded." Despite the problems encountered with clean sheets, has anyone else heard of this? Should the edits be reverted? Should they be added to some historical tournaments because they were used to determine tie-break scenarios? What should we do about them? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 08:10, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, I can't confirm for sure that GA was used in those tournaments, but it certainly existed as a concept. GA was used to separate teams level on points in The Football League right up to the 1970s. My team, Gillingham, won the Fourth Division championship on GA in 1964 -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:09, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Never heard of that before. The 1950 article explicitly states, there was no system in place to break ties, but a play-off game. So for sure that tournament shouldn't use it. Second, calling GF/GA goal average is missleading, goal average is naturally 'GF/games played'. -Koppapa (talk) 09:24, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Goal average was "Goals scored ÷ Goals conceded". Nothing misleading there. BigDom talk 09:40, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

On the basis that neither goal difference or goal average was used as a tie-breaker, neither statistic should be disclosed in the table because it isn't relevant. The only relevant statistic in each table was the points earned with the play-off used as a tiebreaker. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 10:11, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The tournament didn't use goal average as a tie-breaker until 1958 (see 1958 FIFA World Cup#Format) so there's no real point in including it in the tables before then. But the definition "scored divided by conceded" is correct: see goal average. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:18, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

English club notability

An AfD is currently underway, with the initiator planning to use it as a barometer for determining notability for English clubs. A wide range of input would therefore be useful. Cheers, Number 5 7 10:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Dean Richards

Rumours flying around that he's died. No news stories yet though, which could mean hoax. Could an admin protect until proof is forthcoming? HornetMike (talk) 12:52, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I would second this. There are reports that the deceased is a 47 year old with the same name, which might just be a coincidence.[9] The origin of the statement is Jordan Stewart, when pressed he stated that it was due to a brain tumour. Take from what what you will.Koncorde (talk) 13:08, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Sadly its true [10]--Add92 (talk) 13:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Yep, now confirmed by BBC - rest in peace. Giant Snowman 14:18, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Ken Harper DOB

There have been two post-war players called Ken Harper - a fullback for Bradford (1946-1949) and a centre-back for Shrewsbury (1950-1951) - I'm 99% sure they're seperate, but can somebody with a more in-depth resource than Neil Brown please double check, and if possible provide DOBs so I can disambiguate. Thanks, Giant Snowman 15:43, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Per Rothmans: Ken Harper born Barnsley 15-04-1917 played 50 league games for Bradford City 1946-1949.
Ken Harper born Farnworth 27-04-1924 played once for Shrewsbury 1950-1951. I can add the exact citation for you after the articles are started. Cheers. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 18:17, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks - as ever. Both articles now created, as well as a disambiguation page. Cheers, Giant Snowman 18:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

French Youth Caps

For the editors that work on French football articles, I'm sure you've come across the website RLFoot.fr which has excellent records for the stats players with the French national youth teams. However, it seems like the site has had a virus of some sort for a while now and I haven't been able to access the site. Anyone know a work around to access the site without risking being infected by a virus .. or even another site that has the stats? Thanks. TonyStarks (talk) 21:34, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Can't say that I've had the same problem, the site works fine on my computer. As someone who has written about many French players, I agree that it is an excellent source of information for French national youth teams. BigDom talk 21:46, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If it's still not working for you, try the Wayback Machine - simply type in the appropriate URL and it'll bring up all archived pages of that site. Very useful tool. Giant Snowman 21:48, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, what I meant to say is that when I try to access the site, my browser blocks it saying that "it can harm my computer, etc." and I'd rather not take the risk. Thanks for the tip GiantSnowman, I'll give it a shot. TonyStarks (talk) 22:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I get the same thing as TonyStarks. Basically saying it is a "Reported Attack Page". I used the the Wayback Machine as recommended and it worked. I still got a "recent attempt to hijack your computer was blocked" note from Norton. : / On another note, depending on how long ago a player represented a youth level, the federation official site has statistics. You have to look up the caps manually though by looking through the match reports to see if they played or were called up. : ( — Joao10Siamun (talk) 02:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Mission: Impossible, John Alfred Savage and James Potts

on italian wikipedia we created John Alfred Savage, he was one of the first Juventus players and the first foreigner to play for the team in 1901, we suppose he was english.. and there is an artiche I'd love create, James Potts was an english working for the Cunard Lines in 1904 and he was a football pioneer in Naples, Italy: do you have informations about them to enlarge their articles? 93.33.2.253 (talk) 07:06, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I've looked in my Joyce book and neither appeared to have played in the Football League. Sorry. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 07:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

thank you anyway.. John anyway is availble for a translation, if Juventus has the Notts County jersey (black and white stripes) he's responsible, he asked his relative 100 years ago if he knew where there were cheap jersey.. it sounds a legend but it's the truth! 93.32.192.110 (talk) 19:10, 27 February 2011 (UTC) Ps: Is it legal in UK asking for place and date of birth and death for people if those people are dead?

I don't see why it would be a crime. Would be pretty strange asking for a date of death for people who are alive. I know Berlusconi has had some strange behaviour but surely he has not made that a crime? Translation of your question: "E 'legale in Gran Bretagna per chiedere luogo e data di nascita e di morte per le persone se queste persone sono morte"... Non capisco la domanda?--Echetus Xe 20:16, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

in Italy there is a law to protect the privacy, if somebody asks for this kind of informations it isn't a crime but it can be difficult having informations.. some months ago I asked at british consulate if they were available to find this kind of informations for british football pioneers but I wasn't lucky.. translation in italian: in Italia gli impiegati all'anagrafe qualche volta possono rifiutarsi di dare questo tipo di informazione su persone morte per via della legge sulla privacy in vigore in Italia, quando sono andato al consolato britannico a Milano gli impiegati di origine britannica sono sembrati molto riluttanti e mi chiedevo il motivo di questa difficoltà, se potevo averla se per esempio venivo in UK a cercare informazioni sui padri britannici del calcio italiano.. 93.32.192.110 (talk) 20:31, 27 February 2011 (UTC) Ps: visto che parli così bene l'italiano, se a voi di en.wikipedia serve aiuto per qualche voce sul calcio potete rivolgervi qui, alcuni utenti ovviamente parlano inglese.

The Savage article is at [11]. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 20:42, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Not to be confised with the John Alfred Savage active in England in the 1950s... Giant Snowman 21:33, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

if you need help, I can try.. then if you want create some other articles about pioneers, this time austrians, look this article.. guess who created it :)!! 93.32.192.110 (talk) 21:51, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Did I miss a discussion?

Tahiti_national_football_team#Current_squad, New_Caledonia_national_football_team#Current_squad, Cook_Islands_national_football_team#Current_squad and a whole bunch of other small nations all use a table format for current squad, recently changed to this format by User:Retepretep. Also, New_Zealand_national_football_team#Current_squad appears to have been changed by User:WhizzSheep to use New Zealand colours - not sure if any others have yet. I know there have been various discussions for consensus on this, but I thought the "National Football Squad" series templates with the regulation blue bar were the latest outcome. Have I missed a later discussion or can I drop those users a note and start fixing them?--ClubOranje^T 09:07, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If there were a discussion on national squad templates (and if there was, I missed it), it's highly unlikely that Retepretep participated. Getting a comment out of that user is like drawing blood from a stone. —W F C— 09:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Revert back to standard format and direct the user(s) in question here. Giant Snowman 13:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If the edits were done by User:Retepretep then I wouldn't be surprised if they ran contrary to the norm. Retepretep seems to be currently trying to make stub lists of all the top level football teams in every country in the world even though they already exist in List of association football clubs in various sections. Not sure what to do with Retepretep's articles seeing as any attempt I make to change them to redirects is simply reverted. Delusion23 (talk) 14:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Ronaldinho's new trophy

Ronaldinho's Flamengo won the Taça Guanabara, his first award in his new club. It's a traditional cup in Rio, but it also serves as the first half of the Campeonato Carioca. Because of this, one user believes it shouldn't be listed among Ronaldinho's honors, but I do. It's an official award from the Rio de Janeiro state football federation and should be listed. Just because it also serves as half of a larger competitions is moot. Outsiders opinions would before we break the three revert rule. Digirami (talk) 19:08, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It is included in the honours section of the club article, so I don't see why it shouldn't be included for the players themselves. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 19:52, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It is a separate competition, despite being also part of the Campeonato Carioca. All the Brazilian newspapers I know consider the Taça Guanabara a separate competition, so it should be treated as a separate competition. --Carioca (talk) 19:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

List of non-league clubs in the Fifth Round of the FA Cup since 1901‎

Given the rare match this weekend, and Dweller's reasonably encouraging noises, I thought it was worth having a list. Comments welcome, of course. A golden raspberry to the first person to suggest sending this to AfD. -- Testing times (talk) 18:50, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

My suggestion would be to start the list in 1926, as this is (I think) when the all League teams first qualified by right. Oldelpaso (talk) 19:15, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Good point. Actually, I think the same list can be pushed back to Spurs in 1901, so have made a few changes and moved the page to List of non-league clubs in the Fifth Round of the FA Cup since 1901‎. Further comments very welcome, of course. -- Testing times (talk) 19:23, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

If you're going to start the list before 1926 then it will have to be renamed as 'Last 16' as the rounds changed name in 1926 so using 5th round would not be consistent. Also, using 1901 seems a bit arbitrary. I would suggest season 1920-21, the first year of a 3rd division, as before that you may find that the occurences are more numerous as there were fewer 'League clubs. Eldumpo (talk) 11:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Well, I am clearly out of my depth here :) There is a clear rationale for starting in 1945, and the claim from that date is safe (and ChrisTheDude on the talk page noted that Southampton reached the FA Cup final in 1902, while playing in the Southern League) so I have returned the list to 1945. If anyone wants to list pre-1945 instances, feel free to add them, but I have done all I can. -- Testing times (talk) 18:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Statistics for Brazilian players

Hey, so I'm looking for a little direction here in anticipation of creating an article for a Brazilian footballer. This has probably already been discussed but I could not find it so here is the story. He played for Paulista Futebol Clube the past two years and as far as I know the team only competed in their state league and they are not members of Brazil's Serie A, B, C, or D. So would I not list any statistics for his time a Paulista since they did not compete in a domestic league? Thanks a bunch --Spartan008 (talk) 19:11, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

My view is that the infobox should only list national league matches, rather than the state league matches. The body of the article should certainly include discussion of the player's performance in state championships, and tables can be added to show state championship statistics at a glance. Jogurney (talk) 15:07, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I had a feeling you might say that but I wanted to check anyways. Since Paulista Futebol Clube has not participated in a national league then I guess I will leave it blank. Thanks, I appreciate your take on it. --Spartan008 (talk) 16:07, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Would the Paulista and Carioca championships be close to being fully pro? Hack (talk) 11:27, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

As I understand it, the top division of those state championships are fully-pro. Some of the Brazilian editors have explained it in the past, so it's probably in the archives somewhere. Jogurney (talk) 14:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Categories: to merge or not to merge, that is the question...

I have had a run-in with User:Matthew hk, who reverted Nicola Legrottaglie's category from "Association football defenders" to "Association football central defenders", and also sent a message to my page warning me of my "wrongdoings".

I thought this stuff had already been decided in favour of a merge in categories, hence leaving "GOALKEEPERS", "DEFENDERS", "MIDFIELDERS", "WINGERS" (i remember it clearly someone also mentioned something about merging these two) and "FORWARDS". My question is: if we don't have stuff like "Association football attacking midfielders" or "Association football left wingers" or "Association football centre forwards", why should the defenders receive "special treatment"?

Please, teammates, brief me in on the current status of these contents. In high appreciation - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 15:48, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Well a full-back is as different from a central defender as a winger is from a midfielder, so I don't really see the fuss. Many defenders can really only play one role, whereas a striker really should be able to play as a left forward, centre forward or whatever. So no special treatment really.--Echetus Xe 18:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

As i know in Serie A they were few classic fullback likes in England, many centre-back could play side-defender, but as i remember Legrottaglie is a centre-back and never played in the flank regularly. Unlike some Serie A player that could switch, e.g. Zdeněk Grygera, Frederik Sørensen and Giorgio Chiellini that played a season as fullback and centre-back. Matthew_hk t c 15:46, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

There's a big historical difference. Fullback and centre half were quite different positions back when teams had five forwards; the flat back four is a relatively recent consideration. So as we can't really merge the two, we might as well be specific in the modern case if a player is dedicated to one or the other. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 13:58, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Football league infobox question

Hi, currently we are having a dispute at League of Ireland Premier Division over representation of a country, which could affect several football league articles. More specifically like the French Ligue 1 this league has teams from two different countries; the Republic of Ireland and one from Northern Ireland, just as Ligue 1 has teams from France and one from Monaco.

One user keeps trying to argue that because UEFA depict Derry City, the team from NI, with the flag of the Republic of Ireland then that means there is no need for the Northern Ireland flag (the Union Jack) to be displayed at all in the infobox whilst the Republics can be shown.

I counter that yes the flag represents Derry City F.C. as they play in that country's league - however it doesn't represent the country they are from. The infobox is about the countries that consist the league not the countrys league the club represents.

