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Fred Smith (footballer)

Could someone with access to Joyce's book or an equivalent source confirm that this isn't the same Fred Smith who joined Gillingham from Exeter in 1937?

Cheers!!!!! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:21, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The Fred Smith (a winger) who played for Exeter and Gillingham was born in Oldham (no date given) and played for Stockport County in 1931-32, before a spell in the lower leagues, joining Darlington in 1935-36, then Exeter City and Gillingham. The Fred Smith (footballer) article is exactly as per the info on www.allfootballers.com. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 21:52, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I have now created a stub article on the above player at Frederick Smith (footballer). As there are at least 11 Fred or Frederick Smiths (including one who played for Southampton) listed at www.allfootballers.com, there will be a problem with disambiguation at some time. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 07:30, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

This Ashton/Hurst site gives a bit more detail on his non-league career. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:42, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Fred Howard

And for that matter, are Fred Howard and Fred Howard (footballer born 1893) different guys? The birth dates differ, but one might be a typo. Both seem to have connections with Walkden and both played for Ayr United, but the former makes no mention of Derby County or Gillingham....... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:28, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

According to www.allfootballers.com, Julian Frederick Howard, born Long Eaton (no date given) played for Derby County in 1919-20, then joined Gillingham in January 1920, before moving to Ayr United in 1921 or 1922. He played as an inside forward (No. 8 or 9).

Frederick J Howard, born Walkden 1893, played as centre-forward for Walkden United, joining Manchester City in 1912. He then played for various Welsh & Scottish sides (including Ayr United) before joining Port Vale in 1923, followed by spells with New Brighton, Wrexham and Welshpool. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 21:46, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I have now added infoboxes to both articles incorporating the details from www.allfootballers.com, but this now leaves a problem with regard to the article names. It seems that Fred Howard was born in 1893, but the player in the article Fred Howard (footballer born 1893) probably wasn't and his birth year is unknown, so his article title is misleading, but what should it be moved to? Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:26, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

For the sake of completeness, I should add that there was a third Fred Howard, date of birth unknown, who played over 50 games for Barnsley in the 1890s. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:30, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, a search of FreeBMD returns

only one variant on Fred Howard born in the Shardlow district, which covers Long Eaton, which is a Frederick James Howard birth registered in the first quarter of 1895, so born in late 1894 or early 1895.

A Fred (not Frederick) Howard birth registered in q1 1894, i.e. born late 1893 or early 1894, in Salford district which i think covers Walkden.

No Julian Howards at all.

I realise none of this proves anything, but just a bit of additional information, in case it helps. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:01, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I have now moved Fred Howard (footballer born 1893) to Frederick Howard (footballer). Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:23, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

For the record, both the books cited in Frederick Howard (footballer) do give his DOB as 1893...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:10, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Liga I 2008–09...

..before and after a significant overhaul. Any opinions on further improvements or is it just fine as it is now? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 10:26, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

It is better, but could really do with some prose for context rather than being just a set of tables. The bright colours on "Round by round" cause accessibility problems. Oldelpaso (talk) 11:32, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, that "special" table. I think that it should be dropped because of various concerns including redundancy (wins and losses are already represented in the Results table) and size (that table alone has a whopping 20k). The color accesibility problems might just add to this argument. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 11:39, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Top 10

Is there any need for Top 10 english football clubs? King of the North East 20:11, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Could easily be merged into English football records or something like that. I dont know if a whole new article is needed chandler ··· 20:16, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Chandler, its very similar to the summary tables in both List of football clubs in England by major honours won, List of English football champions and Football records in England#Most successful clubs overall (1871 - present). Surely a seperate list for this isn't needed. Partial content fork of those articles. Sunderland06 (talk) 20:24, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I have redirected it to List of football clubs in England by major honours won, since the content is the same as the first 10 entries. Cheers for the replies. King of the North East 20:52, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Given that nothing links to it, and it is a most unlikely search item, is there any value in retaining it? Kevin McE (talk) 21:16, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Not really, I wouldn't object if it was deleted entirely. King of the North East 22:04, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Sporting Limburg

Sporting Limburg was a planned project for a merger involving Roda JC and Fortuna Sittard. However, this project was cancelled days ago due to the Limburg province refusing to financially back it. So, we have an article about a club that never existed and will not. What to do about this? --Angelo (talk) 21:47, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Attach a short summary of what happened to each of the club articles and nuke the cinderella. Wiggy! (talk) 01:06, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Liverani and Somali citizenship

Hi guys, I am having a dispute with a user regarding the Fabio Liverani article. This user is still continuously indicating him as a Somali-Italian, using a source from Goal.com that does not really mention about Liverani having Somali citizenship, but just calls him a Somali-Italian. However, if you call him a Somali-Italian, it means he has both citizenship, which is unproven. All I know is that his mother is Somali, which not necessarily means he has Somali citizenship. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. --Angelo (talk) 21:49, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Country of birth (again ...)

Hi, user User:Stlunatic071 is insisting that some players like Edin Džeko‎ (born 1986), Vedad Ibišević‎ (born 1984) are born in Bosnia and Herzegovina (which didn't exist at that time) instead of SFR Yugoslavia. I (and some other users) keep reverting him because as far as I am aware, it is consensus to use the country's name at the time of birth. Is this still consensus? --Jaellee (talk) 09:39, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I think its a wikipedia wide consensus to yes, use the country of birth, not the current country the city is in chandler ··· 09:48, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Is this consensus written down somewhere? I'd like to point people at it from time to time, because like Jaellee, I'm bored with the reverts--ClubOranje^T 10:01, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

How about WP:Proper_names 'An article about Junipero Serra should say he lived in Alta Mexico not the U.S. state of California because the latter entity did not exist at the time of Junipero Serra.' That seems to be the best in this case. Sometimes WP:PLACE is also useful, but that doesn't really have anything to say in this instance. Stu.W UK (talk) 10:52, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out WP:Proper_names, I will try to explain this to the user, but I'm afraid that he won't see reason. --Jaellee (talk) 12:26, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Stlunatic071 insists on his point of view, the edit warring goes on and I'm afraid I'm in it. So maybe some others might keep an eye on Edin Džeko‎ and Vedad Ibišević‎. --Jaellee (talk) 11:14, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to keep an eye on this too. I've been involved in the editing of the Bosnian guy's pages (I have the same POV as you). --JonBroxton (talk) 17:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Scottish League Cup problem

The problem is the way the Cup used to be scheduled, in the past some seasons the league cup would finish in the first half of the season but some would be spread over two years which means that some years there would be two finals which results in articles like this. Surely the article cannot stay there when the match was not even played in the year shown in the title. Also when a competition is within one year (i.e. the first part of the season) should it not just show the year in which the competition was played so Scottish League Cup 1957-58 could be Scottish League Cup 1957. Darryl.matheson (talk) 15:08, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like everything should be at a season-based title, as that way there would be no ambiguity. Oldelpaso (talk) 15:35, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

If it was the final of the 1983-84 competition and it was held in 1984, why on earth is it at 1983 Scottish League Cup Final in the first place???!?! I'd say for consistency the articles on each season's competition should have the full season in the title, but the finals should use whatever calendar year they took place in. Although presumably (thinking aloud) there may have been the odd year when two finals took place.......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:32, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that there were two Scottish League Cup finals in 1984. The 1983–84 competition was finished in March 1984, and the 1984–85 competition was finished in October 1984. There also weren't any finals in 1999, because the 1998–99 final was played in the autumn, whereas the 1999–2000 final was played in the spring. All of the finals since then have been in the spring. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 20:53, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

1984 Scottish League Cup Final (March) and 1984 Scottish League Cup Final (October)? It's obviously completely ridiculous to have an article entitled 1983 Scottish League Cup Final when it took place in 1984..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:57, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

No, that's right, it's the same thing as the two 1974 General Elections, an event which commonly happens once in a year happening twice is then disambiguated by the month (February 74 and October 74 in that case). Jmorrison230582 (talk) 21:06, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Best to avoid the format March 1984 Scottish League Cup Final, though, as it would throw out the sequencing in the category...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I have moved the articles as suggested, The template will now have to be changed. Darryl.matheson (talk) 14:28, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Everton/Liverpool article disruption

An editor under the name User:Waterspaces and IPs beginning 79.66... has been making disruptive edits on a number of articles including Everton F.C., Liverpool F.C., Anfield and Goodison Park. Disruptive edits include worsening of the prose, disparaging the current prose as amateurish without clear rationale, personal attacks, straying off-topic, POV pushing. Basically everything. I'd appreciate it if others could help resolve this situation as it's getting to be quite a handful. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 22:06, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

He certainly has some interesting opinions about what constitutes good prose. – Toon^(talk) 22:25, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I have semi-protected Everton F.C., Anfield and Goodison Park for three days to bring a halt to the disruption. Liverpool F.C. is already semi-protected. More eyes would be useful. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:19, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I've raised it to full protection for a week since the dispute hasn't stopped. – Toon^(talk) 20:20, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Same disruptive and abusive editor has started on History of Everton F.C. too. Dancarney (talk) 12:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Emily Heskey?

I've just discovered the ancestry.co.uk website and after performing this search, in which I entered the name "Emile William Ivanhoe Heskey" and the date of birth 1978, the search hasn't brought a definite result. But the one with the most relevant result is a "Emily William I Heskey", born in either "Leicestershire, Rutland, Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire". Quite a bit like Emile Heskey. Um... err... have I just stumbled upon quite an embarrasing cover-up?! Mattythewhite (talk) 20:49, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Typos or misinterpretaitons of handwriting are common on that site, so it wouldn't be unlikely that the birth certificate has been misrepresented. If you can view the scanned image of the birth certificate (assuming you're only referring to the text entry), you can decide for yourself. Heightwatcher (talk) 09:41, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

A whole host of MLS/WPS issues

There are multiple discussions going on in American soccer land that could use commenting from people who have been following footy on WP for more than a month. I was tentative to post this, given the attitude most editors have about American soccer, but things have stagnated, so here goes:

• Template talk:2009 Major League Soccer season table has a discussion about whether berths to a secondary international competition, SuperLiga, should be displayed in the standings from the beginning of the season, even though the exact places awarded berths might change due to cup competitions, etc. The fact that Europa League berths are displayed from the beginning of the season in all European articles, despite the fact that they might be altered by cup competitions, etc. has been largely ignored.

• Template talk:2009 Major League Soccer Western Conference table has a discussion about whether the links in the standings table should go to the club article (Seattle Sounders FC for example) or the club's season article (2009 Seattle Sounders FC season for example). Those arguing that we should link to club season articles don't care what is done in every other soccer competition article in the encyclopedia, or that most clubs don't have season articles. They are even advocating the creation of stubs purely so that they can be linked to.

• Talk:2009 Women's Professional Soccer season has a discussion about the displaying of results and statistics. Despite the broad consensus to display American sports results in the Away-Home format (an example of that discussion can be found here), the page is currently using Home-Away format. Additionally, statistical leaders are sourced in a way that might violate WP:OR, despite a summary of those statistics being available as an alternative.

I would like to remind editors that MLS and WPS are simultaneously North American sports articles (which comes with format and other expectations) and soccer articles (which also comes with format and other expectations). We are also having a problem with the concept of consensus, mainly in the context of having changes supported by consensus before they are made. Enjoy. -- Grant.Alpaugh 07:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Also note the corollary Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Grant.Alpaugh after repeated edit-warring, ownership, harassment, personal attacks, etc. Grsz¹¹ 12:56, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

A quick look at Fußball-Bundesliga 2008–09, La Liga 2008–09, Premier League 2008–09 and Serie A 2008–09, to name the biggest, shows, that displaying the qualification/relegation places before they are decided is the done thing, at least in Europe. As the the second question, I would link to the clubs article, if there is a season article, you will find it there at the top in the infobox. As to the Away-Home, I'm used to the European format, but then I'm also used to calling the game football, not soccer and you won't rename the article 2009 Major League Football season table for me, will you? EA210269 (talk) 13:22, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Expressing those opinions on each of those talk pages would be most appreciated, even if they are just in a sentence or two. -- Grant.Alpaugh 13:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football/United_States_and_Canada_task_force has purposefully been skipped on these issues because Grant knows he has little to no support in these departments. Grant has gone as far as creating a new puppet account to try to increase his numbers and claims it is his brother- either way I move that these issues be removed and discussed by the appropriate group.Morry32 (talk) 13:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Are international caps awarded in an abandoned match?

El Salvador was forced to abandon a UNCAF Nations Cup 2009 semi-final match against Costa Rica in the 60' minute earlier this year. Does anyone know whether FIFA awards caps (and tracks goals scored) for abandoned matches (Costa Rica was awarded a 3–0 victory)? Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 14:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Well FIFA doesn't award caps, the individual countries do. England awarded caps for the match against Ireland that was abandoned a few years back. It's probably at the discretion of the country's FA....... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:12, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Scotland awarded caps for this abandoned match in 2004, and allowed James McFadden's goal to count towards his international total. I'd agree with Chris that it's up to the relevant FA. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I dont know about Denmark, but Sweden awarded goals and apps for the abandoned Euro 2008 qualifier chandler ··· 14:32, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all for the replies. I'll check the Costa Rica FA and El Salvador FA sites for detail on whether they awarded caps for the match. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 15:00, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

List of all goalscorers in season articles, Serbian list in particular

There are a couple of UEFA season articles (Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway and Serbia, to be exact) which list every single season scorer. However, the Serbian article is the only one not giving a least one source for the entire list; it rather links to the single match reports. Is this allowed or does a similar case from last summer apply where the respective list was eventually classified as original research and removed? As far as I can see, there is no complete list available, just the usual top 10 or 15 (via Soccerway). There is currently also a discrepancy between league table (317 goals) and list (311 goals) which cannot be fixed without much effort.

Aside from the encyclopaedic value of any of those lists (which should not be discussed here) - what should be done with the Serbian list? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 10:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Epic cleanup needed at Template:Football kit/pattern list

This page is neither comprehensive nor even moderately maintained right now. I'm having difficulty deciding what it even wants to be (does anything which is never transcluded belong in templatespace?) - requesting some thoughts on what to do with it. I'm tempted to take it to TfD, but on the off chance that anyone actually finds value in it then speak now or forever hold your peace. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

It looks very similar to Template:Football kit, are they related/the same? EA210269 (talk) 11:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

It's transcluded onto template:football kit/doc. But why is it not just merged there? Is there any need to show a selection of patterns on that doc page? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:2008-09 in Scottish football

Could someone please convert this to make it look more like this, I tried it myself but could not figure it out. I take it that since the English one is not being destroyed like the Scottish one, it is perfectly acceptable to use columns. Darryl.matheson (talk) 21:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Err... Actually, I would prefer the current version over something similar to the English template. The latter looks a bit too crowded for me, especially when the fb series will eventually be converted to full screen width. But that's just my two cents... --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 21:14, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the current Scottish one looks much more friendly to me as well. - fchd (talk) 21:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Try running a text-to-speech program over the English one and see if you get an intelligible set of results from it. I doubt it. The reply I made to you on the original discussion explains why simply converting to use a {{navbox}} wrapper and keeping the weird internal layout is suboptimal; rather than shopping for people to back you up, I'd advise you to read back over that response and see if my arguments are better than your "user-friendly", "better" or "not being destroyed" rationales. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:28, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Results on penalties

RednessInside has suggested to me that results which are lost on penalties are actually recorded as draws within manager stats boxes. Is this true? And if so, why? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 21:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

All matches that end after 90 minutes are usually treated as draws in my experience. chandler ··· 21:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. It's treated that the result of the match is that after 90 or 120 minutes (as applicable), and the kicks from the penalty mark are used just to determine who goes through to the next round. That's how it seems to be as how it's been treated for decades now. - fchd (talk) 21:48, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it's an odd approach, but what do I know compared to Mr. Decadesofusage? Fair enough, I think that's clarified it. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 22:36, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Page moves

Hello teammates, i have a doubt, could it be reasonable?...

I made a couple of page moves the last weeks; two players, both nicknamed MICHEL (Miguel Ángel Sánchez and Miguel Ángel Carrilero), because that is how they are known in their respective "field of work" (this here being soccer). Since there is a more famous known MICHEL (born 1963), i proceeded to make the necessary adjustments in the title of the article. Unfortunately, User:Matthew hk did not find any of this to his satisfaction and undid my move, without a word in edit summary.

I have already tipped him about this subject, but would also like to know the opinion of "The Project"; am i doing something wrong? Last time i knew, pages could be moved, as long as the title of the article and its defaultsort matched in some way.

Attentively, VASCO AMARAL, Portugal - --NothingButAGoodNothing (talk) 21:55, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Vasco. Ideally all page moves should first be discussed - unless they are non-controversial. Personally, I think the articles should remain at their current locations (Miguel Ángel Sánchez and Miguel Ángel Carrilero) as opposed to being placed at Míchel (footballer born ????). GiantSnowman 00:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure a couple of "other uses" hatnotes would help in any case. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 01:51, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Appropriate links in league tables

Some editors are insisting on linking to club season articles in the league tables, rather than to the club articles (e.g. in a Premier League table, Manchester United would be piped to Manchester United F.C. season 2008-09 rather than Manchester United F.C.). What are editors' thoughts on this? пﮟოьεԻ 57 15:36, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe you should link to the team, not the season. Most teams don't have season articles to link to anyways. GiantSnowman 15:39, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Seconded, the link should point at the club article. If a season article exists for the particular club, it is linked in the infobox anyways. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 15:42, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

At the very bottom. Grsz¹¹ 16:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

What we're linking to should always be made clear in the body text. See WP:PIPE#Intuitiveness. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:37, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The body text in this case is the 2009 season table. I don't think it's a big stretch to expect the links to take you to more information about that team in 2009. In the MLS template discussion another reason brought up for linking to club season articles in the case of MLS was to follow the practice of other American sports such as baseball, American football, and hockey. Given that most visitors to MLS related articles will be American this would be consistent with other American sports club season articles they may visit. --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 05:02, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

When the league template is specific to a season, why wouldn't you link to the season article for a team if it exists? Seems to be the most appropriate, especially considering next year there won't be a link to the season article from the main article at all. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 06:00, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The link to the season should always still be available from the club template at the bottom. I guess, there is no reason for not linking to the clubs season article, provided that every club has a season article. Half-half should be avoided, I think. EA210269 (talk) 06:47, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

This may work for some of the bigger teams, who are likely to have season articles, but would they be kept up to date for all teams? And if you link to seasons for MLS teams, will the same be done for USL and PDL, for example? Linking to teams strikes me as the easiest way to maintain consistency throughout. It would be nice if links to teams' season articles could be made more prominent, but that's another discussion. Stu.W UK (talk) 07:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

You're definitely looking at a case by case basis. Most USL and PDL teams probably are not going to have season articles, so it would be silly to have the season specific templates for those leagues link to season articles for each team. However, I also don't see a problem with having a mixture of links to season specific articles and the team main page. Red links in templates are discouraged, so I would think some links to team season specific articles where those articles exist and others going to a team's main article where a season specific article doesn't exist is fine. You're still making the "most appropriate" link based on the context of the template. Although, with the MLS articles specifically, I am going through and slowly creating a season specific article for each team, so that shouldn't be an issue in a week or two for MLS articles. As far as keeping them updated. They'll be as accurate as any other article we have on Wikipedia. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 19:15, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Needs your help!

Maybe some of you have noticed I have been creating Port Vale player articles for awhile now. Over 1,000 now and (other than a few I missed first time round) I have created an article for every player who has made a football league appearance. Now there are 425 players who failed to do that, about 200 of those there are initialled amateurs with no details, but perhaps 100 others have played league games for other clubs. There any many wartime guests, as well as 19th century players and players active 1907-1919 (the clubs non-league phase).

It would be unreasonable to ask you to check your databases/books for all 425 names, but I wrote 'big' clubs that they played for and maybe played league/FA Cup matches for. So for those of you with a one-club interest you can CTRL+F (note I may have shorted the names of a few, e.g. Accy Stan or West Brom or QPR).

So here it is, enjoy! Thanks everyone! Oh, if you find a player who has met the notability criteria then give me a bell!--EchetusXe (talk) 22:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Your level of devotion to the Vale is hilarious. Well done. Such obscure names "E.C.Brundrett"? "Dr C.T.Forsyth" is my personal favourite. Good luck! Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 22:45, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

um, thnx lol. heh, Forsyth must have been a medical doctor or a Phd graduate, I thought I'd put the Dr in on the obscure chance he made himself notable through another field. Would be a far off chance but worth the effort of putting in the two letters! But yeah, I started the job so I thought I might as well take it through to the bitter end.--EchetusXe (talk) 23:19, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Think you could move the list to the "user" tab of that page? The "talk" page could then be used for any questions we might have. Excellent work so far, by the way. - Dudesleeper / Talk 23:07, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Sure! thnx.--EchetusXe (talk) 23:19, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Surely if a) they're so obscure you're having trouble finding their first names, and b) are "amateurs", they fail both WP:N and WP:ATHLETE? - fchd (talk) 05:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

He doesn't actually state that he's planning on creating articles on any of them unless other people can confirm that they played league/FA Cup matches for other clubs and therefore meet the guideline...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:04, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

BTW congrats to Echetus on this very impressive feat - I've still got nearly 300 Gillingham players to go...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Cheers!--EchetusXe (talk) 09:04, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Great job, mate! E. Chadwick could be Edgar Chadwick. Also, does your Eric Jones is Eric Norbert Jones? If so, he coached in Switzerland and Belgium: perfectly notable.--Latouffedisco (talk) 10:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

hmm, no E.Chadwick was at Vale whilst Edgar was playing for Everton. And not quite, Eric Norman Jones, though he did coach in the Netherlands so even if they are different people he should still be notable. thnx!--EchetusXe (talk) 12:40, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Wartime internationals

Frank Soo has nine appearances for England listed in his infobox, but every one was in a wartime international match, which the FA don't regard as official - should they be in there? Within the text it's clearly stated that all the matches were "semi-official", so my query's really only about the listing in the infobox...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:08, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd say there's no reason they shouldn't be there, but it needs (wartime) or suchlike after England to clarify. Something like User:Djln did with Billy Hughes (footballer born 1918). cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Good article that Hughes one. Can't see any reason not to include it as long as the team's status is made clear. Wartime England national football team might make a decent article, or at least a section on the main England page if the sources are out there.Stu.W UK (talk) 09:29, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The teams and results for all England wartime internationals are listed at the RSSSF site. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 11:57, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

How about a wider Football during World War II? From the the aforementioned Home Internationals held for morale-boosting to the Austrian league becoming the Gauliga Ostmark, there should be plenty of material around. Oldelpaso (talk) 12:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The article exists at Association football during World War II. There is also Association football during World War I. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 16:05, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Football during World War II should prolly by a redirect? chandler ··· 16:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Cfd

Referees cfd. Views welcome. Occuli (talk) 21:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Continental club tournament stage naming

I got a question about the naming conventions of articles that cover stage of a continental club tournament:

1. Are there any?
2. Is it dependent on the rules and regulations of the tournament, or do we use a generic term? Example: the regulations of the CONCACAF Champions League call the knock-out phase the "Championship Round". So I suppose that's why the article on it was called CONCACAF Champions League 2008–09 Championship Round. The same goes for the Group Stage (note the capitalization, which is the same capitalization as in the regulations). UEFA rules don't have group stage capitalized in the same way, so it makes sense that this is as it is.

I ask this for the Copa Libertadores tournament. According to their rules, the names of the stages in Spanish, is Primera Fase, Segunda Fase, Octavos de Final, Cuartos de Final, Semifinales, y Finales (English: First Phase, Second Phase, Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Finals). The First Phase corresponds to this, and the Second Phase corresponds to this. Would those articles have to be renamed to match what CONMEBOL's rules call them? (Although in the English version of the website, they use "First Stage" as opposed to "First Phase", even though "fase" translates primarily to "phase" in English). Digirami (talk) 17:44, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

And I suppose capitalization would be whatever CONMEBOL uses (if they use First Stage, use that. But if it's first stage, then use that). Digirami (talk) 17:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

If that is what they are officially called, then that's what their names should be. Wikipedia is here to record information, not to create it.--[|!*//MarshalN20\\*!|] (talk) 06:09, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Citing of WP:FOOTYN

Could I politely remind all WikiProject Football members that WP:FOOTYN is merely an essay, and is NOT official policy or guideline to be cited in deletion discussions. It is not accepted by the wider Wikipedia community; WP:ATHLETE, however, is. Regards, GiantSnowman 00:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:ATHLETE was just dreamt up by one user, never subject to debate or consensus building and is only accepted through precedent, at least WP:FOOTYN was discussed, debated and agreed before it was formalised by WP:FOOTY. Regarding WP:ATHLETE perhaps we should ask User talk:CalJW whether we can supercede his criteia? Since he unilaterally changed it to the way it is now, it seems some other users see him as the oracle of sports notability its a shame he retired over 2 years ago. FOOTYN has been accepted through rigerous debate and consensus building here at WP:FOOTY and there have been repeated calls to formalise WP:FOOTYN or include it in a revived WP:SPORTS [1] [2], the only real opposition to it I have ever seen is from people who claim that WP:N supercedes everything, which in itself is not an argument against WP:FOOTYN supercedeing WP:ATHLETE at all, its an argument against both of them. King of the North East 23:20, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, I suggest you read the essay tag at the top of the page which reads "it may be consulted for assistance during an AfD discussion or when considering creating a standalone article. The degree of consensus that went into creating this essay (a potential measurement of the reliability of the advice) can be judged by consulting the history and talk pages" I can't see where it tells us that it "is NOT official policy or guideline to be cited in deletion discussions" as you claim. King of the North East 23:20, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Another thing - this is the discussion that led to the creation of WP:ATHLETE. No support for its adoption at all, just a lack of opposition, (perhaps very few people were watching that particular page back in Sept 2005?). The opposers came along pretty soon after it was added, and the Wikipedia talk:Notability (people) page has seen a chorus of complaints about WP:ATHLETE ever since. King of the North East 23:36, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

That's all very well and good - and I for one would love to see FOOTYN become accepted - but whenever FOOTYN is cited, editors immediately say "oh, that's just what WP:FOOTY thinks." However, WP:ATHLETE at least has a wider acceptability about it. GiantSnowman 23:52, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring at Liga I 2008–09

Sorry to bother you once again, but can someone please have a look at Liga I 2008–09? Since the [article overhaul] four days ago, an IP editor with changing addresses (89.33.128.101 and 86.121.116.xxx, both registered to Romanian providers) has become involved in an edit war with User:Riveststein over the look of the goalscorer table. The IP insists on a table while Riveststein prefers a list. Any tries to moderate, including contacting the IP via hidden comment and inviting him to the article talk page, were fruitless as the guy is resistant to any discussion. Since then, warnings have been issued to stop, but he still keeps on reverting.

I would have tried to mediate myself, but I might have gotten too involved in the whole story as well, so I don't know if I'm neutral enough to be a credible mediator. Any help would be appreciated! --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 08:23, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

5 players were recently charged by the F.A for match fixing

e.g. Bradford City A.F.C.. Right at the bottom, in the 'Football in England' box. I have checked the box itself and no such sentence is present?

Can anyone else read the above sentence? I noticed it on the same box at Port Vale. Only seems to be on League Two teams pages.--EchetusXe (talk) 13:39, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Someone had vandalised {{Football League Two}}. I've reverted it. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:53, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, I thought I checked that template but thnx!--EchetusXe (talk) 13:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Whos the big West Brom fan here?