A look at UEFA in regards to Monaco and it uses the French flag no doubt as they play in the French league, but when we list countries in the infobox we aren't on about leagues they play in, we are on about the countries that are from, so obviously the Monaco flag is used for them as it is in that article. This user says "Yeah it is wrong". They also appear happy to use this reasoning as the reason to keep the Union Jack off the article whilst keeping the RoI flag.

Most league articles use flags for the countries that make up a league, and this article has had a flag since it was made an article back in 2006 so there shouldn't be a need for the removal of flags altogether from it.

So i ask simply for clarification:

That the infobox is on about what countries the league consists of?
Is the flag used on a clubs UEFA page about the country the team represents or the country the team is actually from?
If the first answer is yes and the second answer is "represents", then the UEFA club pages are utterly irrelevant to this issue?
If the second answer is "is actually from", then the UEFA club pages are unreliable as Monaco's team come from Monaco and Derry City come from Northern Ireland, both not represented by those flags. Essentially meaning the source is useless.
On the basis of the above questions is the Ligue 1 article wrong as this user suggests in regards to the Monaco flag being used?
On the basis of the above questions is their any reason why the flag of Northern Ireland shouldn't be included alongside that of the Republic of Irelands? Seeing as it is uneven and unfair to include one countrys and not the other?

The following was added in after several comments had been posted.
This issue will affect not just League of Ireland Premier Division, but also Ligue 1, Scottish Football League Third Division, and Swiss Challenge League which all consisst of teams from two countries and all except for the League of Ireland article include each country's flag despite the fact UEFA club pages aren't consistent. I.e. Derry City and Monaco both use the flag of the country of the league they play in. Berwick Rangers from England who play in Scotland aren't on the site so we can't use them as an example, and Vaduz does however have the flag of Leichtenstein despite playing in Switzerland.

Mabuska ^(talk) 23:56, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

The use of the Union Flag is not consistent with The Championship which don't use it so why should it be used here? I'm 100% certain that UEFA are not claiming that Derry is in the ROI.Mo ainm ~Talk 23:09, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Seeing as the official flag of Northern Ireland is the Union Flag and as it has no regional flag anymore then it is the flag that represents it outside of some sports which use the defunct Ulster Banner. England and Wales however do still have their own unique flags that represent them seperately in place of the Union Jack which represents them as the UK. So obviously the Union Flag isn't required in The Championship article as no NI team is in it. Also your second point also bears no relevance to your arguement on the infobox. Mabuska ^(talk) 23:19, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Again please don't make accusations Mabuska , your only tarnishing your own argument and you have already stated on the other talk page that your desire was to "Hopefully we can keep our sarcasm and throw-backs out of it and just concentrate on the actual issue and the points raised in a more professional way..." not a great start is it? Mo ainm~Talk 23:35, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

All i said was the points bear no relevance which they don't. Nothing cheeky or sarcastic in it Mo ainm, please keep to the discussion. If your on about: This user says "Yeah it is wrong". They also appear happy to use this reasoning as the reason to keep the Union Jack off the article whilst keeping the RoI flag. - its not accusing you of anything, you gave your reason for your view and appear happy with it. Mabuska ^(talk) 00:03, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Other precedents in favour of using the NI or Union Flag are Scottish Football League Third Division which shows both the Scotland and England flags, and Swiss Challenge League, which uses both the Swiss and Liechtenstein flags. Mooretwin (talk) 23:33, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

According to UEFA they use the Flag of Ireland. Mo ainm~Talk 23:40, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately that doesn't answer any of the questions above. This whole thing is about clarification on that anyways, but thanks for the link which i will use and expand upon above along with Mooretwins points. If anyone decides to respond on the points we'll see whether UEFA club pages have relevance to this exact issue. No need to repeat my arguements here as they have been above. Mabuska ^(talk) 23:45, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

There is one issue to be considered: Monaco doesn´t have a UEFA recognised top league, so its clubs (read, AS Monaco) compete in the French League, while in Derry City´s case the club comes from a country that does have its own top league. Having this in mind, I beleave that having the Monaco flag beside the French one on the Ligue I article is correct since the clubs from Monaco compete in French league system, but having the Union Jack next to the RoI flag in the Irish league would be missleading at least. Clubs from Monaco (country) compete in ~~Ligue I~~ French Leagues, but UK (specifically Northern Ireland) doesn´t compete in League of Ireland Premier Division being Derry City F.C. only an exeption. FkpCascais (talk) 02:03, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

AS Monaco FC is not "Monaco (country)": there is no Monaco national team (beyond the hobbyists of an NFB team, but that's a separate discussion higher up the page). Kevin McE (talk) 12:07, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Obviously, I said "read, AS Monaco" because that was the case in that context. And I said "Monaco (country) competes in Ligue I", I meant, competes in French league system. I´m not sure if there are more clubs from Monaco (country), but I beleave they don´t have a separate league and play in French lower leagues. FkpCascais (talk) 17:14, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi and thanks for the response. When i say next to the flag i mean beside Northern Ireland which is underneath (same as beside) Republic of Ireland in the countries section of the infobox. All countries have their own flag shown beside their country name - is the infobox "countries" section about leagues or the country the team comes from? If country it comes from then what arguement is their against its inclusion? The English team in Scottish Football League Third Division come from a country with a league system of its own but has its country's flag shown as its not to do with football league systems but country of origin - which if thats not the case, thats why i've asked for clarification above. Mabuska ^(talk) 11:13, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

The infobox is about the league, not the clubs currently in the league. It is more true to say that Berwick/Vaduz/Derry/Monaco/Cardiff are teams in the Scottish/Swiss/Irish/French/English leagues than to say that they are members of Anglo-Scottish/Helvetio-Liechtensteinian/All-Ireland/Franco-Monagesque/Anglo-Welsh leagues. The nature/constitution of those leagues would not be fundamentally changed by the relegation/withdrawal of these teams. Special accomodations are necessary precisely because one team (more in case of Welsh sides in FL) has a different nationality, not because the league is dual nationality. I would suggest that the infobox should offer the option of country as well as countries as the label for the league, and that the plural should only be used when it is the implicit purpose of the league that it encompasses more than one country. Kevin McE (talk) 12:07, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I can see what you saying. If the infobox is about the league and not the country the clubs currently in the league come from then are you proposing we delete Northern Ireland (in the League of Ireland Premier Division) and England (on the Scottish Football League Third Division) from those two repsective articles as the league doesn't encmpass those countries? However we keep Monaco in Ligue 1 as its country is encompassed by the French league? On that, what about the Football League Championship then? Does it encompass Wales even though they now have their own league system since the days they were part of the English one and not all teams switched? Mabuska ^(talk) 12:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Under that proposal, Wales would have to go. What about the Swiss Challenge League, would Liechtenstein have to go? There is also the A-League in Australia to consider, and baseball and other sports leagues in US/Canada, although they are probably jointly US/Canada rather than CCanadian teams playing in a US league (but not sure). Mooretwin (talk) 20:54, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeap, FC Toronto and Vancouver Whitecaps FC compete in the "American" Major League Soccer. FkpCascais (talk) 21:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

If the league is constituted in as a bi-/multi-national league, it gets more than one nationality named in the infobox (can't imagine why, barring pure decoration, that country name needs to be accompanied by a flag): if it is the national league of one country that happens to offer occasional places to clubs from beyond its borders, that is a different matter. I don't see what is controversial or complicated to apply in that. I am reasonably confident that the ones I cited conform to the latter description; I don't know about the Australian/N American cases, nor those that relate to other sports. The Monegasque FA (is there such a thing?) has no stake in the French League system, nor do the FAW, IFA or FA in the league of RoI, England or Scotland respectively. I suspect the same is true of Liechtenstein FA in the Swiss league, but I am less certain in that case. Kevin McE (talk) 21:43, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much agree with all of that. Mooretwin (talk) 22:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I would assume that due to its size Mooretwin, like Monaco, Liechtenstein would be part of another country's league system and thus should remain in that article if we can back it up i guess. On the Championship, Welsh teams are legible to play in the English league system from the looks of it as they can choose to play in it or the Welsh football system so i think Wales should remain also. LoI and the Scottish 3rd Divison however aren't multi-national leagues as defined by Kevin McE and thus NI and England should be dropped from them then. I can agree to that also.

The use of flags Kevin was simply on consistency grounds as most football league/cup articles have a flag beside the country and a couple of editors objected to a flag being used for one specific country whilst using a flag for the country stated above it. But that will not be an issue anymore going by the definition you've given of what that section is for. Mabuska ^(talk) 12:12, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Welsh sides cannot simply decide to play in the English leagues: a limited number of clubs from Wales were given a specific permission to play in this system. It is under the sole control of the FA, a body accredited by FIFA for England, not for England and Wales. There are Welsh clubs in the English leagues: there is no Anglo-Welsh league system. Kevin McE (talk) 13:43, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

The overriding emphasis on MOS:FLAG is "do not use flags where they might be misleading". That strongly indicates that we should avoid using flags altogether where they may be ambiguous. The footy project has always overused flags and as time goes by we will gradually persuade people that not every European fixture list / league table / squad list needs them. In the specific case of infoboxes, MOS:FLAG quite specifically says "avoid the use of flags in infoboxes". Simples.

If it is absolutely necessary to include a flag for the sake of parity with existing tables for the time being, it seems more than evident that the correct approach is to use the flag of the federation under which the team participates in a given tournament, with the league being used as the generic case, with a footnote included with the details in each case. That means Derry City get an Irish flag, Berwick Rangers get a Scottish one and Cardiff get an English one, all with accompanying footnotes explaining why that is. I cannot see any non-nationalist arguments for any other scheme.

For what it's worth, despite the argument above that MLS is dual-sanctioned by both the US and Canadian federations, there is no evidence of this in the MLS article and the Canadian Soccer Association article rather contradicts it. Someone should look into that if it really is dual-sanctioned, as to me it appears that the situation with Canadian MLS teams is exactly the same as that of the Welsh teams in The Football League. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 13:47, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Joe Jordan

I'm having a bit of a disagreement with another editor over what I feel is undue emphais on all the shouting matches he's been involved in during his time at Spurs. Other opinions would be appreciated at Talk:Joe Jordan (footballer). Thanks Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 15:51, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Correcting one letter in a title

Hi. I need some admin help. I wanted to move the List of foreign serie B players to the correct List of foreign Serie B players (as in List of foreign Serie A players and because Serie B is obviously written with capital S) but I can´t find the redirect page so I could make the copy-paste switch. Can somebody correct it? FkpCascais (talk) 03:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Daahhhh! Sorry guys, I did it myself, I just needed to write the redirect here (or anywhere)... However, the history page is still something I don´t know to switch, or I suspect only an admin can do that. So, basically, I still need that on this. FkpCascais (talk) 03:47, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

~~That should do it Stu.W UK (talk) 03:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC)~~ Sorry, thought I'd done it, but it only moved the talk page across! Stu.W UK (talk) 03:56, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry to say this, but you've screwed things up slightly. You appear to have copy-pasted the content from List of foreign serie B players to List of foreign Serie B players and then converted the former into a re-direct. As a result, the edit history is no longer attached to the present article. These sort of moves are best left to Admins. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

That´s right, that is what I did. This edit history is the one that was with the article and now its with the redirect. If some admin could change it with the one currently with the article it would be fixed. My initial intention was good... :( . FkpCascais (talk) 07:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I believe I've fixed the problems here. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:14, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Many thanks! FkpCascais (talk) 08:26, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Notable cat?

"REAL MADRID JUVENIL FOOTBALLERS": how "effective" and notable do you folks think this cat is, given the fact that there is not even an article on the subject, and the category is the only one (i could be much mistaken) of its sort?