Just created. Could use your attention, thnx.--EchetusXe (talk) 14:57, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Jameboy's your man. Mattythewhite (talk) 15:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Thnx!--EchetusXe (talk) 18:21, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Research required with Roy Essandoh

Hey folks,

I've just added an infobox to Roy Essandoh. The problem is that his list of teams is dubious; the Soccerbase info is incomplete (and contains factoids like playing for a team 0 times and scoring 5 goals) and it's incongruous with the list of teams given in the article body (which, while not sourced, was presumably written by a fan with an idea of where he's been). Any better place to look stuff like this up? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:21, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you've misinterpreted his Soccerbase stats. What (0) 5 means is that he made no starts but made five substitute appearances. Mattythewhite (talk) 15:30, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Aaah. Indeed. Cheers! Any thoughts on the list in the body being wrong? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Try NonLeague Daily. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:08, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Copa Mustang (the Colombian league)

Is it me or are the Copa Mustang articles (the top Colombian league) a mess, especially when compared to other leagues? Take the 2008 season as an example.

1. First off, there are two articles per season, one per tournament (2008 I & 2008 II). I for one would prefer one article per season, especially since there is information that pertain to the entire season as a whole. Open a discussion for merging them?
2. The scores in each tournament are done by fixture, not through a results table as the majority of leagues use. Should the scores be changed to a results table?
3. I would have discussed the article titles, which were not inline with the standard, but I fixed that.
4. Standing should be done through templates, right?
5. Should the article on the Finals be deleted? How notable is it, really.

A big fix in order for this league, right?

Digirami (talk) 23:08, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Lauri Dalla Valle 2

How is this player notable? I've noticed it has been deleted and re-created several times. Hubschrauber729 (talk) 23:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

He passes WP:N, see the section on this page #Lauri Dalla Valle chandler ··· 23:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The deletion review is here. If you have a look at it, the first reviewer suggests recreation be allowed, with no objection to its being sent back to AfD, and another, while supporting recreation, wasn't totally impressed by the WP:N argument: "I would agree that WP:N superceded WP:ATHLETE if the context of coverage was non football related (for example, a footballer who didn't meet WP:ATHLETE but was covered due to something unrelated, like a mid range clothing brand and a scandal). In this case however, the press coverage is about the football and events directly related to the football (like moving away from his mother or being bought out by Liverpool), which is exactly what WP:ATHLETE regulates. Being good at PR and thus getting more coverage in news than other players in the same situation doesn't necessarily make one notable. All things considered however, Allow Recreation, give interested editors a few days to add sources and create a meaningful article, and then, if anyone still wants to, defer to AfD." cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Well I see it as, WP:ATHLETE is to HELP (for example) footballers to gain notability when they're not meeting general notability. That is, to lower the standard for notability. This young player doesn't need WP:ATHLETE just like Pele doesn't need WP:ATHLETE for his notability chandler ··· 07:20, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

First of all, let me note the related DRV is missing comments from users participating actively in this WikiProject. Personally I think we all (including and startig from me, of course) should look a bit more to AfD and DRV cases. Then, I agree about the point that WP:N itself (which is a guideline that gives presumption of notability, please note this) makes no sense when news do not point to something significant the subject has made. All of the provided source point to him as a perspective player, also evidencing the youngster's unusual origins (Italian father, Finnish mother, but signed with an English club) - which, I might say, probably raised some interest from a number of football journalists. This is wrong presumption of notability, because all sources do not mention any significant achievement that makes the subject actually notable. And your comparison with Pele just makes no sense: Pele won a couple of World Cups, Dalla Valle still has to play a competitive senior game. --Angelo (talk) 07:26, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

The comparison is made because neither need WP:ATHLETE (imo) to be notable, you can change Pele for any known footballer. chandler ··· 07:30, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

The deletion review only decided that there was enough assertion of notability to allow recreation; it didn't decide that the coverage was enough under general notability criteria for it to stay undeleted. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:35, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

However, your claim clashes with the content present in the article's talk page... So, who's right? --Angelo (talk) 07:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

On !votes, the talk page. On arguments, me. In my opinion, obviously :-) Incidentally, I have no view on the notability or otherwise of Mr Dalla Valle, as I haven't checked out the sources: I just find it interesting how the outcome of the DRV can be interpreted so differently by different people. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:04, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Lorenzo Pinamonte

Does anyone have any stats on Pinamonte's career in Italy (and possibly elsewhere) before and after his stint in the English Football League? Cheers guys, --Jimbo^[online] 00:29, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I have expanded the article a little bit, he currently plays in Serie D with Brindisi (Serie D is Italian's top amateur level). --Angelo (talk) 07:43, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Foreign players in Serbia and in ex-Yugoslavia countries

Hi soccer lovers, I allready have "on papper" a list of foreign players that have played in First Leagues in serbian clubs. The list is still incomplete and I need someone to tell me where can I find the complete squad lists of: Serbian Superliga, First League of Serbia-Montenegro, First League of FR Yugoslavia, First League of SFR Yugoslavia and if possible the First League of Kingdom of Yugoslavia. A long time ago I had a Belgrade based magazine called "Tempo" that contained a full list of the squads participating in the 1987/88 Yugoslav First League, but I think the magazine ended some years ago. I also have incomplete lists of foreigners that have played in all the other countries that were members of the old Yugoslavia. I will like to do someday the lists starting with the serbian one. The way that I would like to do the lists is based on today countries, their National First Leagues plus the team squads that participated in the First League of Yugoslavia. I will apply all the rules that are used in Foreign Players lists that already exist. I´m still gathering information about players and I will like if somebody can give me sources and I will also like to hear opinions from the rest of wikisoccerpedians. Thanks. FkpCascais (talk) 03:23, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

This can help you [3]. It is in Serbian, but statistics are easy to read^^. If you nead more details, I have some panini-like albums from Yugoslav 1st league.--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:55, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. From what years the albums are? FkpCascais (talk) 16:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I have the full 1975-76, 1976-77, 1983-84, 1989-90 and 1990-91 seasons, and partially 1970-71, 1971-72, 1973-74, 1981-82.--Latouffedisco (talk) 18:32, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow, you have some serious colectionaire stuff. What I need (foreign players,not inside Yugoslavia,real foreigners)may say or not in your albums. Ex-Yugoslav clubs really started importing players in the 90´s, but I wanted to be sure about the years before becouse there were some foreigners but its hard to me to find sources. These are the only ones that I have and even some of them mast be cheked:Miodrag Belodedici,d64,ROMint,C.Zvezda89/92;and now starts the doubts: Francisco Garraffa ,m10,ARG,SK Jugoslavija Belgrade41/42; Milan Ivanovic,d60,AUSint(Australia/International),C.Zvezda78/89,OFK Belgrade82/85,Radnicki Nis87/88; Dragan"Doug"Utjesenovic,d46,AUSint,OFK Belgrade67/69; Branko Buljevic,s47,AUSint,OFK Belgrade in 68?; Goran Kartalija,d66,AUTint,Vojvodina88/91; Miroslav Polak,Pos:?,birth:58,nat:AUT,Partizan,seasons:?.; Dimitri Davidovic,m44,BEL,Partizan62/67; Panaiot Panajotov,s30,BULint,C.Zvezda62; Olegs Karavajevs,gk61,LETint,OFK Bekgrade90/93; Kestutis Ruzgys,s62,LITint,OFK Belgrade91/92; Sorin Vlaicu,m65,ROM,C.Zvezda92; Kazimir Gajdos,s34,CZEint,C.Zvezda58; Vojislav"Scoop"Stanisic,gk63,USAint,Partizan,?; Predrag"Preki"Radosavljevic,m,63,USAint,C.Zvezda83/85. Some of them have wiki pages(Ivanovic,Utjesenovic,Buljevic,Kartalija,Davidovic,Karavajevs,Gajdos and Stanisic) but for Gajdos page dosn´t mention Red Star. It is in Weltfussbal site that says they(Garraffa,Panajotov and Gajdos) played. What happends is that a long time ago my grand-father told me about some hungarian,czech,bulgarian and other players that used to play in old Yugoslavia, maybe around the time of WWII, I think, and I´m interested in finding those gays. It´s also posible/probable that they played in slovenian or croatian clubs, but that will also be interesting for me. As you are french, I supose you know that for now no serious french player played in ex-Yuga. Only Fondja played in Slovenia. But, for serbian case I have 4 players FRA/SRB wich I really wasn´t thinking of including in the list but your opinion intereses me. The cases are: Ognjen Lekic,m,82,Zeleznik04/05,Zemun?01?/04?,also played in Slovenia; Marko Muslin(son of coach Muslin),m,85,C.Zvezda03/04; Ivan Bek/Yvan Beck,s,09,YUGint+FRAint,BSK Belgrade25/27,Macva Sabac27/28; Ivica/Yves Todorov,m,50, C.Zvezda72,Proleter67/69. Non of this players is real french but a lot of sites put them as french. P.S.:I really hope we both pass in the WC group. FkpCascais (talk) 22:34, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a hard work. Real foreigners in Yugoslav league I can confirm: Miodrag Belodedici, Jia Xiuquan (Partizan 1986-88), Eddie Krncevic, Hernan Medford, Alexey Prudnikov (USSR/Russia). Kazimír Gajdoš seems correct but I am not 100% sure. About French/Yugoslav: I don't know any French players in Yugoslavia, I know LOTS OF Yugoslav in France. I think only Marko Muslin can be considered French as he was born there, I don't know the story of O. Lekic. Bek and Todorov obtained French citizenship when they moved to France, so they were not really foreigners when they played in Yugoslavia, such as Dimitri Davidovic. You also forgot Dusan Maravic who was born in France. I'll do further researchs. PS:We'll both pass!--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you again. In the lists I want to make I find a lot of cases of "half" foreigners, and I know that some serbian editors don´t agree with putting them with foreign flags, and I agree too. Just wanted to chek the opinion of "wiki seniors"like you. I only toth of including this two cases: Yugoslav, not international, players who are International for other countries and players that clearly indicated that want to be considered as...australian,canadian,etc. I am not going to put any of this players in France list, even Muslim, becouse he can still be option for some NT. I also understand that players like Muslim, while playing in Bulgaria,as he did, may use their french passport so they wan´t count as extracomunitarian. I also travel as portuguese... Thanks for Prudnikov, I didn´t knew about him. Willy Fondja played as french in NK maribor in 2007/08. FkpCascais (talk) 17:41, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Fondja has full French citizenship (born & bread in France). Indeed, there are lots of half-foreigners/dual nationality in this list. Lots of Yugoslav changed their nationality abroad (Ilija Mitic also). Your criterias looks wise. Think about writing them up the list. Have also a look at the list I built List of foreign Ligue 1 players, where my main criterium is "a player who came in France as a foreigner".--Latouffedisco (talk) 08:31, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I know. Your list is great and I can´t even imagine the houch amount of effort you must have made to do it. I cheked all the existing lists many times, and I even raised the question of Dujkovic so there wan´t exist discrepancies between lists. Latouffedisco, can we continue to exchange ideas in your or my talk page so we could extend the issues and not enlarge exesivly this page? FkpCascais (talk) 16:30, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Sure, he's saying you're right, so you can't imagine the amount of his efforts. But you can imagine mine...! However, for Yugoslav league I can contribute with a couple of Italians that came up in my mind: Gino Gardassanich, brothers Renzo (Italian B national team) and Otmar Gazzari, Ettore Valcareggi (brother of Ferruccio). --necronudist (talk) 19:23, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and let me know if you're going to start a List of foreign Yugoslav League players or something like... I'll be happy to contribute, following your criteria. --necronudist (talk) 19:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Molte grazie. User talk: FkpCascais

The today nationality of players from the territory of ex-Yugoslavia

I have a dispute with Necronudist about the nationality of some players in the La Liga foreign players list. The player in question is the today renamed coach Ratomir Dujkovic. He is a Croatia born Serbian coach and former player. The thing is that necronudist made a role that he puts the players in the list of their country of birth and he is reverting the corrections. I would like to have some roles about the nationalities of ex-Yugoslavia players since they appear in all the lists. What I propose is: For International players:

• If they played for any of this selections(Slovenia,Croatia,Bosnia&Herzegovina,Macedonia,Montenegro and Serbia) they should be in that country list, wherever their birth place is.
• If they played for FR Yugoslavia, since it was made in 1992, was composed only of Serbia and Montenegro, and the other selections were already active, those players can only be Serbian or Montenegrin, the list editor will have to see the NATIONALITY of the player, to see wich of this two is.The same applies for Serbia-Montenegro National Team players.
• If players played for SFR Yugoslavia(the old big Yugoslavia dismembered in 1992,1945-1992) or Kingdom of Yugoslavia(1918-1941), thay should be in the list of their nationality, not their birth place.
• If they are not International,only the nationality should apply, since if they would, they would play for their nationality national team prefering it to the birth place national team.
• If they played for the Croatia National team in the period of (1941-1944)they should be in Croatia list,even if they played for Yugoslavia before or after.

There is a lot of pages of ex-Yugoslav footballers already existing in Wikipedia, and they all start with the sentence telling the nationality of the player. Since there is a lot of mixture of nationalities ( a big number of members of Croatia National team are born in Bosnia and Germany, Serbia nt are born in Bosnia and Croatia, Montenegro nt in Serbia, etc.),and the subject may be touchy, I find this the most exact way. Since people in this cases may have even stronger national feelings towards their nationalities(cases like Sinisa Mihajlovic, big serbian nationalist in the past, born in today Croatia) it would be very wrong to put them in birth place list.

I remember 3 exemples of dispute from the La Liga foreign players talk page (Dragi Kanatlarovski,Hristo Vidakovic and Ratomir Dujkovic),and I don´t understand wy are they controversial. Kanatlarovski was born in Belgrade in Serbia and he played for the SFR Yugoslavia National team and after the creation of Macedonia National team, since he ia ethnic macedonian, he played some games for Macedonia. By my standards he should be in Macedonia list, regardless being born in Serbia. Hristo Vidakovic is a serbian (ethnic)player born in Bosnia. He played for Yugoslavia, and when the Bosnian National team already existed, he choused to play for FR Yugoslavia (composed of Serbia and Montenegro) National team. He choused Serbia-Montenegro over Bosnia and since he is a serbian from Bosnia he should be in Serbian list.Not Bosnia,and not Montenegro. Ratomir Dujkovic is a serbian from Croatia, played for Yugoslavia before the creation of the new national teams so, I understand that there may be some confusion for laics in the matter, but even croats recognise that he is serbian, the first sentence in his wiki page starts with "...serbian manager and former player..."so, wy is Necronudist complicating it? I´ve just corrected the nationalities of Dujkovic,putting him in Serbia list,instead of Croatia, and put Barbaric, who is a croat born in Croatia, in Croatia list(so even by his standards-birth place-Necronudist was wrong),since he was in Serbia list. The rest is OK. Necronudist insists in reverting this change insisting that he must stick with the birth place theory. What about french footballers? Are they in Senegal,Martinique,Guinea list becouse they were born there? If there is no dispute about Dujkovic being serb, wy can´t we put him in the list that he (Dujkovic) feels like belonging? We are not in XV century, and people travel and live and work, and have kids abroad for some time. Should Kuranyi be in Brazil list? Someone can´t be this inflexible,specially if a laic in a matter. Lets please make roles about it. FkpCascais (talk) 04:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I've already discussed this with Necronudist. He uses the birth place criteria because it is easier to back it up with a valid reference rather than an "ethnic" criteria. (which means nothing to me as I am French). Cheers.--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh my God... they're only criteria...! There aren't only ex-Yugoslavian, but also ex-Czechoslovakian, ex-Soviet... it would be an endless work! Please stop it! --necronudist (talk) 09:57, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

We can not go by ethnicity, it would be impossible to source and especially for non-Yugoslav editors they won't have a clue why someone supposedly is Serbian or Croatian. Secondly, as in the player in question only competed under Yugoslavia he should be listed as a Yugoslavian player not as a Croatian player. chandler ··· 11:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

OK Necronudist,but can you explain wy is Barbaric in Serbia list, since he is ethnic croatian, born in Croatia (Metkovic is a town in Croatia), and never played in Serbian clubs? You did very well the list. Wikipedians allready congratulated you, but you are not owner of the list and you may be wrong, and since I´m very familiarised with this issue wy don´t you accept the advice of just this two cases? I´m not asking to change the entire list, just two small corrections that I´m SURE are wright. OK, I´m gonna be honest. People may use wikipedia like a source of information (jurnalists, etc.) and since Dujkovic is corrently a coach it may matter if we put him in a wright or wrong list. I don´t know about Czekoslovakia or the URSS, but I can see that there are a lot of wikipedians from ex-Yugoslavia and if some of them offers help to correct the list, wy not accept it? And if the criteria is birth place, half a list is wrong. Please, its only two cases in a huge list, not a change in hole Wikipedia. FkpCascais (talk) 16:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, three things: first, I use a "combined birthplace+national team" criteria, to be as more flexible as possible. That's why Kuranyi would never be Brazilian, in MY lists, but German. Second: yes, for Barbarić you're right... mistakes happen. If you're going to alert me of other mistakes following the criteria of the list you're welcome, as everybody else has always been. Third, I consider that list MINE 'cause I have spit sweat over that list, and over the Premier League one, and over the Serie A one. I know Wikipedia is stupid for these kind of things (it's the Encyclopedia everyone can vandalize, isn't it?), and that's why I'm not gonna manage/update MY lists anymore from the next season on. And then everyone will be able to disrupt every criteria he wants. --necronudist (talk) 18:12, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I hope you understand that vandalizing was never my objective,right the oposite,I would really like the wikipedia to be the perfect as posible. I also, even if I didn´t express towards you that way,understand that the list is yours since you did all the hard work. It has been pased allready months since I started preparing my lists (foreigns in all ex-Yugoslavia countries). Speaking of them,the Dujkovic case may also create a problem to my lists. If he appears as "from Croatia" in some list, I´ll have to consider him a croat in Serbia. If I exclude him from my list in Serbia, it will appear as he never played in Serbia. I still don´t know if I´ll use the internal ex-yu states, but that puts me a question. I will insist in Ratomir Dujkovic case. He has no links to the country called Croatia in wich you´ve put him. He´s born in Yugoslavia and is a holder of Serbian passport. Even croats consider him serbian, you can chek this by looking to the list of notable players of NK Osijek.He clearly appears with the serbian flag.If you don´t change it I´ll really have to ask for arbitration. There is only you that defend your theory, there is one neutral point of view(the one that will put a Yugoslavia section in the list,wich will make a big work to do all the changes) and me. If I didn´t find it important I wouldn´t insist. FkpCascais (talk) 22:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Do what you want. If the criteria will change, I'll stop managing all my lists immediately. --necronudist (talk) 09:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that's just lists: adding a footnote would be simple. "Dujkovic was born in what is today Croatia but is an ethnic Serb". And that's over.--Latouffedisco (talk) 08:41, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

But footnotes will complicate even further... There was a same case with italians from Dalmatia. Parts of what is today the coast of Croatia and Slovenia were part of Italy untill 1945,more precisely the Istria peninsula and the cities of Rijeka (called Fiume in italian), Zadar (Zara) and for a short period Trst(Trieste). All of this territories, exept of Trieste wich returned to Italy, were incorporated to the SFR Yugoslavia and a great number of the italian population that lived there emigrated to Italy. So the players that were born in those territories were allways and everywhere considered as italian, not yugoslav or croat. It´s also truth that some italians remained and may even be considered "croatian"(Marenzi for exemple) but those cases were rare and the vast majority went to Italy and continued their lives as italians. For the majority of serbs from Croatia (Dujkovic´s case)the situation is preatty much the same. They were born in a region of the country that was united with the motherland(Italy for italians and Serbia for serbs)and when those territories went to be part of another country the majority emigrated and continued to consider themselfs as italian or serbian. I´m just in favor of respecting the will of these people. I have nothing against Croatia,they have this cases too,croats from Bosnia and Srijem(today Srem). It may sound complicated but I offer help to anyone with doubts about some players and if not sure I can do some reserch, but is not fare to put the right way only the players that have played for National Teams and the others forcefully in the country their birthplace today belongs. So if borders change again we have to change the entire lists again? My way is much more correct and independent of politics. FkpCascais (talk) 17:14, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Hoax?

Can anyone verify Giorgos Kanthias? No g-hits except for Wikipedia. ~EdGl ★ 02:30, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

• Looks very hoax like. Inconsistencies throughout the article (birth place), unlikely accomplishments (630 games, 986 goals), sections not related to the player copied from elsewhere (euro 1980/1996, world cup qualifying 1994/1998 etc). No results on FIFA.com that should be present if he played in a major tournament for Greece. Camw (talk) 03:06, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I love this hoax- if anyone can read Greek it might be good to search the http://el.wikipedia.org/ in Greek? Morry32 (talk) 03:22, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I proposed it for deletion. ~EdGl ★ 03:32, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

My knowledge of Greek is limited to transliteration of Biblical texts, but I can conclude from that that the only Giorgos Kan... listed at el.Wikipedia is Giorgos Kansos, an Olympiakos player of the same era but but different dates, subsequently played for a minor team in Nicosia. If Kansos, not an international player, has an article on el.wiki, it seems at best odd that this alleged contemporary, with such a prolific goalscoring record and held in such regard, is not recorded there. No mention of him in the various player lists at the Olympiacos article in el.wiki. Vast majority of the article doesn't even refer to this alleged player or his alleged career. Although the greek version of Karagounis' name is given, no part of the article refers to the obviously real presently active player. Kevin McE (talk) 09:46, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

There is an article on the Greek Wikipedia [4] about a "Γιώργος Καραγκούνης" although the details don't correlate at all. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:53, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I realise now this relates to Giorgos Karagounis (I was going by the Greek name in the "Fact File" section of the Giorgos Kanthias article. It's all Greek to me.) --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:57, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Category:Football League Cup seasons

This category is looking remarkably sparse. Is anyone working on filling in the missing League Cup seasons? – PeeJay 07:49, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll create the 1984-85 season one, and I might end up trying to do some more. Cheers. Sunderland06 (talk) 22:55, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

A. J. Godbolt

Can an admin please restore the article for A. J. Godbolt? He is now playing fully pro soccer for the Austin Aztex in the USL First Division. Thanks. --JonBroxton (talk) 00:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Done, per stats found here. Camw (talk) 01:08, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks! --JonBroxton (talk) 01:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Adding professional parameter to league infoboxes

To counter the whole 'is a league pro/semi-pro/amateur?' problems, could we not simply add a parameter to league infoboxes which lists their playing status? GiantSnowman 17:14, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

The same problems will exist and they'll be public - one of the reasons our list of fully professional leagues is incomplete is because it's so difficult to find cited sources that explicitly state a league's professional status. I spent quite a few hours searching the web trying to make the list we've got as complete as possible, and there are still tons of gaps on it in which I simply cannot find the information out. Putting it in infoboxes still requires tracking down the information, and then we'll just have the problems of adding the material publicly instead of trying to work it out on our project page. matt91486 (talk) 14:52, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

In addition, the league itself often won't be pro/semi-pro/amateur - at least in England there are no official distinction between those categories anyway and everyone is just players. It's the clubs themselves who conform to those statuses (and sometimes, it's not even uniform amongst a club), not the leagues. - fchd (talk) 06:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Valencia C.F SM

Just want to make sure I've not gone mad before prod-ing. This is someone's hoax made-up team right? Stu.W UK (talk) 16:30, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Could probably speedy it as a blatant hoax. – PeeJay 16:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah tried that but was denied with no reason given; that's why I thought I must be missing something Stu.W UK (talk) 16:38, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

User:David Beckham 334‎

Just bringing attention to David Beckham 334 (talk · contribs), who seems to ply his trade in adding false information to articles. Mattythewhite (talk) 18:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Since you gave him about 6 "last warnings" I think you should have an administrator block him for a few days. ~EdGl ★ 19:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Blocked. Such cases can be reported at WP:AIV. Rettetast (talk) 21:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Notability

Having looked at the project's notability page and its talk page I was struck by two things.

Firstly, there was a lot of discussion about player notability but the final outcome seems to have fizzled out somewhat. Not only is this a non-binding guideline, but it has also been left unfinished as the list of fully professional leagues is incomplete according to the article's lead.

Secondly, there seems to have been little discussion for some time about the notability of anything else; for example: clubs, leagues, competitions, managers, selection teams, national teams, pseudo-national teams etc. Most important of these would seem to me to be clubs and leagues. For example, What makes a league at level 21 of the English football pyramid notable? If the league is notable, are the clubs in that league notable? I have my own thoughts on these issues but seeing as most people don't want to read massively long comments I'll leave them for another time. I've put down some sections for comment below (currently hidden) and look forward to hearing some opinions.

I know the notability section's talk page might seem the more sensible destination, but seeing as BigDunc^Talk asked a similar question there on April 8 and got no reply I thought I'd ask on a page that gets more traffic, and put a redirect there. Thanks Stu.W UK (talk) 01:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

At least one very minor league has gone to AfD in the past but was kept based on lots of comments which essentially said "this is part of the English football league system and therefore notable". Despite this, there seems to be very little to prove that any leagues below about level 12 can actually legitimately claim to be part of the pyramid - the only source for the levels assigned to leagues below the National League System on WP appears to be thepyramid.info, which essentially comprises one fan's OR. -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Right, with regards to clubs I've looked through the AfD archive back to January '07. This discussion suggests that the notability criteria for English clubs rest on eligibility for national cup competition. This seems to be an idea that was followed for a while (as mentioned here) but has been ignored on other occasions, with the general requirements of WP:N reasserted (e.g. here). A comment in this AfD implies that eligibility for cup competition is the criteria for notability in other countries too. However, this AfD says level 3 of Australian football isn't notable, with no reference to other criteria. Here we find the assertion that 'A football club that plays in the third highest division in Switzerland is definitely notable', but no more criteria (although if the Cup eligibility criteria were applied, they would be notable). This AfD says that Serie D is a high enough level for Italy, but doesn't mention that teams at that level can't compete in the Coppa Italia. This AfD allows a team to remain because the league they compete in is professional- no mention of any other criteria (although if national cup criteria were applied they would have been eligible) . This team remained because it sounded like their league might be something like the Conference, no other criteria mentioned (although eligibility for the Emperor's Cup is open only to the top half of the league, I imagine the whole league's teams would be allowed to remain with the national cup criteria). This AfD again suggests the national cup eligibility as a reason for notability.

In Scotland, meanwhile, these teams were kept as they were members of the SJFA, but not eligible for the Scottish Cup. Scottish 'junior' football is fine but apparently this winner of the Scottish Amateur Cup was not notable.

In all these examples it seems that notions of what is and isn't notable are often tied up with what level of football the team play at rather than necessarily whether any sources can be found.

As far as leagues go there is very little discussion on anything that isn't a Sunday league or kids' league (both of which tend to be deleted)- at least not since January 07, which is as far as I looked. The only pertinent AfD I could find for leagues in English football was this, which seems to be a fairly meaningless WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS argument but decided that all levels of the pyramid, down to 24 were notable without any obligation to show notability. I imagine this is what ChrisTheDude was talking about. Which brings me too...

Proposal

How about adding these 2 to WP:FOOTYN and attempting to get wider acceptance across Wikipedia?

All teams that are eligible for the national cup (or the highest league in countries where no cup exists) are assumed to meet WP:N criteria. Teams that are not eligible for national cups must be shown to meet broader WP:N criteria.