There are a lot of players already inserted there (please see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Real_Madrid_Juvenil_footballers), and i admit i added a few myself, unbeknownst to any wrongdoings on my part :(

Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:06, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it sort of makes sense - we have a problem with the Bayern Munich category, whereby reserve team players who didn't make the first team wouldn't go into the main category (because of Category:FC Bayern Munich II players, but youth players who didn't even make the reserves would, which seems to me to be an anomaly. A youth category would solve this, plus it would be a worthwhile category in its on right, I think. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 16:14, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a useful category, as long as it is made clear on the category page that players without other notability can't be added. Am I the only one who came to this section thinking there would be a question of the feline variety? Stu.W UK (talk) 16:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

LOL! Stu, you're right, gotta start talking like the 38-year old i am :)! - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Featured Article Review of Association Football

I have nominated Association football for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:19, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Founder members of the FA

As far as I can see, nothing is known about Surbiton F.C., Percival House F.C. and Crusaders F.C. (London) other than that they happened to be founder members of the FA. Do they really deserve articles? Or should they be redirected to the FA's article.........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 22:42, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Footnotes as founding members in the FA article would seem to be the only real historical note for the sides unless they happen to be pre-cursors of other teams (in which case they should meld in to their back history etc). Koncorde (talk) 01:14, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I am sure more could be found if someone wanted to do the research. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:38, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not completely ruling out the possibility of a redirect, but I'd be inclined to assume that founding the FA is of sufficient significance to merit the coverage necessary for a reasonable article. —W F C— 09:26, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If sources do exist, they definitely aren't online. Googling "Surbiton F.C." (with or without dots) gave 130 unique results, of which 80 are Wikipedia or mirrors and 50 are about unrelated topics (this was my favourite). Nothing to show that they even existed. I hope someone can find sources offline... Alzarian16 (talk) 10:57, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

But Wikipedia has made the assumption that it was "Surbiton F.C.", with no strong basis for that (beyond the fact that we couldn't just name them "Surbiton"). Percival House was a school, so perhaps that should be moved to Percival House or Percival House School? Following on from the thought process that it might not be "FC", I came up with this search, which is somewhat beefier at 12,600 hits. A redirect may be the answer if no-one is inclined to write anything, but I reckon the material is out there. —W F C— 13:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I am sure WFC is right in that both Percival House and Surbiton were schools rather than football "clubs", so the articles should be renamed. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 14:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

If we don't have enough information on a subject to be able to make more than an educated guess as to what type of organisation it was then we absolutely should not have an article on it in the first place. Take another look at those figures: greater than 50% of existing Web resources for Surbiton point to Wikipedia. This is "actively misleading" territory, folks. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 13:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

For info, it would appear that Percival House F.C. has now been ~~redirected to the article on the school~~ moved to Percival House -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I have move it to its correct spelling, Perceval House. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:49, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Although it is not easy to find information about these clubs on the web, there are snippets available via Google Books. In particular:

Crusaders would appear to be a club formed by Old Etonians, although open to non-Etonians, similar to Dingly Dell (or Dingley Dell - which we also have no article about but which was clearly was an important early club, notwithstanding its Pickwick Papers overtones) - for example, see [12] The same book suggests that the Crusaders club existed and was playing other teams ("foreign matches") by 1860.[13] There are various other more modern but presumably unconnected clubs called "Crusaders", including a revival of an Army officers team in the 1950s.[14][15]
"Percival House" is more often spelled "Perceval House" (a building in Dartmouth Row, Blackheath, apparently named after a relative of Spencer Perceval - the adjacent building was Spencer House [16] - and now it seems the namesake of a local firm of funeral directors!) and it seems clear was a team from a private school in Blackheath - for example [17][18][19]. There was some early debate about the proper rules for association football, and Perceval House seems to have been part of the block from Blackheath that preferred rugby-style rules. The FA itself reckons it is "Perceval House".[20]
Surbiton - no idea, I am afraid. Too early to be Surbiton High School, but there are suggestions that it too was in the rugby-style rules camp, perhaps indicative that it was a school-based club too.

There are also some books that might have more information but are not available to view on Google Books, such as Football: the association game, by C. W. Alcock, G. Bell & Sons, 1906.

Hope this helps. -- Testing times (talk) 18:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Navboxes

The United States men's national soccer team currently has over 30 navboxes, which, to put it mildly, seems excessive to me. Is there any consensus on which navboxes are appropriate to include in an article? On a related point, is there any consensus beyond on what is appropriate for a navbox? Stu.W UK (talk) 22:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the individual competition squads and coaches navboxes like this one don't belong there. They should just appear in the individual players articles. That should significantly reduce the number of navboxes in that article. Digirami (talk) 22:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

What about the individual templates for finalists from each world cup? If Brazil did that there'd be more navbox than article! Stu.W UK (talk) 01:41, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I kept those in Ecuador's article, but then again it only has two. I'm partial to keeping them if there is a way to minimize the amount of space it takes up in the same manner with a lot of national team navboxes. Digirami (talk) 05:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

For as long as the navboxes exist, I think it's appropriate for them to be included in the article. Nonetheless, I've nested a few more, to reduce the visual impact. —W F C— 12:19, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

This partly came up because of my frustration at opening articles with that many navboxes on the mobile wikipedia, where they all are automatically open. Not great if opening over a non-3G or wifi connection! I'm just surprised there isn't a guideline on it for that reason I suppose. Stu.W UK (talk) 16:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

You are not the only one who bothers that. I think that squad and manager templates shouldn't be included in the national football team article (or only if they are minimized to 1 navbox). But it creates more work. Most of the national teams don't have them anyway. Maybe we should reach a consensus? And talking about nesting - "World Cup/Major tournaments the ... participated in" should be used more often, for example Germany national football team looks quite awful. Pelmeen10 (talk) 00:25, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Raheem Sterling

Raheem Sterling - would all the fuss around his selection for Liverpool's squad to travel to the UEFA Europa league match last month confer notability under WP:GNG? - Otherwise I would say he obviously fails WP:NFOOTY... Zanoni (talk) 22:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

In one word: No. Also, the QPR passage saying that he "was at QPR for 7 years, but never played in the first-team" is a bit of a moot point, considering that the guy is currently sixteen years old. PROD/AfD, with recreation once he passes WP:GNG. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 22:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Mitchell Rangers F.C.

Whilst on WP:NPP, I came across Mitchell Rangers F.C. and since I'm not at all aware of Australian footy notability, could someone with a bit more knowledge suggest whether the article requires prodding or not? Jared Preston (talk) 13:00, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

It would appear not. According to the article on the Football Federation Victoria, the Mens Metropolitan League North-West in which they play is at level 8. As the league itself does not seem to merit an article, the clubs in that league wouldn't either. (Incidentally, Mitchell Rangers are not listed on the Football Federation Victoria article.) -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 13:16, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I am by no means a deletionist, but I have indeed prodded the article for deletion. If anyone would like to clean up the page and maybe cite a reference or two as to why the article should be kept, I'd be more than happy. Jared Preston (talk) 13:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Scottish Premier League categories

User:Warburton1368 has recently created two new categories; Category:Scottish Premier League Players Of The Month Award Winners and Category:Scottish Premier League Manager Of The Month Award Winner. Ignoring for the moment the inconsistency in the names of the two categories (one is plural and one singular) and the obsessive use of capital letters, do these categories have merit? If so, should similar categories exist for other leagues; e.g. the (English) Premier League etc.? (I note that there is no equivalent Category:SFWA Manager of the Year Award winners.) -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 13:05, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I noticed these last night being added to pages on my watchlist, and am vert tempted to take them to CfD as examples of overcatting... Giant Snowman 13:11, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I've taken them both to CfD. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 13:43, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Notability of season articles for minor cups

I recently prodded a couple of season articles for level 7/8 league cups (specifically, 2010–11 Northern Premier League President's Cup and 2010–11 Northern Premier League Challenge Cup), which at the time were unsourced lists of results. Since then, the creator has added loads of references to match reports, mostly from the clubs' own websites or from nln24.com, which is a site that invites readers to submit reports, but the articles are still just lists of results. The creator removed the prod from one of them, citing (among other reasons) the existence of other such articles, namely 2008–09 Conference League Cup and 2010–11 Isthmian League Cup. Personally, I think such articles fail WP:NOTSTATS and the general notability guideline, as did the County Cup articles deleted at this AfD, but was wondering what other people might think? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:36, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I think we should try and merge them into the season articles for the parent leagues (e.g. 2010–11 Northern Premier League). Number 5 7 10:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd be fine with a merger if need be, perhaps with the earlier rounds in collapsable tables?Delusion23 (talk) 11:18, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

It may be that the Conference League Cup (being at a higher level) warrants standalone articles, although merging them into the relevant season articles may not be inappropriate. Eldumpo (talk) 15:44, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Not opposed to a merge although it could make the collective page rather long and unwieldy. The league season articles are often quite long i.e. not in proportion with the rest of the article. WP:SPLIT dictates that in that situation the article should be split, so we'd be back to square one! —Half Price 18:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems sensible to merge the cups with the parent article. I see the point about splitting for size, with relation to the NPL cups, anyway, though not the other two. The 2010–11 Northern Premier League article is huge, though I'd guess a lot of the size and slow loading is down to the insanely template-heavy and hidden-comment-heavy result grid formats. But size doesn't justify splitting off a section which would be acceptable as detail in a parent article but has no notability if standing alone. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Seeing as the consensus seems to be for a merge I've gone ahead and moved the NPL cups into their parent article.Delusion23 (talk) 18:22, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

And I've done the same with 2010-11 Isthmian League. —Half Price 14:24, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

And 2010–11 Southern Football League has been done too. Delusion23 (talk) 17:38, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Notability of season articles for lower leagues?

While we're at it – what is the threshold for league season notability? For example, I would doubt that any articles at this template would meet WP:GNG, and there are also a couple of doubtfuls in Category:2010–11 domestic association football leagues as well... --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 15:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe there is one. However, I have seen some for level 9-10 leagues in England, which I don't really have a problem with if someone is willing to put the effort in to write them! Number 5 7 15:36, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Provided they're sourced and offer something more than a collection of stats, I agree with Number 57's thinking. That's not to say that I have a firm view on what level is notable. But it would be inconsistent to assume clubs notable for competing at a level, unless we're saying that the level itself merits coverage. —W F C— 17:09, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree with the above. So long as they aren't just match results and league tables without any words, and so long as the words are sourced to reliable sources independent of the subject. Though that proviso should apply to league season articles at whatever level. Can anyone think of a good reason why the contents of categories Football League First, Second, Third and Fourth Division seasons should have been spun out of the corresponding xxxx-yy Football League season article, when most of them contain only the league table, a sentence that says "Template FC won the championship", and a link to RSSSF? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I think red links on templates encourage people to create articles like these. They see it as a task that needs doing and they do it. It is mainly users with little contact with the project that do things like this. As for what to do now that the articles have been created I don't know.--Echetus Xe 01:17, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

As to the Football League xxx Division seasons, I've converted the first 4 (1888–89 Football League First Division++) to redirects, on the basis there was only the one division in the Football League then anyway, so it's terminally pointless having a separate division article. From time to time, when I have a spare moment, I'll do some more. Obviously only the ones where the content is just a league table. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:48, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Enzo Fernandez

Hello. I was reading Zidane's page a while ago and checked that one of his sons has an article on Wikipedia. Enzo Fernandez. Should I say what's wrong with this? He's fifteen years old, and hasn't even made a professional debut yet. –HD ^{Ask, comment, talk!} 00:00, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

For that reason the article was deleted.--Echetus Xe 14:08, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Assists

I've noticed that some players have an 'assists' column in the statistics table of their article, eg Lampard. Seems a bit OTT to me, what does everyone else think? Stu.W UK (talk) 14:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

This point was raised not so long ago, so you may want to check what was said last time. I'm not personally a fan of assists being collated in articles but I guess it's down to what the sources show, and in the Lampard article the assists are clearly sourced to ESPN, a reliable reference, although I'm not sure what other sources show Premier League assists. Eldumpo (talk) 16:09, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

It's a big no-no; while some sites do note assists for modern players in certain leagues, there's far too many blank gaps - especially among older players - for it to be applied across all players, and therefore shouldn't be used by any IMHO. Giant Snowman 16:47, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not keen on it in Lampard's case, because England have only started bothering with assists in the last few years, and it's unlikely that the information exists for his West Ham days. I'm neutral about it for English players starting out nowadays, but we should do it for players who have spent most of their time in MLS, to reflect widespread practise there. —W F C— 17:11, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Define assist! A goal is obvious, an assist far less clear and at times subjective. Brad78 (talk) 23:21, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Since when were goals always clear-cut, objective calls? Tell me, who scored Reading's first in their 2-2 draw at Vicarage Road in September 2008? And given that it never crossed the line, tell me how that was an objective call? Heck, it took the Premier League and Lampard's former and current clubs 10 and a half years to work out whether he scored in May 1998 or not, so it can't be that black-and-white! —W F C— 01:14, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps. But the goalscorer is always officially recorded. Assists aren't. Brad78 (talk) 18:28, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Assists are often more subjective than goals but Assist_(football) does a pretty decent job of clarifying what counts. I agree that these seem to be considered more important to stat-obsessed American fans and would have no problem with including them there. In the case of players from other leagues though, where is the line drawn? Should we include number of passes? Minutes on pitch? Free kicks? Bookings (actually I think that may be relevant!)? etc etc Stu.W UK (talk) 02:28, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I think we should go for whatever the prominent sources go for. Soccerbase doesn't go for assists, which is a strong argument against them for English players. On the other hand, you'll be hard pressed to find an American source that doesn't record assists, so that's a strong argument for them in America. Bookings and sendings off are a more interesting topic of debate. What I would say is that the raw statistics of Lee Bowyer's career seem incomplete without a disciplinary record. —W F C— 12:11, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of this incomplete data argument. The NFL for instance didn't start with Sacks until the 70's. Tackles weren't always counted until the 90's etc. At some point the game progresses and new concepts come about. At the moment assist isn't an officially recorded measure by the League (which is the true issue at hand) meaning we are relying on 3rd party sources and their objective opinion. However there is absolutely nothing wrong at all with using that source to provide such information for a player. Whether wikipedia should or should not be a source for that information is another argument too. There would be a synthesis if, for instance, someone read all the match reports and physically totted up all the instances of "created by". However here we are specifically referencing a published source. The larger issue for me would be what if we had to independent sources with differing statistics? Koncorde (talk) 09:33, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

That last sentence is the key. If it can be shown that this routinely happens, that would be an argument against the use of assists that could only be countered if they were officially recorded by the league. —W F C— 15:13, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

there is an error in the Stefan Schwoch article..