All leagues whose members are eligible for national cups are assumed notable. All leagues that are a country's highest level are assumed notable. All other leagues must be shown to meet broader WP:N criteria. Stu.W UK (talk) 03:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

This may work for some countries but in Germany, for example, every first (non-reserve) team playing in senior league football can qualify for the national cup by going through the qualifying process. Therefore every league and every club would be notable by this rule. And I don't think my home-town tier-twelve club is notable by any means. I think, the rules should be strikter then that. EA210269 (talk) 03:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to Germany being allowed 2 tiers more of clubs than England- it is a larger nation so that would make sense. However, my interpretation would be that unless the team actually won the regional cup they were not eligible for the DFB-Pokal that season. Stu.W UK (talk) 04:22, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

You are pretty much right, a club has to win a regional cup (or finish runners-up in Bavaria or Lower Saxony), but theoretically any club could do so. In any case, I personally don't consider a German club notable unless it has played in tier five or above or has taken part in the DFB cup. Just a personal view and really only applies to Germany because the league pyramid broadens much quicker then in England where tier five is still nationwide, compare to twelve leagues at this level in Germany. In any case, any form of notability criteria will be an improvement as we don't really have one right now and yours is a good start. EA210269 (talk) 07:08, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course there will always be exceptions to the rules but I think a slightly flawed notability guideline is better than none. Currently there are approx 75,000 articles with this project's tag and if nothing else it would be useful to have at least a vague idea of how much further this project would expand before covering every relevant team, league, player, nation, association etc. etc. etc. It allows not only for deletion of material that doesn't make the grade, but also encourages creation by making the gaps easier to detect. Stu.W UK (talk) 03:56, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I like the proposal. It makes a lot of sense and will keep the notability guidelines within FOOTY more focused and less subjective than what they have been. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 13:24, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

(reindent) The Footyn giudeline was meant to be expanded to cover leagues, clubs, stadia, games, referees etc, but after the player guideline we worked so hard to acheive was immediately attacked by people fromWP:BIO most of us lost our motivation to continue. As for the proposal, it looks pretty good to me, although perhaps the wording could be changed to "All teams that have played in the national cup"? King of the North East 00:22, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like a sensible suggestion, consider it changed. Is there any reason for me not to be WP:BOLD and put this up on WP:FOOTYN? If (as I expect) I need to demonstrate more of a consensus, what's the best way to go about it? Stu.W UK (talk) 07:51, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Go ahead. It should get people more interessted into something that, I think, is quite important for this project.EA210269 (talk) 08:08, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Right, I've moved them onto the FOOTYN page (with my amendment) and copied this discussion to the FOOTYN talkpage. We still need some kind of consensus on: managers, stadia, referees, cups, chairmen/owners, specific games etc. Anyone wanting to pick one and start a discussion feel free......King of the North East 19:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Oops, completely forgot abouth this! Stu.W UK (talk) 19:58, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you just use and abuse Foxhill's old suggestion from the FOOTYN talkpage, it seems quite comprehensive. Nanonic (talk) 20:18, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Further Proposals

Ok, here are some more suggestions:

Referees

• Referees are considered notable if they have refereed a match in a World Cup Finals tournament or a Confederation finals tournament (e.g. European Championships, CONCACAF Gold Cup).
• Referees who have refereed the final of the main domestic cup are also considered notable.
• Other referees are presumed unnotable. However, they may be notable if they meet the broader WP:N criteria.
  • I would prefer it if all referees that had officiated in a fully professional top-flight league were considered notable, or we would end up with half of the articles on English referees being deleted as soon as these guidelines came in. – PeeJay 18:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I imagine they would have enough outside info to meet WP:N. This avoids having someone refer to the guideline in support of including, say, a ref who featured in one First Division match in 1920 Stu.W UK (talk) 21:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Managers/Head Coaches

• Managers are considered notable if they have managed a fully professional team or a national team.
• If already qualified under 'player' criteria, an individual's managerial career is also notable.
• All other managers are presumed unnotable. However, they may be notable if they meet the broader WP:N criteria.

Individual Games

• The final game of a cup or tournament is notable, however notability must still be shown as per the general notability criteria.
• All other games are presumed unnotable. However, they may be notable if they meet the broader WP:N criteria.

National Teams

• All FIFA-recognised national teams are notable.
• National teams from non-FIFA nations need to demonstrate notability

Representative Teams

• Teams competing at the following tournaments may be considered notable. List of tournaments (to be created if/when consensus is reached)
• Other representative teams are presumed unnotable. However, they may be notable if they meet the broader WP:N criteria.

Input for the above

For matches:

• I think you should specify what kind of tournament the final is for (ex: international club tournament, etc.). If you mentioned just "final of a tournament", it'll sound as if this, the final match-up of one of the league season's tournaments, as notable... which it isn't. Digirami (talk) 22:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

how about 'cup finals'? Stu.W UK (talk) 15:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Well you specified that already, so that's understood. But when you say tournaments, you gotta specify which kinds. I think international club tournaments finals are more than OK, but finals for a league season, like the example I linked above, maybe not. Digirami (talk) 19:26, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Kit (association football)

This article will be appearing as Today's Featured Article on the main page tomorrow. This usually brings with it a tidal wave of juvenile vandalism so you may want to consider watching it for a day or two -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposed change to WP:ATHLETE

There is a proposed change to WP:ATHLETE found here. Interested individuals are invited to comment. Grsz¹¹ 17:37, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Deletion candidates

In a similar vein to the unreferenced BLP discussion, is it possible to filter the AlexNewArtBot page to show those articles where the creator or talk page is redlinked? Those articles that are likely candidates for deletion seem to fall under one of those 2 headings. Also, any chance people might be interested in going through the archives and starting to prod all the articles (not just BLPs) that don't meet notability criteria? Stu.W UK (talk) 00:24, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a great idea (flagging the new articles from anon users). A few months ago, I went through the first 5 to 10 archives from AlexNewArtBot and PROD'ed articles that obviously failed WP:N and/or W:ATHLETE. I didn't check every article, so it would be helpful for someone to go article by article. Jogurney (talk) 02:34, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Non-league stats for Michael Gordon

Can anyone with a knowledge of non-league football please take a look at Michael Gordon, and update stats/dates where applicable? Cheers, GiantSnowman 14:07, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I've managed to fill a couple of gaps. SoccerFactsUK is quite good for stats for the clubs near the top of the Pyramid after 2001. Bigmike (talk) 18:14, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

So long as you bear in mind it's not all that accurate... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 18:28, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

FIFA attributes the honours of Czechoslovakia to _both_ Czechia and Slovakia

A user posted on Talk:UEFA about Slovakia @ FIFA.com, where the honours of Czechoslovakia are listed (as they are on under Czech Republic). Right now all the articles on Wikipedia as far as I know does not recognize this (I don't know if this perhaps is a recent request by the Slovak FA to FIFA or something), and it should really be fixed. (I have also looked at some old YUG/USSR nations and they dont seem to get the old honours, excluding Serbia and Russia). Just of the top of my head some articles that would need amending are UEFA, UEFA European Football Championship, and the statistic articles for both World Cup and European championship chandler ··· 01:11, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes,there is one strange thing in one list in UEFA Euro.fot.champ. and that is that appear both the Czech Rep. and Slovakia as having won once. I think that there was already a debate on the succesion issues and has been decided to folow the FIFA and UEFA decitions to recognise Russia as the succesor of URSS and Serbia as the succesor of Yugoslavia. I´m not sure for the Czechoslovakia case if the Czech R. is officially or not the succesor, but the issue here is that we can´t put all the countries(Czech R. and Slovakia) as winners of the EURO 1976. USSR also won once so,should we put then all the ex-USSR republics as winners? That´s crazy. FkpCascais (talk) 04:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes I know we follow FIFA and UEFA that's why we NEED to note that FIFA considers Slovakia and Czech Republic as equal successors (as in both inherits the record and honours). The same is not for Croatia, Bosnia, Ukraine, Belarus etc. on FIFA.com they are not listed with Yugoslavia/Soviet Union match record or honours. chandler ··· 04:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Extra location info

This user has been adding "UK" on to the end of all the stadium locations. I think it's a bit needless. Anyone care to rollback? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 02:06, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The finals of the 1992–93 and 1993–94 UEFA Champions Leagues

Rules and regulations dominated the start and finish of the 1992/93 European Champion Clubs' Cup. Sandwiched in between, however, was some fairly tasty football. No sooner had the legislators rebranded the competition as the UEFA Champions League [5]

A user has moved the finals away from "1993 UEFA Champions League Final" and "1994 UEFA Champions League Final", because the tickets/match programmes say "European Champion Clubs' Cup final". Now I feel this is against common name, and common sense. The finals are not separate from the competitions which were rebranded. UEFA have called the 2009 and 1997 (and therefore presumingly all other) Champions League finals "European Champion Clubs' Cup finals" (first sentence). So that would not make 1993 and 1994 unique to be called both. I also feel that it would confuse readers to see

European Cup 1991–92 / 1992 European Cup Final

UEFA Champions League 1992–93 / 1993 European Cup Final

UEFA Champions League 1993–94 / 1994 European Cup Final

UEFA Champions League 1994–95 / 1995 UEFA Champions League Final

I believe the 1993 and 1994 finals are commonly known as UEFA Champions League finals not European Cup finals. As we can see here l'OM are winners of the "UEFA Champions League 1992/93", while Barca are winners of the "European Champions Clubs' Cup 1991/92". I would say the finals are not separate from the competition, if we had semi finals articles they would be located at "1993 UEFA Champions League Semi-finals". So what do you guys think? chandler ··· 02:42, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It´s officialy known that Champions league started as you say:in the 1992-1993 season. FkpCascais (talk) 04:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:Current sport

I've just started a discussion on the guidelines and application of Template:Current sport here, for those who are interested. --Conti|✉ 15:46, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Mass Copyright Violations

Pretty much all the images uploaded by Jose.elias 21 need deleting. Can an administrator deal with this please? Also articles linking to those images will need reverting. Cheers. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 02:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I have looked through his uploads, and they are all up for deletion according to WP:CSD. I speedied the one you had tagged. Nice that you have left the user an message. I'll watchlist the user. Rettetast (talk) 02:29, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Bohemians

Can someone familiar with Czech football briefly explain the difference/connection between Bohemians 1905 and Bohemians Praha (Střížkov)? I The Hack 12:10, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Funny, I asked the same question on the articles talk pages a while ago and it was answered by somebody with some knowledge but never added to the articles. Have a look at the talk pages, it should still be there. EA210269 (talk) 12:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Judging by the comments you are referring to, FC Bohemians Praha 1905 is the successor to the traditional Bohemians and FC Bohemians Praha basically bought the Bohemians name, colours and logo. This all assumes that information is correct...The Hack 12:33, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thats pretty much it. Its a mess but, on a personal note, I think, Bohemians 1905 is the "real" Bohemians while the other is the "fake" one. When I last checked, the website of the former was quite good and in English and German, too, while the later didn't offer that service. Bohemians 1905 also claims the Bohemians traditions on its website. EA210269 (talk) 12:56, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

It is a situation with parallels to Wimbledon/MK Dons/AFC Wimbledon. Bohemians 1905 were formed by fans who regarded the identity of their club as being stolen. They play at the ground where the original Bohemians used to play. Oldelpaso (talk) 15:00, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

There really could then be three articles - one for the original Bohemians to capture the history and one each for the two current teams. If it as oldelpaso says, there are issues with the Bohemians 1905 page being POV by claiming the history of the original club...The Hack 01:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

If the Czech FA give the 1983 title to Bohemians 1905 they are the legal continuators of Bohemians. The president is Antonin Panenka who is the historic player of the club, too.--Latouffedisco (talk) 18:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a reference for Bohemians 1905 being credited with the 1983 title?The Hack 02:23, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't know. If anyone is able to find it, this would solve the problem. I'm gonna try a little search.--Latouffedisco (talk) 06:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I had a bit of a look and there seems to have been some litigation over the name.The Hack 06:26, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I found some links in English (looks reliable, this is Czech radio) [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]. Till 2005 no problem. Then money problems and they were relegated to third division by Czech FA, thanks to supporters who held a collection. But they promoted back in 2007 to the first division. About the honours of Bohemians; no information, but since the club was not dissolved (only relegated), they should have kept it.--Latouffedisco (talk) 06:40, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

This is probably a bit pedantic but the first article seems to indicate that the traditional Bohemians had ceased to exist. It uses the sentences "After a series of efforts to save Bohemians, the club finally went under at the beginning of this year" and "The collapse of Bohemians football club".The Hack 01:34, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

But the title "revive bankrupt Bohemians football club" indicate Bohemians 1905 are the successor, no? It is said "This money will be used to save Bohemians. If we raise enough money we can make it into the third league" that's what happened, no? There are clearly a connection between old Bohemians and Bohemians 1905. Clubs change their name when they have financial difficulties, but are still the same.--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:09, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Ireland national team history

Don't know if this requires as much alteration as the Czech problem listed above, but from what I can tell from the FIFA website no team has inherited the records of the Ireland team that existed before the partition of Ireland, even though the Northern Irish FA is the same FA that governed the original team. Stu.W UK (talk) 13:00, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Well fifa lists the FA as a affiliate since 1911 but in the archive for some reason you can't find the matches Ireland played played pre-1924, but not only not under NIR, but if you search Englands early match record you can't find them... So I don't know whats going on there from FIFA's side. So as I see it, currently (mistake or not) the history just doesn't exist on FIFA.com to be inherit for anyone, so it's hard to really be sure on that. chandler ··· 16:24, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm I see what you mean. Seems like the old Ireland team is defunct as far as FIFA is concerned. Stu.W UK (talk) 19:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I dont know, for example you can still see East Germany's matches, Ireland's are just not there, as if the pre-split team was never a part of FIFA or its matches recognized. chandler ··· 20:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Remember that all the Home Nations resigned from FIFA in the 1920s, hence why none of them participated in a World Cup until 1950. The IFA rejoined in 1946, stopped picking players from the 26 counties soon afterwards and first participated in a World Cup finals tournament as "Northern Ireland" in 1958. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 16:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

But FIFA has retrospectively recognised the Home Nations' results going back to the 1870s. It is only the pre-split Ireland team that is missing, including in the results lists of their opponents Stu.W UK (talk) 18:55, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Sean Rush

There's a very weird edit war going on at the moment about the above player, mainly instigated by someone called User:Monarchmania, who claims to work for the Real Maryland Monarchs team, and who is insistent on removing this player's date and place of birth from his bio. Another user User:Tresiden, is (IMHO) correctly stating that Rush's date of birth is public record and cannot be removed, despite Monarchmania's claim that "the players would rather not have their birthdays on the website published like this". Monarchmania seems to edit both as his username and as an IP editor... does anyone know what to do here? I'ver never come across a situation quite like this before. --JonBroxton (talk) 20:31, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

If they've reverted it more than three times each (the IP and the registered user) you can take it to WP:ANEW, but only if you have warned them on their talk page and they continue afterwards. BEVE (talk)  23:27, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm quite amazed no-one has issued a 3RR warning yet. I have warned the IP editor for making a legal threat. BEVE (talk)  12:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Could I suggest someone adds a reference to the source of Mr Rush's date of birth? If it's readily available from reliable published sources, then the presence of a reference will at least demonstrate to the IP that it isn't a secret. And if a reference isn't available, then perhaps his date of birth shouldn't be on the article, per WP:BLP#Privacy of personal information. Then if there's still a problem, take it to the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:55, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It appears to be on the USL website official roster, which seems pretty public, so I've added that as a source. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:25, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Meh, paranoia about identity thieves probably. I imagine he uses it as his pin code or has it as password question on a website or some crap like that. Maybe he is lying to his girlfriend about his age. Maybe its his mother removing the info because the birthdate would prove to the father that he isn't actually the father. Maybe he played for a youth team when he was too old and they are concerned they will see the article and lodge a complaint with the authorities.