Hi, I own a book in italian (Mimmo Carratelli, La grande Storia del Napoli, Gianni Marchesini Editore, ISBN 978 88 88225 19 7) where it's written he's from South Tyrol only by birth, because his grandfather came in Italy in WWII age and his parents are from South Italy (this makes him 75% south italian 25% polish) .. I don't touch the player article only because my source (a Gazzetta dello Sport journalist) writes the grandfather's name in the italianized form and because my english isn't good.. 93.32.225.93 (talk) 18:05, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

His place of origin is not the same thing as his "bloodline": the article makes no claim as to his ancestry (or much else). Kevin McE (talk) 19:11, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

there is the category Italian people of Austrian descent.. 93.32.225.93 (talk) 19:36, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Not any more... Giant Snowman 19:48, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

So you say he is an Italian person of Polish descent? Sure, added category to article.--Echetus Xe 20:23, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

ho aggiunto il link alla pagina, per favore puoi controllare che non ci siano errori grammaticali? Il mio inglese non è per niente eccezionale.. grazie mille! 93.32.239.1 (talk) 19:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I did better than that my friend.--Echetus Xe 21:38, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

wonderful job! Per tradurre tutta la voce avrei impiegato secoli.. (translated: I had to work for a lot of time to translate all the article) Thank you very much! 93.32.239.1 (talk) 22:20, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

haha ok, no problem.--Echetus Xe 23:45, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Issue with nfteams template

Can somebody more talented than me please take a look; the id= and name= parameters don't seem to work - see it in use at Cristian Martínez (Andorran footballer) and Anthony Wallace (soccer) (among others, no doubt) for what I mean. Thanks and regards, Giant Snowman 03:12, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I fixed it, the id= parameter isn't necessary at all. The name= parameter is only necessary if the title page has a parentheses in it, Cristian Martinez and Anthony Wallace are both examples of that part. – Michael (talk) 04:53, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, how silly of me! I assumed that we needed id= as it's in use by the soccerbase, FIFA, playerhistory templates... cheers again! Giant Snowman 13:29, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

FC Porto incomprehensible

I haven't been able to make sense of the sections F.C. Porto#International Historical Feats and F.C. Porto#National Historical Feats. They read like Babelfish translations. Could anyone who speaks Portuguese and knows the club have a look at it? 83.84.195.88 (talk) 16:24, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I've removed them as unreferenced, nonsensical, and trivial. A Holy Trinity of no-nos! Giant Snowman 16:35, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Diego Lugano

In Diego Lugano there´s a mistake. The surname of his mother is Morena, not Moreno as you have in the article. Please check [his http://www.diegolugano.org/ official site] for confirmation. It could be a little difficult to see because it´s quite similar the "o" to an "a", but it´s there (the site is in flash). Also in es:WP is right. Thanks. --Andreateletrabajo (talk) 06:15, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Not wishing to be funny, but you could have simply changed it in much less time than it took to write the above........ -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:26, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, please feel free to correct any future mistakes you may spot.--Echetus Xe 14:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

No problem. I was just trying to be carefull because I´ve got near 14.000 editions in spanish but few here and sometimes this kind of changes could be taken as vandalism (I already had this problem a couple of times). Thanks. Cheers. --Andreateletrabajo (talk) 15:03, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi, as I suspect, the surname has been change. So it looks like my ask was no so out of place. There is a discussion on the talk-page of the player. If someone can go, better. Cheers. --Andreateletrabajo (talk) 11:36, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Template:Football player statistics 1

Am I the only one who thinks that this template looks unnecessarily messy when the player's history is uncomplicated? I know there are definitely some players where it is useful, but I've just come across it here (actually it's using the same template with a different name for some reason). There are 6 rows and 11 columns telling me exactly what the infobox tells me. In cases where the appearances are all or mostly for one club, or in one country, is there a more simple option? Stu.W UK (talk) 00:07, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a simpler option, but in instances where all caps are for one club, especially if there are no non-league caps, using the template just seems silly since all the relevant information has already been covered in the infobox. Sir Sputnik (talk) 01:45, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Yep, Nameless User (talk · contribs) seems to love that template, despite so, so many simpler options... Giant Snowman 01:47, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the template is in place so it won't have to be change out at a later date. I also think the table tells you a bit more than the infobox since while the infobox tells you just his caps and goals in the national league, the other 0's tell you that that is the only competition he has been capped in (or that the information simply isn't available). Digirami (talk) 19:52, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of S. R. Bhosle Krida Sankul Stadium

The article S. R. Bhosle Krida Sankul Stadium has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

I dont find any information on this stadium in Google News or Google Book Search, in fact I have never heard of it before

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

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Footballers or players?

Categories for association football players by club currently use one of two formats: Foo footballers and Foo players. Are there certain situations in which one or the other is preferred, or should all categories be standardized to one format—and, if so, which format? -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 16:31, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

It should be 'players' IMHO. Giant Snowman 16:36, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've always believed that we use "players" where there's no ambiguity, and "footballers" where there might be. Some clubs are multi-sport, e.g. the several sub-cats of Category:Fenerbahçe S.K. distinguish players of the various sports offered by the club. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:43, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I think for F.C. teams then players is best. As in 'Port Vale Footballer Club players' rather than 'Port Vale Footballer Club football players'.--Echetus Xe 16:51, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

The article on Fenerbahçe S.K. is concerned only with football; maybe it needs renaming? Giant Snowman 16:57, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

If you scroll down far enough, the article is an (admittedly rudimentary) overview article about the sports club as a whole, as well as the main article for the football club. But what would you rename it to? Fenerbahçe S.K. is the name of the football club as well as that of the sports club. The common name is Fenerbahçe, which redirects to Fenerbahçe S.K., but we tend to ignore WP:COMMONNAME when it comes to football club article naming: Aston Villa F.C., not Aston Villa. I'd guess most readers searching for Fenerbahçe are after the football club, so it ought to be the primary topic. If they're after the sports club they're getting that first time as well, and if they want one of the other sports there's a hatnote to the dab page at the top and links in the small sections at the bottom, so I'd argue that from the reader's standpoint, it ain't broke so it don't need fixing. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:40, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Well I know it's a case of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but we do have Galatasaray S.K. (football team)... Giant Snowman 18:10, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

True, and if someone was going to split the football section off Fenerbahçe S.K., and write a balanced overview of the sports club, with sources, in the page that remained, a rename might be appropriate. That's what happened at Galatasaray. But I suspect no-one is about to do that. And even if they did, I'd still reckon the football club should get the name Fenerbahçe S.K. and the sports club Fenerbahçe Sports Club, like they call themselves under Current Information on their English webpage. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 18:38, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I was looking at the Category:FSV Frankfurt players and noticed that all the articles in the category were male players. The article FSV Frankfurt has a section 'Women's department', which has a sub-section 'Notable past players' which contains an incomplete list of notable female players who played for FSV Frankfurt. Should the notable female players of FSV Frankfurt be included in the category 'FSV Frankfurt players' or should there be a new category? Coyets (talk) 16:39, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Separate category - after all, we have categories for female Arsenal players, female Fulham players etc. etc. Giant Snowman 16:45, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Arsenal's and Fulham's Ladies have separate articles, whereas FSV Frankfurt only has a section for the 'Women's department'. In the meantime, I have found Category:FC Bayern Munich (women) players, which is a sub-category of Category:FC Bayern Munich players, but there is a separate article FC Bayern Munich (women). Coyets (talk) 17:44, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Is the Frankfurt 'Women's department' worthy of a seperate article, then, perhaps? Giant Snowman 17:55, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Given prior to 2004–05, FSV Frankfurt were Bundesliga mainstays, and won several championships, I'd definitely say the women section should have a separate article. Sir Sputnik (talk) 18:25, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Based on the replies from GiantSnowman and Sir Sputnik, I have added the Category:FSV Frankfurt (women) players, and will try to search for enough information to write the article FSV Frankfurt (women). Coyets (talk) 15:32, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Slavia Karlovy Vary: italian wikipedia needs you (+ a suggestion)

do you have something about the team? Then, why we don't create a page here on the wikipedia in english for international cooperation with users speaking other languages? So english people don't read me killing their language.. 93.33.2.4 (talk) 19:41, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

As for the club: A quick search at the Czech Wikipedia indicates that "Slavia Karlovy Vary" is the old name for 1. FC Karlovy Vary (see also cs:1. FC Karlovy Vary and the history section on the official website of the club).

Regarding the "page for cooperation between languages": How about Wikipedia:Embassy (although this might not necessarily be the best place for a football-related query)? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 20:10, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

a "Wikipedia:FootballEmbassy" would be better, so we don't give football "haters" problems invading a page, always with questions about the same project.. with the FootballEmbassy page, if they hate football they don't read it ;).. 93.33.2.4 (talk) 21:42, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

"Interesting"

What are the odds of Andreas Ravelli and Thomas Ravelli being born in different cities, given the fact that they are...TWINS? Swedish page says Vimmerby for both, but articles in English had two different places...

Maybe Växjö - which was input in Thomas' page - belongs to Vimmerby or vice-versa i don't know. Clicking on to read both locations' articles, i don't see any connecting info, but T. Ravelli appears as a "notable person" in both...Quite confusing, HELP!

Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 23:01, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Some sources list the location of the birth (usually the hospital) as place of birth, whereas others list the family home - it could be that. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 23:04, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe their mom was in labor for a really long time... (insert this sound)... Back to being serious, good eye finding that error and good to see that you've corrected it. Digirami (talk) 06:12, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Women's (Major) League soccer

What's up with Women's Major League Soccer? I don't think that is a professional league is it? It doesn't seem to be named major, at least not anymore (see logo, URL, ...). Anyone got some info? The 2011 article mentions that 2011 is the inaugural season. Yet the website has a newsitem "After finishing fourth last season..." -Koppapa (talk) 12:45, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

The newsitem you mentioned deals with the Cincinnati Saints, who finished fourth in the Midwest Division of the 2010–11 PASL-Premier Season. Hence I would think that the team just switched leagues. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 18:35, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Strange, now the webpage http://www.womensleaguesoccer.com/ of the league reads "The official Website of FC Indiana.". And newsitems are written in Latin: http://www.womensleaguesoccer.com/index-1.html -Koppapa (talk) 09:17, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Definition of "Expatriate" footballers

I do a lot of editing on Algerian football and there's recently been an influx of French-born Algerian players playing in the Algerian league. Are these players considered to be "expatriate" players playing in Algeria or are they considered as Algerian? All of the foreign-born Algerian players are registered as Algerian so that they don't take up the places of foreign players (Algerian clubs are only allowed 2 foreign players). For players that have been capped by France at the youth level, its easy because they're considered French and would therefore be considered as expatriates. But what about players that are capped by Algeria? Are they considered to be expatriate despite playing in their "home" country? Its an issue I've been coming across more and more often (such as German-Turkish players in Turkey) . TonyStarks (talk) 10:18, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I think those "expatriate footballer" categories should be eliminated completely. They are controversial, confusing and simply not worth the effort. Jogurney (talk) 15:36, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I do use those cats, but only when the situation is "clear", for instance, a Brazilian footballer in Turkey, Japanese in Germany... I avoid using them for the kind of situation as Tony mentioned because those players can hardly be "expatriate" in Algeria since they have mostly Algerian parents, or roots. FkpCascais (talk) 15:42, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

As far as I was aware, we'd agreed to remove the expatriate categories entirely, for the reasons Jogurney specified. We cannot be comprehensive because in too many cases there's no right answer, and there's little point in having categories with such huge holes in them. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:27, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Wait a sec. If I remember well, we had been discussing this when someone asked about some foreign players that played in the last season of East German League. Than we discussed the further creation of categories by some editors of the kind of "Templetonian expatriates in England", which we all agreed it was too much. The simple "Expatriate footballers in Templetonia" was not discussed I think. Here is the difference, we have these cats: Category:Expatriate association football players which number the foreign players in each country (I personally like, specially for minor nations), and the superfluos sub cats, which are these ones: exemple, Category:Nigerian expatriates in Japan. These later are to be excluded, and they are not specifically related to football. FkpCascais (talk) 06:53, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you're right. I don't remember a consensus to delete all of these categories, but it's something that I believe would help the project. There is far too much time spent debating these issues as it is. Jogurney (talk) 15:50, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Football in Puerto Rico

By happenstance, I can across the football articles dealing with the Puerto Rico Soccer League, specially for the 2010 and 2011 seasons. They were messy and I managed to clean them up. But I could use some help when it comes to the 2010 Puerto Rico Soccer League season. According to the league's official website, the 2010 season was called the Súper Copa DirecTV. The Súper Copa DirecTV would "(translation) substitute the PRSL season for this year, giving way for a re-launch in 2011 with the Apertura and Clausura tournaments" (if you can read spanish, see here and scroll to the bottom to "Nace la Súper Copa DirecTV"). It's a competition with PRSL teams and is sanctioned by the PRSL, but it seems not to be an actual PRSL season, per say. The question is: what is it? Or, more accurately, what do we call it? It is a one-off competition in place of a league similar to (but not exactly like) the USSF Division 2 Professional League? Or is it called something I haven't heard of? I could use some help clarifying this to get the wording right in the header and perhaps rename the article appropiately. Thanks. Digirami (talk) 10:25, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Is UEFA Champions League team performances worth rescuing?

This article was created a few days ago, I was wondering whether people thought it was worth rescuing? It's a bit of a mess at the moment but, spurious points system aside, may be worth re-organising and expanding into a proper article. I'm not sure - I'd like to see it either deleted or improved and whilst a good article like this might be informative, I wouldn't mind this not existing either (all its doing is re-presenting information elsewhere on Wikipedia but with colours). If it is kept, I think that National team appearances in the FIFA World Cup#Comprehensive team results by tournament is could prove a basic template.