We could speculate all day the reason for this IP's odd behaviour, but I can imagine the conversation with his "lawyer". 'No win no fee?' 'mmm, well seen as this is a very special case I am going to have to demand money down on this one'.

Its just insane though, there we a have a picture and a biography of everything the guy has ever done and someone is losing their minds because the date of his birth is displayed. Very bizarre.--EchetusXe (talk) 14:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Mexican league playoff and finals

I got a question for the Mexican league's tournaments. As it stands, each tournament has an article that covers the tournament in general, an article for the playoff round, and an article of the finals (I remind everyone that there are two tournaments per season in Mexico). Take a look at this article for example.

I'm wondering if this league's tournament should exist in three article? One of the reasonings behind this current way of doing things in this league is because MLS seasons have three articles: one for the season in general, one for the playoffs, and one for the final. That seems like faulty reasoning since it seems, at least to me, that MLS season articles are handled differently because American sports leagues have a certain way of doing things. But Mexico isn't in the US, so it should be similar to other league season's articles (only one article)... right? (FYI, Mexico is not the only league to have multi-stages seasons/tournaments for their top league. Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay also have multi-stage leagues/tournaments, but in different formats. So a decision here has the potential to affect articles in those leagues aswell). Digirami (talk) 22:47, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion it would be much better if all the seperate stages of a season were combined into one overview article, if there is enough content to justify seperate articles for the individual stages these can be linked from the overview article, in a similar way to recent editions of Copa Libertadores. Hope this helps King of the North East 23:06, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and no.

Yes, because it is also my opinion that one league season, in this case league tournament, should be in one article.

No, because you bring in the Copa Libertadores, an international club tournament, for a basis to do something in a league tournament. But, an international club tournament is different from a league, and as such I think it should, and have seen, that it is dealt differently because of notability reasons and most likely article size, too. Thus you are sorta saying an apple should be like an orange, even though they are different. But I want to know how to deal with those apples because they are apples. Digirami (talk) 23:51, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The reason I brought up the Copa Libertadores as an example is the fact that I know you are familiar with it. If all the stages of the season can be fitted into one article, then do it that way, but if this would create a page in excess of 30-40kb, it could be better to create an overview page and subpages for the seperate stages for reasons of size. King of the North East 20:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

But then the question becomes how much detail should go into a league tournament article. Going back to comparing the two, I can understand why editors display the details of international tournament stages (goals, etc): those articles are really important. But one league season's tournaments is not as important, so is it really necessary to have the same amount of detail? Taking a look at the main Apertura 2008 article, the one linked in my initial post, the current article size is at 30kb with two tables, club information, top-scorer table, a results table for the first round, and a bracket with scores to show the progression of the last round. The information in the main article has the same level of detail found in any league article in that it has the scores, standings, and some season stats. So how much detail do we really need to have for the final stage to merit it's own article? Then there is the question of if the final, found here, is notable enough under any current notability guidelines for matches to even merit its own article. Digirami (talk) 10:09, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Czech league names

The second tier is at Czech 2. Liga (capital L) but the top tier is at Gambrinus liga (lower-case L) - any reason for this? Also, the official name of the top tier appears to be 1. Liga and the sponsored name 1. Gambrinus Liga, so the current article title doesn't actually match either...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:28, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest to move all of the "Gambrinus liga" articles to Czech 1. Liga or a similar name. Although the league has been known under that name since its beginnings in 1993, it seems to be consensus to not include sponsoring companys or brands in article names. Even Norway's Tippeligaen, to my surprise, is listed as Norwegian Premier League. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 00:19, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Notability of Thai Football

User:Kengi1982 created some unsourced footballer from Thai top division, except they were full internationals to fulfill notability guidelines, did Thai Top division is fully-professional to fulfill notability guideline? Matthew_hk tc 14:40, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The article for the Thai Premier League states that it is professional - this statement is unsourced, but there a few sources that seme to back this up. For exmaple, this news story mentions this twice, and the AFC states that the league has bene fully profesisonal since 1995. The second source in particular seems strong enough for us to say that, yes, the Thai league is fully professional. Bettia ^{it's a puppet!} 10:14, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

End of season shennanigans

With the end of the season coming upon us, a few procedural things perhaps should be discussed. I remember in the past there's been some differences over when a club's article should be changed to their new division. I.e. "Exeter City are a football club in League One"/changing the infobox etc. Similarly in the past the league team templates have been changed, typically at first by ips, with asterisks saying "promoted/relegated" and so on. Thirdly, once a club's season has ended, I presume we immeadiately send the players they have on loan back to their parent club? I know some loans are listed as until June 2009, but seems a bit pointless keeping them on. Anyway, thoughts? HornetMike (talk) 19:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Changes of division take place from the beginning of the season, which in England is, I believe, officially 1st July: Wolves should not be described as a Premiership team until then, nor Luton as a conference side, nor any other divisional change. This is the way that it has been consistently reported by the FA, the BBC, and responsible members of the press.

As to player moves/releases, strictly speaking that should be reported consistently with the terms of their contracts, in the case of loans, that is rarely known exactly, although care should be taken when either club is involved in play-offs. For players at the end of their contracts who are being "released", I suspect that it is most unusual for players to voluntarily waive two months of income, and standard contracts (in English football) run until the end of June, so I believe that players, although described as "released", remain on the payroll, and potentially a disciplinary liability, to the club that they were with, until the end of June. "Carlos Kickaball is a Fooian footballer registered to for Everpool FC, although it has been announced that hos contract will not be renewed when it expires in June 2009" seems more accurate to me than "Carlos Kickaball is a Fooian footballer currently without a club since his release in May 2009 from Everpool FC" Kevin McE (talk) 06:52, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Help with Template:Serie A Seasons needed

Can someone of our "Navbox converters" please have a look at Template:Serie A seasons, which I have converted to Navbox style earlier today? The little bugger displays a blank line after its content (see Serie A 2008–09 for an example), but even after a full hour of code review, I cannot find the error. *grumbles* Any help would be gladly appreciated. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 11:15, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

fixed the break before noinclude on {{Serie A}} chandler ··· 11:43, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Another problem with a composite template? I am über annoyed. Thanks for the fix! --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 12:18, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

A.C. Siena

In the article of A.C. Siena, it is said that the club returned Serie A in 2003 after last playing in Italy's top division in 1946. However, in the "history" section as well as the article Serie A, it is said that in 2003 it saw the first Serie A season of Siena in the club's history. So which one is true? Has Siena played in Serie A in 1946 and before? Salt (talk) 15:11, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

In 1945-46 a mixed wartime league composed by Serie A and Serie B teams was played; it was not officially recognized as 'Serie A' by the federation, since it was not even a single league (it was composed by a Northern and a Southern league, which Siena was part of, with top teams from them then playing a playoff tournament) but the league winners (Torino) were officially awarded the title. In short, it is not Serie A, so the first time for Siena in the Serie A league is in 2003. Details about the 1945-46 season can be found here: Serie A 1945-46. --Angelo (talk) 15:27, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the answer. I am going to add the relevant information to the article as currently it is a little bit unclear for those not familiar with the Serie A history like me. Salt (talk) 15:48, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Move request, La Liga 2009-10 to La Liga 2009–10

Can one of our administrators within the project please execute the move in the section title? The latter is currently a redirect to La Liga and thus blocking a regular move via the respective button. Thanks in advance, Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 16:39, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I have tagged the page with {{db-move}}. – PeeJay 17:02, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Naming inconsistencies in statistics and records articles

The lists of statistics and records have three naming styles; examples follow:

• Arsenal F.C. records
• Hereford United F.C. statistics (seems to be a records page)
• List of Ipswich Town F.C. statistics and records

I don't care whether statistics or records (or the combination of both) are used in the page title, but "List of" needs to be the beginning of the page title. Dabomb87 (talk) 17:41, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, all similar pages should have identical naming patterns...personally, I would go with List of Ipswich Town F.C. statistics and records as the guide. GiantSnowman 17:52, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be a trend towards using the "List of..." beginning in articles on Wikipedia. Why is this? What benefits does this provide over, say, the "Blah F.C. records" style? Especially when the "list of" titles can be redirects anyway. It seems to me to be a bit a of a pointless addition. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 07:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree. Where exactly does it specify that "List of" needs to be at the front? --Jameboy (talk) 11:30, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Answering my own question, I think it is covered by WP:LISTNAME. --Jameboy (talk) 11:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Chris Cummins

Located at Chris Cummins (footballer), he only ever played semi-professionally (although there's no mention of that on the article), he's now interim manager of Toronto F.C.. I know established tradition is to disam as (footballer) even if a person is better known as a manager, but I reckon using "(football coach)" or "(football manager)" would be better in this instance. Thoughts? HornetMike (talk) 19:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd say if he never played at a notable level, we shouldn't diambiguate him as a footballer. If there were two equally notable Russell Crowes, we wouldn't disambiguate the one out of Gladiator as "Russell Crowe (musician)" based on that terrible band he was also in. A precedent exists at Robert Brown (football manager), who never played professionally..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:03, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Football biography 2

Looks to me like someone's been messing around with Template:Infobox Football biography 2 - and it looks terrible. Can we revert this, or has the move been WikiApproved? GiantSnowman 16:27, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd normally just leave Ms2ger to get on with it as he generally knows templatespace very well, but I agree that these particular changes were questionable (or entirely baffling: bodyclass=geography?) - if changes need to be made then it'll need to happen gradually and preferably with some discussion as to the rationale. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Formal proposal to make the {{fb}} tag acceptable for player infoboxes

The {{fb}} tag produces an automatically-generated link to a national football team page in a player's infobox when accompanied by the three-letter FIFA trigramme like this - England - and, in my opinion, is extremely helpful. It reduces the need to remember long link text when linking to national team articles, makes infobox cleaner and easier to read when editing, and (if properly maintained) would negate the need to change lots and lots of the links in the (admittedly unlikely) event the page for a national football team was moved, as a simple change to the fb tag would automatically change all the links to that page.

The bone of contention seems to be that the tag produces a flag, which a number of edits believe contravenes the guidelines on flag use at WP:MOSFLAG. The section of this guideline relating to sportspeople states "Where flags are used in a table, it should clearly indicate that the flags represent sporting nationality, not nationality, if any confusion might arise." It is my thought that using the fb tag does not contravene this guideline, as the flag being used CLEARLY relates to sporting nationality (i.e. the country the player represents internationally), and therefore is perfectly acceptable.

Another sticking point in the past has been the fact that using flags in infoboxes messed with line formatting in the infoboxes and made the resulting box ugly; however, this problem is no longer is an issue with the new Football Infobox 2, which puts each line of text on an individual line rather than being broken by <br>'s.

So, I would like to formally propose that editors allow the use of the {{fb}} tags in infoboxes, and that the resulting flags be allowed as an indicator of sporting nationality - and ONLY sporting nationality (i.e. flags by places of birth/death and to show the nationality of a team still would not be allowed). --JonBroxton (talk) 20:23, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep, sounds good to me - flag is OK next to national team but NOT club teams etc, place of birth etc. GiantSnowman 20:53, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Please, not any more flags. What is the problem in manually creating the national team link? You have to do this once in a players career. I vote against that proposal. Formally. Madcynic (talk) 22:30, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Because it's handy. No-one is saying you HAVE to use it. The proposal is just to allow it if you want to. --JonBroxton (talk) 22:38, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't really see the point in putting a flag next to the written name of the national team, this type of usage seems to be purely decorative. Putting flags next to club teams makes more sense to me, since it is not always obvious at a glance where a player has plied his trade to those readers that do not have an encycolpaedic knowledge of world football. Having said this, I am still opposed to the use of any flags in infoboxes. King of the North East 22:56, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not about the flag, it's about the tag. The only reason I mention the flag is because the fact that the tag produces a flag seems to be the entire reason people have for not using the tag. My reasoning is: "the tag is useful and helpful, so can we please ignore the fac that there's a flag in this particular instance". --JonBroxton (talk) 23:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

If you want a simple way to link to England, instead of writing [[England national football team|England]], why not just write {{subst:nft|England}}. It produces exactly the same result as {{fb|ENG}} except without the flag. – PeeJay 23:48, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I had no idea that other tag existed.--JonBroxton (talk) 23:55, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

The only problem with nft over fb are for teams like the USA, which does produce a redirect in nft but a correct link in fb, perhaps nft could be reconfigured to use the flag template system without the flag, because for example now you can't use United States chandler ··· 04:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

A possibility would perhaps be to amend {{fb}} to create a link without the flag (this would create the possibility of using United States and give correct links to all teams, and sort of fork nft by not using subst:), if this was the fb template United States would create a link without the flag, while [[|]] with a flag... this could either be done inside the fb, or make a new separate or remake nft to use without subst: (unless someone knows a way to produce the same correct result with and without subst: for a template that uses so many layers of templates) chandler ··· 09:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I would oppose the use of the template in infoboxes because of the flag. It is purely decorative and creates an undue weight on the national team. Flags are more useful in long tables where they can help you find a country rather fast. I also suspect that the use of flags in this place will spread rapidly up in the infobox, and the maintenance work would increase. Since there is another template that does the trick I see no reason to do this. BTW, the nft template does not have to be substed which can be helpful in the infobox where much information is crammed already. Rettetast (talk) 01:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I would oppose per all of Rettetast's points. I had feared the desire to use {{fb}} stemmed from some people's enthusiasm for flags, and would be the first step towards having flags with everything again. But as JonBroxton makes it clear that this isn't the case, and as a suitable alternative template exists in {{nft}}, there's no need to go against the MoS. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:06, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Everton FC America

This article, although titled 'Everton FC America', talks about a team called the 'Houston Stars' - are they the same team (American franchising and all) or is it a hoax page? GiantSnowman 11:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Compare Houston Stars (WPSL). Seems like a cut&paste copy was made at some point. Nanonic (talk) 12:36, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Looking back at previous versions of the page, looks like the team was a proposed franchise that never played a game. I'll PROD it. GiantSnowman 13:27, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Pre-contract agreements

The BBC announces that Sami Hyypiä will leave Liverpool to join Bayer Leverkusen at the end of his contract. Cue a number of editors (mainly IPs) putting 'current club' as his new one...I've reverted the edits, but be on the look out for further incidents over the summer. GiantSnowman 15:09, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Bayer Leverkusen have confirmed the signing on their homepage (in German), but nevertheless, it would possibly be a good idea to add a hidden comment stating not to edit the club before the end of the season. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 15:24, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

We need an {{end of season}} warning template along the lines of {{current sport}} for stuff like this, to warn editors not to prematurely update club or contract information. I'll see if I can knock one up at some point. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:41, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Soccerholic - I wasn't doubting the accuracy of the news report, I was simply saying he won't be a Leverkusen player until his current contract expires, on 1 July 2009. And Chris - a template would be a great idea! GiantSnowman 16:01, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't doubting it either, just wanted to add another reliable source to the (usually very reliable) BBC report. As for the EoS template, this would definitely be a good idea. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 16:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Done. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:25, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm currently experiencing the same problems with Paul Le Guen who will left PSG at the end of the season. Looks like some guys don't think we read the news.