Anyway, what do you think. Notable or WP:LISTCRUFT?--Pretty Green (talk) 15:24, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it is needed. It will have to many teams once filled and thus you'd have to scroll too much. The points are totally random and should be removed. If you wanna compare clubs, just look at the Uefa coefficient. Goal scorers are covered in the CL article anyway. -Koppapa (talk) 15:46, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

This looks pretty pointless. If you expanded to include the European Cup (which is the same competition) you have 14 teams from England alone (Arsenal, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Burnley, Chelsea, Derby County, Everton, Leeds Utd, Liverpool, Manchester Utd, Newcastle Utd, Nottingham Forest, Tottenham, and Wolves). Once you include every UEFA nation it becomes total cruft. Ilikeeatingwaffles (talk) 15:57, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

As a wholly original interpretation of statistical results it has no place here. It is not our place to take historical statistics and blend them in new ways. Furthermore, the whole thing is contrived statcruft anyway. This sort of thing is fine in commentators' game binders, but not in a general purpose encyclopedia. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 20:36, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I've sent it to PROD. Giant Snowman 20:43, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Contested; now at AfD. Giant Snowman 14:25, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Templates for Honduran Liga Nacional squads

Any opinions on Template:2009–10 Honduran Liga Nacional squads and Template:2010–11 Honduran Liga Nacional squads? Regarding their current usage, these beauties are only transcluded to 2009–10 Honduran Liga Nacional and 2010–11 Honduran Liga Nacional, respectively, at the moment. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 23:31, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

There's no such thing as a 'season squad'; players come and go all the time. Get rid I say. Giant Snowman 14:10, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Done, see the respective TfD entry. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 15:39, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Zombie433 at ANI

Please feel free to join in the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Zombie433. Cheers, Giant Snowman 14:08, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Have already dropped a line there :) - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 14:56, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

My god. How many months now have we been trying to stop this guy? What does he get out of it?--Echetus Xe 17:39, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps his subpages should be deleted? Like this. He may still be using them. Deleting them could discourage him from editing in future.--Echetus Xe 17:44, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Good point Echetus, although i think he has been discouraged enough in the past. Oh well, worth the try :) - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 18:41, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

List of association football club rivalries by country

This page was origanally major rivalries but now any rivalry can now be added. Personally I think major rivalries would be a good page but currently it seems to be Wikipedia:Listcruft and is impossible to complete and some of the rivalries are very dubious. Adam4267 (talk) 15:29, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Either clean it up or propose it for deletion; however, part of me thinks the category could be sufficient. Giant Snowman 15:38, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Rabiu Ibrahim

Have had my share of warring in this player's article, being accused of vandalism when all i did was cleanup the incredible POV and horrible grammar.

Now, it seems Ibrahim, without having played one game for Telstar, has signed for PSV Eindhoven. One of the other users, one from Holland, the other from England (the latter probably my previous "enemy", inserted some refs from "Google Translate" (i hate that folks!), with the habitual language of poetic tone...

However, i visited PSV's official site, and there is NOTHING in club news regarding any move from the player. Help please! - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 19:40, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Apparently, he has signed with PSV, the English user has reverted me, and he really seems "updated" regarding the player. But the last REF is in appalling English (i repeat, it's a Google translation from a Dutch web), and PSV's website says NOTHING on the move. I give up - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 20:01, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

This new piece - already on the article (albeit it the pidgin English of Google Translator) does seem to say that he has signed with PSV until 2014 - but can a Dutch speaker confirm please? Giant Snowman 01:38, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

(As at last night) far as I can tell, he had a trial for Telstar, then according to Voetbal Primeur they wanted him, but before anything official happened, he had a trial with PSV (confirmed on their website) and they want him, given that (again per Voetbal Primeur) Telstar couldn't afford him, but they're still waiting on international clearance. We shouldn't really be publishing a player signing until it's been confirmed by the club, not just on football websites (particularly with this player's apparent history of transfers not happening). cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:16, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

? notability of Westland Sports F.C. & Ashton & Backwell United F.C.

As I know very little re football can I ask for some help. Westland Sports F.C. has been tagged as having questionable notability - I've tried reading the guidelines here but I'm still unsure. Also on the WikiProject Somerset cleanup list is Ashton & Backwell United F.C. which is tagged as needing additional references - any help appreciated.— Rod ^talk 21:35, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Both are notable. Westland have played in the FA Vase and Ashton & Backwell have played in the Western League and the FA Cup. Number 5 7 22:01, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of Zombie(s), some categorie stuff...

Regarding the discussion a few lines above, about this German "user", thought of this:

He created/creates categories for footballers of EVERY club in the world, EVERY single one. Coming to think of it, all the clubs in the world deserve the same respect, but i feel this is a gross case of overcategorizing. I think categories, in the light of this being en.wiki, should be as follows: 1 - All English clubs (i mean until those who have participated in at least Football League Two); 2 - clubs who have participated in the top two divisions of the remaining countries.

Point #2 leads to another question: some players contain categories of divisions (i.e. "LA LIGA FOOTBALLERS", "SERIE A FOOTBALLERS", "EKSTRAKLASA PLAYERS"). However, some national leagues only contain categories for the top division (there is no "SEGUNDA DIVISIÓN FOOTBALLERS"), whereas others do ("SERIE B FOOTBALLERS" does exist; i do not count "FOOTBALL LEAGUE PLAYERS" because this is the English WP).

What is the correct approach on these matters? Cheers - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 18:51, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

If a club/league is considered notable enough itself for an article, and there are enough players to populate that category, than go ahead and create it. Giant Snowman 19:25, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Regarding those cats, I´m not sure if Zombie is the only one, because I remember a Hungarian editor that made categories for all existing and non-existing Hungarian clubs (see, Category:Footballers_in_Hungary_by_club) and the problem is that half of those clubs doesn´t even have an article. He also made categories for all non-Hungarian clubs where players that he edited also played, many of them also in the same situation of being club cats of clubs without an article. Should we delete those cats of clubs without an article?

Now, regarding what you said Vasco, I agree with the logic that GiantSnowman mentioned: if the club has an article and players to populate it, the cat can/should exist. So, many minor clubs may have categories. You shouldn´t have removed cats from players articles before discussing here first. I think it is a better way to PROD cats first, and delete them later if necessary. FkpCascais (talk) 02:25, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much every club in the world has a WP article. So what you folks are saying is that no matter how obscure the team is, the pertinent category should be mentioned in a player's article. Hmmmm, so i guess User:Zombie433 was correct in his approach... - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 00:20, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure Zombie created club categories? Or he just used the existing ones? Anyway, the problem here doesn´t seem to be Zombie, but rather a few simple questions: should club categories of clubs without an article exist? And also, which is the limit for club categories to be created, if there is any? FkpCascais (talk) 02:29, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Player mix-up

You have your Cristian Diazes, then you have your Christian Diazes. Which one of them won the 1995 FIFA World Youth Championship? I think (and according to FIFA.com it seems like it, seeing rosters and the birthdate on the player - see here http://www.fifa.com/tournaments/archive/tournament=104/edition=191263/teams/team=1888242.html) that the HONOURS in their articles are not duly placed.

Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 19:23, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Case closed, thanks a million Fache! --Vasco Amaral (talk) 21:45, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Career stats tables in player articles

Is there any preference as to the format that should be used for the tables which show player stat breakdowns by season. I've tended to use the 'wikitable' (e.g. Mathieu Flamini), but I've also come across those using Template:Football player statistics 1. Is the template preferred? What are the pros and cons of each? Should an explanatory page for 'career stats' be added to the links section of the Footy page. Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 10:40, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it's a matter of personal preference. Although I've seen the template used quite a lot, I don't think it is simpler to use or looks any better than a standard wikitable. J Mo 101 (talk) 14:24, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree with J Mo. Beyond broadly following a standard-ish layout, it should be left to the person who most frequently edits a page to decide what formatting they're happier using. —W F C— 20:21, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your responses. I have had a look at the documentation for the template [21] which is helpful in understanding how it works. However, is there a way to add a '5th competition' column say called 'Other' to cater for Football League Trophy, Super Cup etc games, rather than have to bundle them in the overall totals? Eldumpo (talk) 21:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Bogic

User:Bogic has been adding triple intersect categories of the "Dutch expatriate footballers in the Ukraine" variety. I think consensus was to delete those. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 13:34, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Yep, no need for unwieldy categories as those, take any you find to TfD. Whatever next - 'English expatriate football defenders in Venezuela'? 'French expatriate football midfielders called Jacques who are between five foot eight and six foot two in Grenada'? etc. Giant Snowman 13:48, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I raised a very similar point here, where said consensus was established.--Echetus Xe 14:14, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Bogic has also recently created numerous Ukraine footballers (by positions and year of birth) stub categories and added them to articles which are definitely not stub (examples: [22] [23] [24]). — MT (talk) 15:15, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Done ([25]). I think I have listed all of them. Jmorrison230582 (talk)

I'm not sure but there should be many-many more. Anyway I oppose. Pelmeen10 (talk) 22:10, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

These are the cats that should bee deleted in oposition to the simple Category:Expatriate association football players that should be the only ones of the "expatriate" kind to be used. The ones named for deletion are definitelly a case of over-categorization in my view. Regarding User:Bogic I had a number of excellent collaborations with him, and he is for some time now, the most dedicated editor in the increasingly important Ukrainian football related articles. He is the one that updates everything regarding football in Ukraine, and in my perspective an important, dedicated and perspective editor. However, he may not be fully familiarised with all Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. Perhaps someone more used than me in pointing out the main policies to other editors may help him... FkpCascais (talk) 00:17, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

1960–61 European Cup Rapid Wien - Benfica

According to the article, the score of the match Rapid Wien-Benfica is 1-1, but I've found out some sources which adfirm that this match was abandoned and then Uefa awarded a win to Benfica. In fact, this article by El Mundo Deportivo, this blog and this website adfirm that Uefa actually awarded a 3-0 win to Benfica. On the other hand, Uefa.com declares that the score is 1-1. Which is the truth? --VAN ZANT (talk) 10:40, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Well I see no reason to question those sources. As Rapid Wien were the home team it would seem likely that crowd trouble causing the game to be abandoned would result in some sort of punishment for the Austrians. The authorities never take the score of the match at the point it was abandoned as the final result as far as I can remember. Of course 1-1 or 3-0 Benfica were the victors either way, so the guys at uefa.com probably didn't give it as much thought as you clearly have. I have edited the article to reflect your discovery. Thank you.--Echetus Xe 14:21, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I left the two goalscorers on the info box. I guess technically they did not score as the match was abandoned, but I left them there anyway.--Echetus Xe 14:24, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

RSSSF say the score was allowed to stand, and I can certainly think of other cases where that happened. As two of the three sources above look less than reliable to me (one is a blog and one was blocked by my machine saying it was a threat!), I don't think it's clear-cut at all, so maybe the article should mention both versions in a sort of "some sources say.......while others say......." kind of fashion.........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:46, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Chris; the 1–1 should indeed be left because of WP:RS issues. Further, this site gives a little bit more of a background on the events leading to the abandoned match. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 14:53, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Games used to be abandoned with scores unchanged fairly regularly. Google 'match abandoned' and 'result stood' and you'll get hundreds. Most famous one I can think of is the 1974 Manchester derby. Stu.W UK (talk) 15:02, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

hmm, I put it back to 1-1. I wonder if the first leg finishing 3-0 in Benfica's favour is just a coincidence in all this.--Echetus Xe 17:31, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

According to the Italian book Annuario del Calcio Mondiale 2005-06, page 851, the first time in which Uefa modified a result and assigned the 3-0 win was during the season 1990-91 and the matches were the following: Olympique de Marseille-AC Milan 1-0 (then Uefa awarded a 3-0 win to Olympique de Marseille) and Dynamo Dresden-Crvena Zvezda 1-2 (then Uefa awarded a 3-0 win to Crvena Zvezda). This book doesn't mention Rapid Wien-Benfica, so the correct result was surely 1-1. --VAN ZANT (talk) 20:17, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Darko Lukanović

Does anyone have any additional info about this player's career? In his article, link #1 (Antwerp official profile), it clearly says he played first for Malmö FF (given his age i assume that's youth) and then Falkenbergs FF), but i found the article (before i went the extra mile to improve it overall) with the order of the first two Swedish clubs altered.

After i cleaned-up, a Swedish anon user came and re-instated the previous "order" of clubs, also turning English into Anglish and inventing stats (CF Atlético Ciudad). I have searched for some info around the net, found nothing (in languages i could understand that is).