Template:Infobox Football biography 2 again

Something has happened to screw with the format of the infobox again. It looks awful - the footnotes are making the line height and spacing all over the place. What happened? --JonBroxton (talk) 17:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I've reverted some edits to the template but it still doesn't look right...where's Mr Cunningham when we need him, eh? GiantSnowman 17:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I've managed to find the problem code, it should be back to normal now...GiantSnowman 17:17, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Muchos gracias! Looks much better now. --JonBroxton (talk) 17:21, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Just ping me if you need to. FWIW I'd like to hear ms2ger out on exactly what he's trying to do here - some of the changes don't make any sense to me, but as I say he does generally know his stuff in templatespace. I would obviously rather he discussed these changes of course. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Football player categories

There are many players in Category:Southampton F.C. players who have never played for the first team, e.g trainees who have made it elsewhere, reserve team players etc. For example, the club signed Anthony Pulis in August 2008, but he has spent most of his career with the "Saints" in the treatment room. and has been nowhere near the first team. Should players such as these be included in the category? (I'm sure every other club player category has similar players who have never played for the first team). --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 16:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Last time it came up, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 28#Category:FC Example players, consensus was that if they'd had a contract then they counted, youth or whatever. Which I agree with, FWIW. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, any player to have a playing connection to a club should be included in the categories. GiantSnowman 16:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree, you're not a player until you actually play. - fchd (talk) 16:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

How would you describe someone who is a "youth player" then? GiantSnowman 16:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Whilst I tend to agree with Richard Rundle, I thank you for your comments. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 17:15, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe they should go into the category unless they have actually played for the club in question. I routinely remove youth team players from these categories. King of the North East 20:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree completely. First of all, you shouldn't be removing them from the categories as that is against the prior consensus (as linked to by Struway2); and second, there is no denying that – for example – Davide Petrucci or Danny Drinkwater are Manchester United players at present, despite them not having made a senior appearance for the club. I think that any player who is/has been contracted to a club (i.e. no triallists or under-16s) should be listed in that club's players category. – PeeJay 21:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I wasn’t aware of that previous discussion, I must have missed it, (had I seen it I would have backed up Jogurneys original reply). In terms of consensus this discussion has already had input from more editors, and there are about as many people on either side.
As for my view on the matter, I can't see the point in cluttering up a category called Club Atlético X footballers, with players that never actually played a single minute of football for Club Atlético X. If people really want to associate youth team players to a particular club via the category structure, what is wrong with creating Club Atlético X youth and reserve team footballers as a sub category of Club Atlético X footballers? (perhaps with a category heading like this category contains players that played in the youth divisions of Club Atlético X, but did not/have not appeared for the first team) This way someone browsing the main category would not find it cluttered with "non-players". King of the North East 22:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I can see your point here regarding them not playing in an official match but this idea of "clutter" is nonsense really. No offence, but those categories are filled with hundreds if not thousands of players who have played a match for the club and I'm sure a minority of sold on youth players/players without a first team cap will not "clutter up" the page. Either way, no one goes there to read the whole list one by one but rather to pick out the names that they do know (or at least I assume?). I'm sure the clubs that pay their wages very much regard them as their players. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 03:31, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to complicate the issue by stating that, for example, I would not include a player in a category for a team that he played for as a youth player, but I would for squad member who never made a first team appearance. Somehow I think a line should be drawn between someone who plays for a club's U18s/academy, and someone who has a first team squad number; for instance, Ipswich Town could sign Joe Bloggs in the summer, and he might be injured until next February; I would expect to see him in the Ipswich player category. пﮟოьεԻ 57 16:05, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that makes sense. I would only expect to find senior team players who were employed (on the books) by the club in the category. Jogurney (talk) 21:42, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Number57 and Jogurney. This is what I thought all along but somehow in the last discussion it ended up including youth players as well. Hubschrauber729 (talk) 22:12, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I accept the idea that there is a much stronger case for the inclusion of a player that made it into the first team squad, (say a 2nd choice goalkeeper who sat on the bench many times but never played) than for kids that failed to make the grade in the youth academy, then went on to become notable (by our standards) playing elsewhere. Perhaps the cutoff could be set at either made the bench of a competitive match or was issued with a first team squad number? King of the North East 23:05, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Whilst that is great in theory, and is in line with my own opinion, how can you be sure some time later whether or not a player had a squad number? Take Arron Davies for example: he was a trainee at Southampton and remained with the club until he was 20, so presumably signed a professional contract, but I can't be certain even three years later. The further back you go, the harder it will be to be positive as to whether or not a player achieved either of the proposed benchmarks. --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 06:55, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

..........and what about players from before the mid-60s, when substitutes were first introduced? If we had evidence that a player was in a club's first team squad in the 1950s (say, from a team group photo reproduced in a book) but never played, would we include him.....? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 06:58, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Good points. In the era before substitutes and squadnumbers, appearing in a first team photo seems like a reasonable standard for inclusion. As for cases such as Arron Davies, I'd say don't categorise them unless some kind of evidence that he was more than just a youth team player can be found, since WP:Categorisation says "It should be clear from the verifiable information in the article why it was placed in each of its categories". King of the North East 23:03, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

It's much easier to verify that a player was with a club than to prove this higher standard that you are proposing. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 05:01, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

You say higher standard like it is a bad thing. Higher standards generally relate to higher quality, which is why we have inclusion criteria for articles etc. WP should not become the worlds biggest trivial database.--ClubOranje^T 05:38, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

It is a bad thing if it constitutes original research and can't be verified in most cases. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 10:20, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

There are some clubs (eg Hutchison Vale in Edinburgh) that specialise in developing players, and don't have a senior team. A category for those players would be informative IMO. Perhaps an alternative proposal is to create sub-categories for youth players, as has been done in some cases for wartime guest players? Jmorrison230582 (talk) 05:10, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

(un-indent as this is a general comment, not a reply to Jmorrison) My thoughts on the subject (sorry, I do go on a bit)... Robbie Savage makes a thing about being rejected by Manchester United. He came through the youth system of that club along with several of their big-name players, the only difference being that at age 19 or whatever, never having got anywhere near the first team, they didn't think he was quite good enough. Players who were developed at a club must be categorised as in some way associated to that club.

My own club took Djimi Traoré on loan this season. He was injured in his first reserve game. As it happens, because he recovered quickly enough and because we ran out of defenders, he ended up playing; if Ridgewell hadn't broken his leg and Murphy not fractured his kneecap and blah blah, he might well not have done. But regardless of whether he played, he was clearly a member of the first-team squad with a number to prove it. Fifty years ago, it wouldn't have been at all clear that a player in similar circumstances was a first-team player. Making rules that only work properly with modern football organisation is WP:RECENT.

Even in these days of squad numbers, we get regular arguments about whether fringe or youth players with squad numbers should be included in the squad list on club articles or not. Can you imagine what fun could be had by people with a particular point of view arguing the toss about whose team photo was or was not an official representation of the first-team squad? let alone arguing about who that bloke second from the right back row actually was... We can't start guessing who was or was not a first-team "squad member" 20 or 120 years ago.

I wouldn't have a problem with the categories being split between players who have played for a club's first team in an official competitive match, and players who have not, but any other distinction comes down to original research. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:07, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

As is common on this discussion page, it's quite possible for us to resolve this simply by looking beyond our own WikiProject guidelines and at the general ones - if a player is tied to a club by multiple reliable secondary sources, he should be in their category. If not, then not. It's that simple. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:23, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

topscorer parameter in club infoboxes

Yesterday User:Ief added this parameter to a lot of English football club infoboxes, I think all of the Prem teams and some others. I thought this was one of a group introduced specifically for the MLS and the rest of us thought it was excessive and unnecessary detail. The documentation confirms the MLS-specific bit, anyway :-) Also, in no case has the user added a source for their addition. I've undone it on Birmingham City F.C., as has PeeJay on MUFC, but should the rest stay or go? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:11, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

If it's going to go then the parameter should be removed entirely. I'd rather MLS were treated as similarly as possible to our other articles. I do agree that this particular stat isn't really important enough to warrant placement in the infobox. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:37, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

the parameters were added so that MLS would use the same infobox as the rest of us, rather than using their own which they had been doing, i.e. so that MLS was treated as similarly as possible. I've now found the original discussion here. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:34, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, but it's perhaps time to revisit that discussion, seeing as over the last year there's been a general move to reduce American exceptionalism when it comes to footy articles. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:18, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I would agree (and have started removing them from the English clubs' articles). The one editor who caused most of the issues around the infobox has since been indefblocked. пﮟოьεԻ 57 09:43, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

New template - Fb map

Hi. I would like to introduce my new template Template:Fb map. This template will help all of us in process of creation football maps. Instead of new line for each team with coordinates like was before

{{Location map start|Germany|width=350|float=right}}
{{Location map marker|Germany|lat=52.511274|long=13.242632|label=[[Hertha BSC]]}}
{{Location map marker|Germany|lat=52.022833|long=8.522395|label=[[Arminia Bielefeld{{!}}Bielefeld]]}}
{{Location map end|Germany|caption=Location of teams in the '''Fußball-Bundesliga 2008-09'''}}

it takes only one line of code:

{{Fb map|nt=2|map=Germany|label=Teams distribution in Bundesliga 2008-09|1=Bayern Munich|pos1=bottom|2=Hertha BSC}}

This works because I added coordinates to Fb team template. It's no reason to multiply bytes in every article. Hope you like it.
I wouldn't do this without huge help of user:Botev - real master of templates.
--Verwolff (talk) 13:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Although the idea is nice in its principles, it might not be fully developed since there is a reason for the code duplication. Just have a look at the code for the maps at Premier League 2008–09 or any of the Fußball-Bundesliga maps in the 1970s or 1980s. The main issues here are that the label for the marker cannot be properly displayed on any side of the dot because it would clash with the label and/or the dot of one or more other markers. Additionally to that - what happens with maps similar to Azerbaijan Premier League 2008–09, FAI League of Ireland 2009 or Serbian Superliga 2008–09 which contain several teams from one city? If we have to manually write the code for those, then I say we do not need a template extension. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 13:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

There is an optional argument for label location: bottom, left or top. In case of necessity more locations hopefully it can be added to the code.--Verwolff (talk) 14:20, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

From a programmer's view of things – the word "hopefully" is usually an indicator for a feature which might be hard to realize, if realizable at all. A possible solution would be to introduce optional parameters which hold the coordinates for the marker display, but then again, this is pretty much what the original template does as well.

And yet another (albeit minor) issue - what happens if a team decides to change its home ground (that is where the markers are usually referring to)? Do you want to create another fb team template just because of a move (since the coordinates, if altered, change globally in all articles using the team template)?

To sum it all up, I do not think that a "new" football specific map template would be that useful since it would pretty much have all the functionalities of the Location map template and, as a consequence, would be a case for a deletion discussion at least, if not speedy deletion right away (see also Wikipedia:CSD#Templates). However, it would be nice to hear more opinions. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 14:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I really don't know what is your point. If you don't want to use it - it is your will - you can write 24 long lines of code instead of only one. No compulsion. I believe other users are not as shortsighted as you. And tell me how many teams changed their location and coordinates in last years.--Verwolff (talk) 17:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

FC Bayern Munich moved from 48° 10′ 23.04″ N, 11° 32′ 47.52″ E to 48° 13′ 7.59″ N, 11° 37′ 29.11″ E; Arsenal moved from 51° 33′ 27.67″ N, 0° 6′ 10.48″ W to 51°33′18.08″N 0°6′30.50″W; Hoffenheim moved from 49° 28′ 46″ N, 8° 30′ 9″ E to 49°14′20.43″N 8°53′17.81″E. Those are three examples, and I'm fully with Soccer-holic on this. Madcynic (talk) 14:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't be joking, this kind of movement can't be observed on country map. I would consider only case if Bayern move to Berlin or Real to Barcelona. Why aren't you fully being reasonable? Why don't you write in what second (or even 1/100 of second) goals were scored? I am sorry that I wanted to help and simplified some ardous work on wikipedia.--Verwolff (talk) 15:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

On that I can add 4 Swedish teams this season. And many teams get new stadiums if their country get a World Cup or Euro etc. chandler ··· 14:26, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Which team should be regarded as the home team of two-leg matches

For the recent edit of Copa Libertadores 2009, Digirami keeps reverting and stated that the higher seeded team as the home team. What do you think? Raymond Giggs 08:36, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

There have been similar cases at UEFA Cup 2008–09 last summer, when several ties swapped dates for the legs. In this cases, a note has been placed under the match list of the respective round. I would propose to apply this for the Copa Libertadores article as well. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 09:19, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Jack Harrison

This little freak keeps vandalising the page. He has undone my last edit, which was a restoration of the page to how it was before he vandalised it. I have already given him a last warning. How do I go about getting him banned?--EchetusXe (talk) 10:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Post to WP:AIV. Nanonic (talk) 12:53, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately the last warning you gave him was in April, he'll need another final warning for THIS spate of vandalism before he'll be blocked via that page. Of course this doesn't preclude any admin reading this from hitting him with the ban-hammer. Nanonic (talk) 13:01, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Blocked. Not a single constructive edit. No need to let it continue. Rettetast (talk) 13:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Nice one, thnx.--EchetusXe (talk) 15:36, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

More South American football problems.