I have also messaged the other user, asking of him to provide sources other than what we have in link #1. For the moment (assuming he will comply!), does anyone have anything to "begin with"? Thanks. - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 22:51, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps he was Malmö´s player on loan at Falkenbers... I´ll try to see if I can find you anything on him, but I don´t promise you nothing... FkpCascais (talk) 23:09, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Try searching for him on Malmo's website. Their archives only go back to 2001, but they do confirm him playing for their various teams from that year onwards, from youth through B to his debut in Allsvenskan in 2004. His profile on that site gives his "mother club", i.e the club he started at, as Falkenbergs. If I had to guess, I'd say some site, possibly the Antwerp profile, got the clubs the wrong way round in the first place and all the stats sites copied it without bothering to check. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:13, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, this newspaper piece about him being released by Malmo says he joined from Falkenbergs in 2000. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:16, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you folks, it does seem the Antwerp profile is indeed wrong, it's Falkenberg/Malmo, the sources provided by Struway are more than sufficient. However, fair to say the Swedish user, after my message, did not bother to provide any sources and reverted me again, no words in summary! Also (i remember reading something in the forums regarding verifiability, meaning we should use the stats that we add sometimes, in lack of other sources), he continues to revert the games and goals totals for CF Atlético Ciudad, in spite of link #2. I have sent him ANOTHER message.

Cheers, nice work - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:16, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

If he continues to edit war you, you should give him this award I created for that ocasions... :) FkpCascais (talk) 18:15, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Currently... currently???

I urge all footy editors to start removing the unnencyclopedic word "currently" from the 99% off lede sentences in footy biographies. A long time ago some non-footy editor removed it from some footballer biography I made, and I reverted him, and he explained that the word currently was against some wp principle. Curently when? Today? Now? Yesterday? In a few minutes? Tomorow? I followed the trend and ignored the guy for some time, but this was allways somewhere in my mind. Now, ironically meaning currently, I really think he was right. The word currently is unnencyclopedic and recentism, and basically its removal from the lede sentences wan´t change anything. Exemple:

Templeton Templetovsky (born 13 March 1979) is a Siamese footballer currently playing for Templeton United FC.

Now, lets remove it:

Templeton Templetovsky (born 13 March 1979) is a Siamese footballer playing for Templeton United FC.

Any difference? I don´t think so. So, can we agree in removing the useless annoying currently? FkpCascais (talk) 07:32, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree entirely. the word is nearly always redundant. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 07:49, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah there is a difference, the word 'currently' helps to make the sentence flow. If you want to remove the word 'currently' then you should instead rephrase the sentence like so: "Templeton Templetovsky (born 13 March 1979) is a Siamese footballer who plays for Templeton United FC." As is the case on Thierry Henry (Featured Article).

I am a Wikipedian currently active on WikiProject Football.

I am a Wikipedian active on WikiProject Football.

I am a Wikipedian who is active on WikiProject Football.

I'm not pedantic or anything and I don't think about it all when writing, but seen as you brought it up I felt obligated to say something. Think about sentence flow before chopping up sentences and disparaging nice flowing words like 'currently', just because they seem to add nothing in terms of information.--Echetus Xe 09:16, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree - language doesn't have to be purely functional. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 10:05, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

English is beautiful in that we can say the same thing in a multitude of ways. I don't think we need to "outlaw" a particular phrase. Sure, if individual cases are causing ambiguity, rephrase, but a blanket removal seems a little too much. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:11, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

So "current squad" heading isn't preferred anymore eather? It's not in Manchester United F.C. (featured article), but I noticed 7 "current": Current season, current manager, current crest, current home kit, current away kit, currently ranked and currently holds the record... Pelmeen10 (talk) 12:43, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree completely. User:Middayexpress does not however, he has altered it in a huge number of players, his summary reading always "formatting", ALWAYS (this is 100% true). - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:29, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that there was some policy somewhere about this, and I was hoping some of you may know it and post it here, since that happend to me a long time ago and I don´t remember in which article, so its impossible for me to find it. And no Palmeen, it´s not about all "currently´s", just the one in the lede text. FkpCascais (talk) 17:23, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

You may be thinking of MOS:NUM#Precise language. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 18:16, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think that was the one. Many thanks Struway2! FkpCascais (talk) 18:21, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Currently is rarely ever needed and in many cases is incorrect. I.e. at the moment I write this only one of these sentences is correct yet both essentially mean the same thing.

Wayne Rooney is an English footballer currently playing for Manchester United.
Wayne Rooney is an English footballer who plays for Manchester United.

Don't delete on sight, but most can be deleted with either no or little changing of the text. Brad78 (talk) 22:15, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, I didn´t really intended to start a massive deletion of it, just to stop using it in that way on the articles I´ll create from now on. And pehaps deleting a few when editing biographies, if I remember it... FkpCascais (talk) 04:45, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Squad templates in nat. team and club articles

We discussed it but it still bothers me. I don't think we should use those navboxes in articles. For example Germany national football team looks awful. They should belong to only player's articles. By the same rule that we dont't use "current squad" navboxes in team aricles. What do you think? Pelmeen10 (talk) 12:37, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed --Pretty Green (talk) 15:12, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

You mean the World Cup and Euro finalists templates? Or, the squad templates? But the later are not found in Germany national football team article. You meant the first ones? FkpCascais (talk) 20:20, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Both of them actually. Spain national football team has squad templates also. Manager templates also. "National team results template" is worth discussing cuz it only 1. Pelmeen10 (talk) 20:40, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

The Spanish exemple is how it should be, compressed and all... You want to remove them? FkpCascais (talk) 20:45, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Squad templates definitely, but finalists only if they take 1 line (like Croatia national football team). In Germany article they shouldn't take more than 1 line. Pelmeen10 (talk) 20:53, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I think that if you want to and have time to, and nobody oposes, you can compress them for all national teams the way Croatia has. On the question regarding squads, well, I noteced that some some have them, some don´t. I don´t mind having them down there, I mean, it´s a easy way to have access to all squads from that country that competed on the tournaments. However, I would definitelly agree to compress them as well to one line only. FkpCascais (talk) 21:03, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

All Squad templates can be found in categories by country. I'm not sure it's so popular below articles though. ~~I'll try to remove squads~~ and compress Germany's finalists ones. Pelmeen10 (talk) 21:32, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Why don´t you compress the squds as well? I mean, I personally find it usefull to have them down there, because going the way you said is much difficult, and you´ll never have them all in one place as happends if they are in the article. I opose removing them. But, I´m not sure what others think on this. Come on guys, say something! FkpCascais (talk) 21:41, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Done (FIFA nat. teams) and didn't remove anyhing. Pelmeen10 (talk) 22:21, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Socks "so large they would fit a giraffe"

Teammates, regarding this situation at ANI with User:Zombie433 (please see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Category:Suspected_Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Zombie433), the following:

What action is possible regarding User:Pararubbas? This "user" is even worse than Zombie, the latter only had one account, Pararubbas has surpassed 60 (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Pararubbas and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Suspected_Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Pararubbas), this week only he created three.

Since Zombie has been discussed thoroughly here, i can't see no reason not to do the same with this other "user", who edits SOLELY in soccer (Zombie did some stuff in movies i believe). I received (surprise, suprise!) ZERO feedback when reporting him at ANI (sure it was Zombie's report, i was tipped off by User:GiantSnowman, and thought i'd had "to the mix", but i was taken aback nonetheless by the lack of response).

User:Satori Son, also an administrator, has been helping me a lot, blocking Pararubbas' socks on sight. What i am really worried is that the "user" does not seem to end with this stuff, and he has been warned (like Zombie, no summaries, and even less feedback - only reply ever was precisely to Satori, after he deleted his "contributions", see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Satori_Son/Archive_11#Deleted_pages).

Inputs from the footy community please - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 01:02, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I haven´t crossed myself often with the guy, so all I can say is: Well donne! FkpCascais (talk) 02:52, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Retepretep

Does anyone have a constructive suggestion on how to deal with this user? —W F C— 14:54, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I've left a few messages on his talk page in the past and never had a response. Jogurney (talk) 15:00, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I've left another message, and am quite prepared to block him if he continues. Number 5 7 15:10, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I used the powers of the internet to find out his name and location. I will try leaving a message referring to him by name to see if this peaks his interest and encourages him to respond to his messages. I hope this does not break some sort of rule. It is a long shot but other than blocking him there is not much else that can be done.--Echetus Xe 18:03, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

It certainly does break some sort of rule. WP:OUTING. Oversight requested. Please do not do that again. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 23:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Without an appropriate format publicised it is harder to encourage consistency in the case of this user's squad list edits. To that end I have interpolated consensus and put sample code into the MOS guideline at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Football/National_teams--ClubOranje^T 00:25, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

ps, doesn't look so good in the sample as the section comes in before the infobox finishes, but on most articles that doesn't actually happen.--ClubOranje^T 00:28, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Good work. I think that is uncontroversial.--Echetus Xe 01:20, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Continues to ignore policy and consensus: has today overturned AfD decision at List of football clubs in Liechtenstein, and posted "current" squad at São Tomé and Príncipe national football team (who haven't played since 2003) in his own preferred tabular form. Kevin McE (talk) 07:42, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I guess it's time to block him as he has ignored all warnings and is determined to carry on regardless. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 07:55, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

The squad edits didn't bother me too much, more the fact that he didn't discuss them when challenged. Creating rubbish, de-prodding rubbish and ignoring AfDs which decided to redirect the rubbish to something useful is another matter altogether. The latter is block-worthy even in isolation, given that he is an experienced user and was made aware of the specific AfD from day one. I would also request that the block be made indefinite. Not because he necessarily deserves it, but because the problem is a lack of engagement, and an indefinite block would solve that by requiring him to engage. —W F C— 09:34, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Done. Effectively the user is gaming the system, and I think there's a clear consensus that his editing is disruptive. Let's see if he makes any requests to be unblocked and move on from there. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:50, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

"Football in X" stubs

So we're left with the issue of what to do with all these useless stubs. I PRODded a few before realising that a better solution was needed. IMO leaving one-line stubs around for all of these is counterproductive as it discourages people from writing proper articles on them, and encourages them to create copycat stubs with no content. Should these be mass-deleted? What about the pointless "list of football clubs in X" pages? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 08:08, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Why are lists of clubs in X pointless? Timbouctou 19:04, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

While our guidelines on list articles say that it is not prohibited to have both a category and a list for the same purpose, it is evidently not a good idea for someone to go creating new lists for every single existing category, especially as the list is very likely to then sit and rot. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 18:47, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

If the lists are likely to contain more information than what is available elsewhere (for example if the list of clubs in X is more comprehensive than the list of clubs currently competing at top level in X) I see no reason to remove them. Whether an article or list are likely to rot is not their fault but ours. In this case it is the evident eurocentricity of WP:FOOTY editors. Also, your argument above against marking articles as stubs ("it is counterproductive as it discourages people from writing proper articles on them") is hardly solved by mass deleting them and is akin to curing a headache with a shotgun. Cheers. Timbouctou 02:59, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I think they can be worthwhile. Of course, that's only the case if they actually give more information than provided in the category, or the redirect that the "creator" decides to break. —W F C— 13:46, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

In other words, I'd say mass delete this user's creations, but with no prejudice to better developed articles being created in future. —W F C— 13:48, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Futbol Club de Real Bigone

Can I invite you to read the article about Futbol Club de Real Bigone and then add your comments to the AfD. I'll leave you to make your own minds up - either way. Enjoy! -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 16:38, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I spent much more time looking into this prank than was worthwhile.--Echetus Xe 17:14, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Atletico Ladrid??? FkpCascais (talk) 17:29, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't get that one either.--Echetus Xe 18:01, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Real Bigone, Atletico Ladrid, there must be also a FC Farselona, Tosasuna and Retis :) FkpCascais (talk) 18:38, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Reminds me of another apparently real team – A3 Milan; playing next to the motorway of the same name in Surrey. According to facebook: "A3 Milan is a team made up of legends that come together on Tuesday nights to demolish whoever Powerleague can throw at them!" Jared Preston (talk) 18:43, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, Mr. Major says [26] that not only the club deserves an wp article, but our support as well! FkpCascais (talk) 19:06, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd of thought an administrator would have closed it down by now and deleted the article. They are just "Rickrolling" now. Any further attempts to converse with the group will only encourage them so I won't bother trying to reason with them any longer. A3 Milan is a fantastic name btw.--Echetus Xe 19:52, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree, they went way too far and a strong admin intervention would be fair. They are making fun of all of us and generally of WP. An admin intervention delay gives definitelly a wrong message t them. ANI? FkpCascais (talk) 20:07, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I posted it here. FkpCascais (talk) 21:51, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Case closed, with perfect rationale for the ocasion. FkpCascais (talk) 00:00, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Aw, I missed all of the fun. That has to be the most pathetic AfD I've ever seen. xD Argyle 4 Life^talk 17:55, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, Real Bigone is now gone... FkpCascais (talk) 19:48, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Notability of RAEC Mons players

Can anyone tell me if players that play for Belgian club RAEC Mons are notable? The notability article says a player is notable if :

"# Have played for a fully professional club at a national level of the league structure. This must be supported by evidence from a reliable source on a club by club basis for teams playing in leagues that are not recognised as being fully professional."

As far as I know, RAEC Mons is a professional club having spent the last few seasons in the Belgian top flight. However, they now play in the second division which is not considered fully professional, based on the list of professional leagues anyway. Does this mean they lose their professional status? What about notability? I'd appreciate some input from other members regarding this. Thanks. TonyStarks (talk) 20:02, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Like in all similar cases of clubs going trough promotions and relegations, their players are notable if they played in a pro league, and non-notable if played for the club only in lower leagues. It doesn´t really matter the club a player playes for, but the league. You may have a A.C. Milan player not being notable because he was never used in a pro league match... However, if a player has international caps (played for any A national team) he is automatically notable whatever the clubs, or leagues, he played for. FkpCascais (talk) 20:10, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

So players who played in the league for the club in either 2002–03, 2003–04, 2004–05, 2006–07, 2007–08, on 2008–09 are notable.--Echetus Xe 21:40, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, appreciate it. TonyStarks (talk) 18:06, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Tus Hoisdorf

The article TuS Hoisdorf states correctly that the full name is Turn- und Sportverein Hoisdorf e.V. von 1958, and it is correctly named with the most commonly used shortened version thereof. However, the Category:TUS Hoisdorf players uses a capital U, which is clearly wrong because it stands for 'und'. What is the correct Wikipedia procedure for changing the name of the category to the correct one, which is Category:TuS Hoisdorf players? Coyets (talk) 12:32, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:CFD. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 12:42, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Expecting more activity on 2010–11 UEFA Champions League knockout phase later today

A per past weeks, I expect activity on 2010–11 UEFA Champions League knockout phase later today and tomorrow. Could a few members please assist in paroling the updates in light of the group's decision to avoid infringements of WP:RECENT? A few editors have decided that they would mark the scoreline and goal scorers as comments, but a few other editors either remove the comments or don't bother using them at all. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll never understand the obsession of updating matches as they happen. Marking them as comments until the final whistle is an adequate compromise. It avoids WP:RECENTISM while allowing editors who like adding facts as they happen to do so. I'll keep on eye on it and do what yourself and Nmk829 do if required. Argyle 4 Life^talk 18:14, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

It may be people who don't have access to broadcasts of the matches. One comment from an anonymous editor (from the US) was "some of us have blockers at our jobs and Wikipedia is the only place to go to get score updates". However that means that their employers want them to actually work during the matches. We may run the risk of having Wikipedia blocked =)

For some World Cup matches I updated at full-time because my computer is next to the TV. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:23, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Use this.--Echetus Xe 20:19, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

The Match in progress template was used last week, but as soon as there was a goal scored, it was removed and a scoreline was added. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:59, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

The en dash

Greetings all!

I may be raising past issues, but why do we not use the en dash ( – ) properly for scores in the template:footballbox? I know the common rationalization is that it doesn't look good (unless there is something I don't know), but it's the only place we do not use the en dash properly and I think it's time we should. Digirami (talk) 22:08, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

There's a long discussion of the issue on that template's talk page: template talk:Football box#WP:ENDASH. Indeed it appears both of us were involved in it at the time. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 07:59, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Longstanding convention is generally for spaces, the MoS is generally against, and I frequently see both in stable articles. No argument can be made that the presence or absence of spaces has any effect on understanding, so it's pretty much a dead issue IMO. If an MoS stickler takes issue with a specific article, you may as well just go along with it. On a wider scale, if two people care enough to edit war over it on dozens of articles, Wikipedia will probably be a better place for the pair of them being blocked. —W F C— 10:33, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

In the absence of any other guidance, we should follow the MOS. But as WFC says, it's not worth an edit war. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Considering that the "score" parameter in {{footballbox}} isn't prose (strictly speaking), I don't see why we need to follow the MOS in this instance. Also, including the spaces makes the score slightly easier to read, due to the amount of whitespace in the template anyway. – Pee Jay 16:25, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Based on that discussion at Template:Football Box, has anything been done or is there anything in the works that will make all football box templates in articles be inline with MoS? If not, then I agree with PeeJay, why we can't just continue on with the spaced endashes? I think it looks better and it's been that way for some time in practically every football article. I also say this as I've contributed to quite a few football articles and in particular the 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup article, there were other users there that are also currently contributing at 2012 AFC Challenge Cup qualification. They weren't following the MoS for endashes in the Suzuki Cup page or any other football page they've contributed at but have all of a sudden been enforcing it for the Challenge Cup. Banana Fingers (talk) 18:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Bryan Gunn

TRM and I are looking to take this article about a thoroughly likeable man to FAC.

Anything you can do to help would be greatly appreciated. As usual for one of our FAC collaborations, I'm going to work up a to do list on the article talk page.

Cheers, --Dweller (talk) 10:51, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

The article is growing, nicely. Come on in, the water is lovely. --Dweller (talk) 15:33, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Non-playing staff

Approximately 50 association football clubs have a sub-category 'Foo F.C. non-playing staff'. So, should the category for these categories be Category:Association football non-playing staff by club or Category:Non-playing staff by association football club? Two rugby union clubs have similar sub-categories, but that is too few to warrant a new category. Coyets (talk) 15:01, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

The former, I think, although alarm bells immediately go off at the thought of us having a deep category tree for club kitmen and physios, or any specific categories for them at all. Got a few example articles? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 17:12, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Most of the articles in these categories seem to be people notable for something else, usually playing football before they became non-playing staff. Adam Sadler and Bob Wall (football administrator) appear to be notable for being non-playing staff. Coyets (talk) 17:50, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Thumperward: examples include Category:Arsenal F.C. non-playing staff and Category:Chelsea F.C. non-playing staff. —W F C— 18:16, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Further examples of such categories are Category:Stockport County F.C. non-playing staff, Category:Hull City A.F.C. non-playing staff, Category:Persepolis F.C. non-playing staff, Category:Heart of Midlothian F.C. non-playing staff, and Category:Bradford City A.F.C. non-playing staff. So, should there be a Category:Association football non-playing staff by club as a subcategory of Category:Association football people? Coyets (talk) 14:51, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I think Category:Association football non-playing staff by club is better. And agree with Category:Association football non-playing staff by club as a subcategory of Category:Association football people. But I've seen assistant managers in manager's categories. Pelmeen10 (talk) 15:47, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Adam Sadler is an example of a person who doesn't appear notable enough for an article.--ClubOranje^T 09:32, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Dave Anderson (footballer)

I've just significantly expanded this article based on what references I could find; for once, a variety of disparate Web sources on a non-League personality don't appear to contradict one another, which is nice! However, it's still seriously lacking in some areas, most notably statistics. If anyone can chip in please feel free! Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 20:28, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Anderson has never represented Northern Ireland's B team according to the NIFG website [27] (I think it's reliable?), but a "D.Anderson" did represent the country at youth level on four occasions.[28] J Mo 101 (talk) 01:56, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. I've seen two separate AFCW sources make that claim (the other is this one, straight from the horse's mouth). Any thoughts on a cast-iron source which could establish this for good? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 13:43, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Players heights

There appears to be a significant number of player articles that are having the height changed from imperial to metric first and adding a reference, the new height supplied is often different from that on Soccerbase. Soccerbase uses imperial in most cases and is the source that I have been using for the heights. Is Soccerbase the most reliable source for this and should we stick with it or go with other sources? Keith D (talk) 13:17, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

From what I've seen many of the heights given at Soccerbase aren't accurate. They'll input it when a player makes his debut as a teenager, but they don't tend to update it if and when the player grows taller. If there's a difference between the heights given by Soccerbase and the club's official website, I would almost always go with the latter. J Mo 101 (talk) 14:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree with J Mo 101. The player's club will have measured him at the start of the season, so assuming they keep their website up-to-date, they will be more reliable than a general website whose info comes from who knows where (and one that rarely goes back to correct mistakes). cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:19, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I think we should prefer metric (with convert template ofcourse), imperial only when player is from country that uses it and played there most of his/her career. Pelmeen10 (talk) 14:23, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

We should use whatever format our reliable source uses - if somebody is said to be 6 foot 1 inch tall, then they are 6 foot 1 inch tall; if they are 1.85m tall, then they are 1.85m tall. Either way, use the {{height}} template, which is simple to use and displays both metric and imperial heights. Giant Snowman 14:29, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Nominations on WikiProject main page

Why don't we use automatic ArticleAlertbot (lot of WikiProjects use it) instead of manually adding and removing nominations? I think it looks better and it even shows number of participants. It kind of bothers me if always somebody changes the page just for nominations. Pelmeen10 (talk) 15:10, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Because ArticleAlertbot only finds articles tagged with {{WikiProject Football}} on their talkpage; also, what does it matter how many participants there have been? Just because something annoys you doesn't mean you can remove it from Wikipedia - see WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Giant Snowman 15:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

That's not the point. Probably not all football related articles aren't listed here. Basically it would be easier to tag the talkpage with {{WikiProject Football}}, football-related articles should have it anyway. Alertbot lists all, including Good article nominees, Featured list candidates. Pelmeen10 (talk) 15:31, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

But if we're tagging an article just so that Alertbot can pick it up on its next round, isn't that highly, highly inefficient? Why not manually list the nomination - it's quicker & easier. Giant Snowman 15:58, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Not just for that. This is WikiProject Football, so all those articles should have already tagged. If something is nominated and we notice that talk page isn't tagged then we should do it anyway (somewhy many editors don't like to tag articles, could change though). (There's a bot for finding new articles also.) And I don't agree that it is easier. If I nominate something for deletion, I wouldn't add it to main page. But what other editors think? Pelmeen10 (talk) 16:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I regularly check the ArticleAlertbot report for football article, but it rarely has all of the articles related to this project. If we can be certain the bot will collect all of the information that is manually entered on this page, I'll be happy to use it exclusively. Jogurney (talk) 16:13, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I tagged all the articles on the main page. The "time loss" for AlertBot is lesser than a day, so basically it doesn't matter. No page is being deleted so fast. Pelmeen10 (talk) 16:25, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

There's a very famous saying - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I still don't see why the current system - people manually adding to the list, with AlertBot adding any we may have missed (and in actual fact duplicating existing information in many instances!) onto a subpage - needs changing. Giant Snowman 16:39, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

What Snowman said. I use both the Alertbot report and the talk page list, and the quicker a proposed deletion appears on the list, the more time there is to do a decent search for sources before the thing gets deleted. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:52, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I echo the above. I appreciate all of the effort people put in to tag articles and list them on the page. It's quick, easy and isn't hurting anyone. Argyle 4 Life^talk 18:54, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I actually agree with the notion that we should stop making work for ourselves over this. I personally gave up adding my own nominations to the project page years ago because unlike the rest of the XfD process it wasn't automated, and I imagine that a great many people have never bothered with it in the first place. If there are problems with the bot (and I don't consider it only seeing talk-tagged pages as a problem) then those should be addressed upstream, rather than WP:FOOTY working around them by doing the entire thing itself. As a WikiProject WP:FOOTY is really very good at following established project-wide conventions when they're pointed out, and this one seems like a big win for personal productivity. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 19:13, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Template:Fb round2... and others

Could someone add this kind of templates with dashes so they can work. Because if on the article is "fixed dashes using a script" it ruines Champions League and Europa League links. See [29], normal is 2011 Meistriliiga. On some older seasons it also changes a bit the link: [30]. Thanks! Pelmeen10 (talk) 16:45, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

If I'm reading this properly, all you need to fix the templates in question if the page move function. For example, {{Fb round2 2012-13 UCL QR2}} should be moved to {{Fb round2 2012–13 UCL QR2}}. Any editor can do this. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 19:16, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh shit. There's about 500-600 of them - Category:Fb round templates (+Category:Fb round templates UEFA, Category:Fb round templates England, Category:Fb round templates CONMEBOL). Do you agree that I make a bot request to move them? Pelmeen10 (talk) 19:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Why move it? Most people don't have an en-dash on the keyboards (like me), which makes implementing the template with a regular dash easy... So long as the link the template provides has the en-dash properly, I think that's all that matters. Digirami (talk) 22:22, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually en-dash should be between years, so the name is wrong anyway. When moved, you can still use it with regular dash. You can find en dash from the below the editing box from "Wiki markup" if you have monobook outlook. Also you can start using the script. Pelmeen10 (talk) 22:44, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

The counterargument is that because redirects are cheap, there's nothing stopping people from continuing to use hyphens if they want so long as there's a redirect to the dashed title in place. In general I believe the battle against dashes in titles by preference has been lost by now. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 22:56, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I know the en-dash go between years. But since this is a function template not the name of a proper article, I don't see why we should go through the trouble to make it grammatically correct. But, whatever... I can't remember the last time I used one of those templates that had a dash of any kind in it. Actually, I've been more perpelxed as to why "round2" templates exist when "round(1)" worked fine. Digirami (talk) 23:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

The link from "round2" and "round(1)" is different, it's not the same. My first comment says how i crossed it. Why not grammatically correct if it is preferred in wikipedia. Pelmeen10 (talk) 23:48, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Halo?

Rather ironic photo for Kristian Nicht whose name could be interpreted as "Not Christian"...I wonder whether that was accident or design?--ClubOranje^T 08:02, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

haha, ClubOranje are you Dan Brown is disguise?--Echetus Xe 09:41, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

He is a saint without knowing it... :) FkpCascais (talk) 18:47, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Review please

I'd appreciate a review of the C class for the Bryan Gunn article.

If the reviewer could possibly leave a gloss at the talk page for what's missing from the article being at least GA class (which it ain't yet, but we're hoping to get to FA eventually!), I'd really appreciate it. Thanks. --Dweller (talk) 17:03, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

1991 European Cup Final

An anonymous editor has arrived on the scene and decided to change the flags in the 1991 European Cup Final article to reflect modern nations instead of the contemporary Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Since SFR Yugoslavia didn't actually split up until 1992, this is obviously incorrect, but the anon is insisting that since FIFA recognises Serbia as the "successor" to SFR Yugoslavia's records, this should apply "retroactively" to historical articles. I have tried explaining this to the anon, but they simply accused me of taking the issue "personally". I would appreciate it if someone else would add some input to the article (or here). – Pee Jay 23:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

No discussion on either the talk page of the article or the editor in question? Interesting. However, I have left a note with the IP regarding WP:MOSFLAG. Giant Snowman 01:12, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I keep forgetting that edit summaries don't count as actual discussion. – Pee Jay 01:14, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Ha, don't worry, we've all been there... Giant Snowman 01:16, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I personally suffer a lot with this constant IP´s changing countries to the current ones, and not the ones that existed at time we are talking in the articles... and I keep on reverting them, and keep on leaving a notice, but each day a new one comes... like if we didn´t knew that the map changed since then, dahhhh... But, we can´t do anything, but just keep on. FkpCascais (talk) 03:43, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, but this guy was even more stupid, Marselles??? Hahahahaaaa... FkpCascais (talk) 03:46, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. I've never seen any source using "Olympic Marseilles". "Olympique Marseille" is far most used in English sources...--Latouffedisco (talk) 08:37, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Create, delete... over and over again.

This user (Ludanoc (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) creates the same articles over and over again. He must be a fan of a second league non-notable club FK Novi Pazar (non-notable because never in its history it played in top league), and insistently makes articles of the club players. Most of club players that are notable already have an article (a couple of them) while the rest definitelly should be speedely deleted. Rather than this, the user seems to completely ignore the style for the articles, as for exemple he now makes infoboxes with seasonal club stats (while surely clearly knows that is not how is donne). I bet he´s just a kid. What shall we do? His artlcles were deleted before, and he is certainly aware of that. What´s the best way to deal with them, what you guys think? FkpCascais (talk) 22:42, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

This user should get a warning (But we should respect every user's contribs and not block them too easyly.). The recreated non-notable articles should be protected. The club itself is ofcourse worth an article. Pelmeen10 (talk) 01:15, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

No, I´m not meaning to block him, and the club article is obviously not a problem. I just touth to ask what´s the best way to deal with this kind of users that recreate same articles over and over again. The guy seems not to speak english either, so I could speak with him in Serbian I supose, but that is not the point on en.wiki, isn´t it? Neither I want to encourage a child to continue making articles here without him having capacity to understand what he is writting (he copy/pastes other articles and changes the clubs and stats)... FkpCascais (talk) 03:40, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:COMPETENCE. If the user is not able to work collaboratively within our rules and social framework, we are not obliged to humour that user indefinitely. You could try asking him to contribute to the Serbian Wikipedia instead, which like all foreign-language versions could certainly do with another helping hand. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 08:10, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that´s a perfect idea! I mean, I can´t tell him to just give up and go away. And he probably doesn´t even understand what notability means (he must think WP dislikes his club, so if Chelsea has no red links, so his village club shouldn´t either!). If I start explaing him what is he doing wrong, he may understand part of it, then he´ll continue creating articles but never well, and without ever completelly understanding all... I can be accused of being pessimist and not giving a chance to newcomers, but I simply saw this moovie too many times... Trying to fix the problem and explain him everything just delays the inevitable. If he wants to edit, he should do it somewhere where he possibly can understand things, in this case, not here, but in sr.wiki. Many thanks Chris! His pages will be deleted now, and perhaps he´ll just give up, but if not, I´ll certainly follow your plan and send him to another wp (universe) :)))) FkpCascais (talk) 09:07, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

How do you know he won't understand? Nothing hasn't been told to him. You'd better explain, if necessary in Serbian. I think one day he will get used, learn rules and contribute articles that are much more needed. He may create his articles from footballers that are not yet notable User:Ludanoc/.... Pelmeen10 (talk) 09:21, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh Palmeen, Palmeen... a guy who´s name in translation means "crazy night" (luda noć) and that knows so well English that he wrote "Kapten" instead of "Captain" [31],´simply doesn´t give me much motivation to motivate him... One day when you wake up and see that you started spending more time correcting other people´s errors than creating, you´ll start feeling like this as well. FkpCascais (talk) 09:41, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Today he made the same edits again, and he even reverted me. Now, Palmeen, I know your intention is good, but we are not charity here. I wan´t talk to him in any other language here but English. If he doesn´t understand me he simply shouldn´t edit here. That is crystal clear. FkpCascais (talk) 20:52, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand what you want to do with him. Let's see if he starts following the rules. Pelmeen10 (talk) 21:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, after leaving him a notice pointing him out the usefull links and policies he just ignored it (or doesn´t understand it) and continued doing the same making further 3 articles completelly against all I said to him, and surely speedely deletional (Adnan Bektašević, Elvis Holić, Amar Plojović). And he will continue. The guy even removed Speedy deletion nominations from his talk page ([32]). The guy just doesn´t care, reverts corrections, further makes nonsence articles, and ignores completelly everything... Can someone please help and finish this? I did my best and I basically lost time... FkpCascais (talk) 21:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Is Google Translate any good at converting English into Serbian? If he doesn't get the message soon then something has to be done because he is ignoring all accepted guidelines and is creating work for others. I see that he has created 15 articles and odds are that none are notable. It isn't fair on the rest of the project having to clean up after someone when they could use that time to improve the encyclopaedia. Argyle 4 Life^talk 21:52, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Argyle 4 Life. Since the user is not responding to any English input, give him/her exactly one stern (okay, perhaps not that harsh, but you hopefully get the idea) comment on the guidelines the user is continuously neglecting in Serbian, and perhaps point him, as Chris already suggested, to the Serbian Wikipedia as well. However, if this move is not successful as well, then a block might be the only option left. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 22:24, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

@Argyle 4 Life, you mean, if he can use google translate to understand the comments left in his talk page? Well, google is good to have a general idea about the subject, but since it translates word by word, many times the correct meaning is confusing and many sentences became senseless because obviously the grammar structure is different for both languages. For exemple, I had cases where people made a google translate for historic sections of certain clubs, and the text is so bad that it took me hours to fix it, many times not being worth having it at all.

@Soccer-holic, but I already left him a message on his talk page exactly pointing him out the principles and explained him why was all this happening. I finished the comment asking him in Serbian if he understands English. But I also noteced the following, he seems not to know English: he copy/pastes other articles just changing the stats and personal things, but when English is needed, as exemple he wrote "Kapten" instean of captain. But that´s not all, a funny (and quite strange) thing is that he seems not to know well Serbian either, since he wrongly writes the names in Serbian cyrillic in the lede sections! I really suspect we are dealing here with a very young person here (child), or perhaps he has some other problems...

Anyway, I thank you both very much for your inputs here. It seems he has cooled of a bit, but he menaged to do all redlinks from his club by now, so his "job" is donne. However, when the articles get deleted I suspect the guy will do the same old thing... FkpCascais (talk) 00:09, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Giovani dos Santos

He was runner-up for FIFA World Cup Best Young Player Award and there are IPs and users adding it. Is it notable enough to be added, there are other users that said it should not be added. Two users called it vandalism because I removed it, even though I gave a reason. GoPurple 'n Gold₂₄ 20:46, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

It is, quite properly, included in the prose. If a medal or other presentation is made for being runner-up, I would suggest that it should be in the honours section: if not, it shouldn't. Kevin McE (talk) 00:23, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:LINKSPAM?

This account Themacor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), looks like a single purpouse account. His only edits were adding a new website to articles. I left him a message on his talk page, but I got no answer and after that, he added the website in another article. The website is new, and its addition seems unnecessary in most cases because the info that contains is already there on other references or external sources already found in those articles. Is this WP:LINKSPAM? FkpCascais (talk) 20:43, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Italian results grids

Does anyone know how to edit these grids so as the vertical names at the top do not take up so much space - e.g. see 1979–80 Serie A#Results. Eldumpo (talk) 11:10, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a design error within the underlying template to me. You will have not much choice but to manually convert these tables to either a plain wikitable or a fb r-based solution. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 11:37, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Have you got an example of a results grid in wikitable format? The 2009-10 Serie A results grid [33] uses fb r2 but this is in a very different input format. Please note the fb r link you posted above has a number of error/unrecognised characters comments. Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 11:50, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Example: 1988–89 2. Fußball-Bundesliga#Results; however, no need for place numbers, just pipe the club names to a three-letter abbreviation in the first line. As for the link to the fb r header template – I intended to link to the documentation, but somehow messed up the link. The latter has now been fixed. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 12:03, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Managers and non-playing staff

Managers are a special type of non-playing staff, and Category:Celtic F.C. managers is a sub-category of Category:Celtic F.C. non-playing staff. However, Category:Arsenal F.C. non-playing staff states "Category for people who have worked as non-playing staff (e.g. assistant managers, youth/reserve coaches, trainers, physiotherapists, kit managers) for Arsenal Football Club. First-team managers are excluded; they have their own category in Category:Arsenal F.C. managers". Would it be best to (a) keep some clubs organised like Celtic F.C. and others organised like Arsenal F.C., or (b) add all Foo F.C. managers categories to their respective Foo F.C. non-playing staff categories and remove the second sentence from the text or change it so that it is similar to the text in Category:Middlesbrough F.C. non-playing staff, or (c) remove all Foo F.C. managers categories from their Foo F.C. non-playing staff categories and add a text similar to the one in the Arsenal F.C. non-playing staff category to all Foo F.C. non-playing staff categories? Coyets (talk) 14:17, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

As I said a week or so ago, my preferred approach would be to remove the "non-playing staff" categories entirely, as this is not a notable role in itself in the vast majority of cases. Non-playing staff who do not take management roles can be categorised by club and left there. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 19:53, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth I think the current system with these categories strikes a good balance, and I have seen no evidence whatsoever to suggest that they are encouraging non-notable articles. Heck, if we are going to delete things for that reason, we surely have to start with WP:NSPORTS. But let's for argument's sake say that Thumperward's view is accepted. If the categories are deleted on the grounds that the roles are relatively unimportant, why bother adding the club's category? —W F C— 20:19, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd agree that seperate cats are pointless for those. Pelmeen10 (talk) 00:59, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the idea is to remove those cats but leaving them categorically linked to the club, trough Cat:FC Club. I am definitely undecided on this matter, but I think that was what Chris meant. FkpCascais (talk) 09:15, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with having a non-playing staff category to capture notable coaches, assistant managers, physio's etc, although the majority of these will be in the players (or managers) category anyway. However, it may not be appropriate to have this for all clubs. If the numbers of such staff with articles is quite low then maybe they could go in the main club category, but you would not want the club cat filled with a load of former coaches and scouts etc. Eldumpo (talk) 10:00, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

FKP: I'm pretty sure that's what Chris meant. And it's proof that even he knows that this is a completely stupid idea. If a non-playing role is not worthy of a sub-category at a club, then it is not worthy of being categorised in relation to the club. There is simply no logical way to argue otherwise. Frankly, this proposal makes about as much sense as deleting Category:Crawley Town F.C. players, on the basis that you don't become notable by playing for Crawley. Incidentally, this all comes from a user who believes that playing a game for Dumbarton makes you notable. —W F C— 16:21, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

My logic is that there are relatively few of these people relative to the number of players who might exist under a club category, so we should not be sub-categorising them by default as this will inevitably result in a huge number of nearly-empty categories. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 19:26, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, been a bit busy this week. I'll address your point at the end of this post, but bear with me. Category:Arsenal F.C. is very well maintained. The vast majority of articles in that category are fundamental to the topic (the club, the stadia, rivalries, sub-articles of the club), and the few others are there because the alternative would be near-empty categories. Throw in 54 pages from Category:Arsenal F.C. non-playing staff, and it becomes a very different story. Furthermore, these categories are growing. Firstly because there will be past staff who either have articles but haven't been categorised, or who were notable for their playing/managerial careers but don't have articles yet. Secondly because clubs have more backroom staff than ever, and are turning over management teams at the quickest rate ever. Let's take Watford. Currently there are 47 articles. I need to review a few of those as there is no mention of Watford in the articles, so admittedly the tally could be a bit lower. But of those, I believe that 20 have had non-playing roles at Watford in the 21st century, and our manager turnover rate is fairly typical for an English club.

So coming back to your original point, I agree that there is a theshold below which these categories cease being useful. But for bigger clubs, they are steadily expanding, and have potential for further growth as explained above. To get rid of all of them would in many cases be counterproductive, and swamp the parent categories. —W F C— 18:20, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm prepared to accept that these can be a good idea in exceptional cases. It's important that they are considered individually, however, as I'm sure you're aware that perceived precedent is a powerful thing on here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 09:26, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

In the absence of people being able to think for themselves, precident and tightly lettered policy and guidelines is all we have. Which can be a bit of an issue when the policy and guidelines themselves are at best inconsistent, at worst knowingly and deliberately going against the project's wider intention. But anyway. The best thing we can do is write this down on a project essay somewhere. If it included the phrase "dozens of viable entries", we would in effect be drawing the line in the sand at 24 non-playing staff, which I think is approaching the level at which a club category (which is usually reserved for top-level stuff, as outlined above) would be glad to get rid of these distracting articles. —W F C— 15:39, 21 March 2011 (UTC)