Take a look at Torneo de Apertura de Chile 2009 and you can see what's wrong with this tournament. I don't even know where to begin without annoying the main editor... but its over 123,000 bytes big!!! And it provides so much unnecessary information than it should.

But it makes me bring up 2 pending issues I've seen with South American football:

1. Naming of Primera Division leagues
2. How to approach Apertura/Clausura leagues that have two championship per season.

I'll address the latter in this post since it might involve a lot of editing.

The first would be articles. Because some Apertura/Clausura leagues do crown two champs a year, I think they should have two articles, one for each tournament, as well as an article that covers the season in review and season-wide issues like relegation. But there are some Apertura/Clausura leagues that do not crown two champs a years, and merely use an Apertura or Clausura stage to determine who play in a championship match (Uruguay and Peru are two main examples). Those types should just have one article per season.

Second would have to be usage of templates, and pretty much making their usage the standard/mandatory, if it is not done so already. And if they are the standard/mandatory, making it known. A lot of the editors of these leagues have little or no idea on their existence, how easy they are to use, and their notable preference to normal formatting. But to be sure, what's the "official" policy on their usage?

Third is more of a question, but is there like a guideline or MoS for league season articles? If there is, where can I find that info!? Digirami (talk) 02:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Concerning the first question, I think u raised a discussion in April, and the discussion is here. At that time, I think the majority opinion is that we should have only one article even for those countries that crown 2 champions each year as per the reasons at that time. And I think u also agreed to this conclusion then. So what's the reason for changing the position?

Indeed we didn't carry out real change after the last discussion. I think we should do something to standardise the format of those Apertura/Clausura leagues, no matter what the discussion is.

Regarding the templates problem, I totally agree with u that a standard template is necessary and should be made known to all the main contributors in those articles. Salt (talk) 07:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

About the first, was more a "realization" (for lack of better term) that I had once I reach the Mexican Primera Division articles... And there is a lot of information between the two tournaments from the current season. I did a test in the sandbox, and the best I could reduce it to was about 65KBs for one season; that much information could easily be split into two articles. But I still hold the position that if the league crowns one champion a season, it should still be one article, even if it uses the Apertura/Clausura system.

Some change was carried out on my part afterwards, with some help. Primera División Argentina 2008–09 was made into one article, and so was Primera División Chilena 2008. A discussion is underway to merge some aspects of Primera División Peruana 2008, but has had little interest, as with two others I started. The Mexican and Colombian league editors seem to be pretty adamant about keeping separate articles for the tournaments (especially the Mexican league editors). Because of this, I thought of this new idea for certain Apertura/Clausura leagues. It's simply just another option/idea to consider.

But again, the problem with that is always going to be the current editors of those leagues. Some are stubborn to any change, no matter how positive they are. I guarantee that once I start editor the above article, that editor will probably reverted (it has already happened to me in two different leagues). So, support or input here on this page from multiple contributors is key.

But the main problem with some of the articles I come across is simply the format and structure of the articles (which is what the discussion really was supposed to be, but then I brought back an old discussion). The European league articles are similar in structure, design, information... something a lot of the Latin American leagues lack (most likely due to less scrutiny from editors involved with discussions in this talk page). That's what really needs fixing. Look at an example like Torneo de Apertura de Chile 2009 again and you'll see what I'm talking about. Digirami (talk) 08:06, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for what you have done since the last discussion. I've just checked the talk page at some of the concerned articles, and agree that your current suggestion is probably the best option around, given that there are quite a few editors hold a strong opposite opinion. Anyway, I find what you say at the talk page of Primera División de México Clausura 2009 is very reasonable and feasible, namely "The Apertura and Clausura articles get mildly stripped down to the information concerning those tournaments. And in the season wide article, you will find club information, the list of basic information on the tournaments (winners, intl qualifiers, the top-scorer), season rules, and the relegation table."

I think this suggestion would be agreed by most of the editors in those leagues, as it caters for different situations of different leagues. Do u know any Apertura/Clausura league may oppose this suggestion?

For the template thing, I think it is less controversy. I think the editors in those league don't use the standardised template mainly because they don't know the convention, or even the existence of the templates. So I suggest we could simply start to use the templates in those pages, have a brief explanation in the talk page, and the others would follow the precedent.

Feel free to contact me if you need any help. Cheers, Salt (talk) 18:39, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Darlington F.C.

The inevitable return of the serial-unregistered-Darlington F.C. editor has returned with his/her non-MoS complying edits. 79.75.179.252 (talk · contribs) has been adding sponsorship league names, adding players who can not possibly be registered with a team etc. While not all of his/her edits are unconstructive, a lot of them are quite annoying! Thanks, Mattythewhite (talk) 19:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Footy watchlist

I just glanced at our watchlist and noticed that only three items on the list are less than a year old. Perhaps it should be updated, or done away with altogether and replaced with some advice on what to do about persistant vandalism with a list of willing and active footy admins to contact for page protection, blocks etc? King of the North East 21:28, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it's useful for newcomers and serves well as a list of the most vandalised footy articles, but a bit more updating and/or trimming would certainly not go amiss. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 07:56, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the list is very helpful. Most of the articles are already heavily guarded. Sillyfolkboy has a point though. At least move it to a subpage so that related changes can be used. General advice can be found other places on wikipedia. Links to WP:AIV and WP:RFPP are better than a list of admins that may or may not be active at moment. Rettetast (talk) 11:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

To be honest it's gotten a bit pointless - it can't be a comprehensive list of articles that get heavy abuse (because practically every top-flight team does now), and I don't see what other purpose it has. I'd be happy with getting rid of it; the main WP:FOOTY page shouldn't just be a dumping ground for stuff, especially stuff that's hardly being used or updated. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep, agreed. If an article is the victim of heavy vandalism, then it should be reported to the appropiate places. Listing it on the WP:FOOTY page gets nothing done, as I doubt very few people (myself included) actually bother to check it. GiantSnowman 13:33, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposing getting rid of this

I'm pretty firmly of the opinion that this isn't reeally serving any purpose these days, so I reckon we should get rid of it. I'm planning on doing further work to make the project page more generally usable (along with the dozens of sub-pages which barely seem to get looked at) in the future. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:57, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I have been bold and removed the section. I sounds like a great idea to make the project page more usable. Rettetast (talk) 15:07, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Seems fair enough to me. The project is sufficiently well-organised and popular to prevent such large scale vandalism anyway. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 15:27, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Players being released

Both Bradford City and the BBC confirms that a number of players HAVE been released - NOT that they will be released in the future. Am I safe to remove the players from the squad lists, or should I assume that both sources have simply used poor wording, and wait until 30 June 2009 when their contracts officially expire? GiantSnowman 11:00, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Basically, "released" is a short word for "not being retained once their contract expires", unless it says they've actually been paid up and gone, so I'd (try and) wait until June 30. For example, this piece on Lincoln City's site, headed "Seven Released" talks in the opening sentence about seven players having been released. But if you read further down, the detail refers to "Players out of contract on June 30th 2009 who will not be retained for the 2009/10 season:" followed by a list of said seven players. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, not a problem, will wait then! Cheers, GiantSnowman 11:17, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

You could always put a note against them saying "to be released at end of contract" or "not being retained" or some better phrasing thereof. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:28, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's an example. Bettia (bring on the trumpets!) 11:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Although, after being released, whatever that means exactly, it would appear a player is able to join another club whenever they want. For example, Stuart Elliott joined Grays Athletic in May 2008 after being released by York City, despite him technically still being under contract at York (which would have expired on 30 June) and being before the designated opening date of the transfer window (1 June). Mattythewhite (talk) 12:28, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Players can be released early, if the club and the player come to an agreement over money. It's called a mutual termination. GiantSnowman 12:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

And/or it may be just conventional wording for the player having agreed to sign for the second club on 1 July once his contract with the first club expires. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:06, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Lest you missed my pearls of wisdom higher up the page ;@)  :

As to player moves/releases, strictly speaking that should be reported consistently with the terms of their contracts, in the case of loans, that is rarely known exactly, although care should be taken when either club is involved in play-offs. For players at the end of their contracts who are being "released", I suspect that it is most unusual for players to voluntarily waive two months of income, and standard contracts (in English football) run until the end of June, so I believe that players, although described as "released", remain on the payroll, and potentially a disciplinary liability, to the club that they were with, until the end of June. "Carlos Kickaball is a Fooian footballer registered to for Everpool FC, although it has been announced that hos contract will not be renewed when it expires in June 2009" seems more accurate to me than "Carlos Kickaball is a Fooian footballer currently without a club since his release in May 2009 from Everpool FC" Kevin McE (talk) 06:52, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Good luck whoever does Macclesfield Town!--EchetusXe (talk) 22:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Chelsea F.C. vs FC Barcelona, 2009 UEFA Champions League semi-final, second leg

Does anyone else think that this is a completely insane idea for an article? – PeeJay 12:45, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes. - fchd (talk) 12:46, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Ridiculous. I'd say. -- Alexf^(talk) 12:49, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

PeeJay, want to start and AfD? -- Alexf^(talk) 12:55, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

To quote one of the subheadings, "It's a fucking disgrace!" GiantSnowman 12:56, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I've already prodded it. If that gets rejected, I'll start an AfD. – PeeJay 12:59, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I've notified the article creator. GiantSnowman 13:02, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

And I've now converted the PROD to an AfD. Please make comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chelsea F.C. vs FC Barcelona, 2009 UEFA Champions League semi-final, second leg. – PeeJay 13:18, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree... A better article would be Guus Hiddink's curse, the story about how Hiddink's South Korea managed to get through Italy and Spain on very suspect calls. In 2006 Italy managed to get their revenge through a suspect penalty in the... wait for it 93rd minute. In 2009 Spain (through Barcelona) got their revenge through some suspect calls and got their goal in the 93rd minute. Both Italy and Barcelona had red cards against them (Materazzi and Abidal) and went on to win... This can't all be a coincidence?! chandler ··· 12:51, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe mention the "curse" on Hiddink's page - it even that. It's definitely not worth a seperate article. GiantSnowman 13:03, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Hehe :D na I just red a Italian blogger who laid that theory and found it a bit funny. chandler ··· 13:05, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

It also depends on your interpretation of "very suspect". To me, it seems obvious that the referee had a bit of a howler, but that's what happens sometimes when refs get guilty about wrongly sending players off. Champions League semis can't be particularly easy to officiate, what with most of the participants being professional dramatists. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:02, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Spanish season play-off article naming

I've spent the last half hour or so giving Segunda División Play-Off 2007-08 a bit of a tidy, adding a barely servicable lead etc. but I'm more concerned with the actual title of the article (and by extension the articles on play-offs from other seasons). While it describes itself as the play-off for the 2nd division for that season, its actually really the play-offs for promotion from 2nd B to 2nd, as well as relegation from 2nd B to 3rd.
I'm unsure whether to leave it at its current title, and remove the bit about the relegations play-offs to the article Segunda División B Play-Off 2007-08, or move it to that title and move the B play-offs article to Tercera División Play-Off 2007-08. Thought that before I start proposing some mass renaming (given the furore I inadvertently set off the last time I tried that) I'd see what people here thought about it. You wouldn't call the play-offs from England's Championship for promotion to the premiership the Premiership Play-offs, but I'm not sure what the actual Spanish title for them is. - Chrism would like to hear from you 19:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

High priority expansion needed

I found the article league system in a sorry state of affairs. It barely passed muster as a decent disambiguation page, what with the title links and all. I've created an adhoc template for all of the previously linked articles and removed them from the body of text as you can see at the current article. I'd recommend using the template on the related articles too.

This article needs a vast amount of expansion in its current state and it seems to be the obvious home for all the material at the half-baked promotion and relegation article. I think that much of the information is applicable to all the sports mentioned (as far as I know). What do others make of a merge proposal for the two?

In fact, on top of that, I've just discovered Professional sports league organization which only complicates the matter. I think that would be better titled as Differences between North American and European league models! It seems that the article developed away from an initial discussion of sports franchising following the proposal by now banned User:Robdurbar. Perhaps it was confusion based upon the fact that league system was poorly developed and American users failing to realise that European clubs aren't franchises? I'd recommend a removal of much of this personal essay/case study style and refocus to a brief overview of the two related sporting structures and expand from there. However, this would necessitate a solution to the problem of having no core article for sports franchise which should be the daughter article to this section of Major North American professional sports leagues.

Also we should be careful not to duplicate too much of playoffs, Major North American professional sports leagues, Group tournament,Sports league and Division (sport). There's a parent article crying out to made here. Also I propose a merge for those last too linked articles. (This really is a bit of a mess isn't it?) Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 01:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Football federation

Why is there no core article on the topic of Football federation or Football association? There isn't even a List of football associations/List of football federations (add association term as appropriate). I'll look to create the latter list but we really should have an article describing what a football association actually is rather than just a redirect to the English FA. The same goes for Football confederations. The article Football organizations seems to be playing some part in this. Redirects are needed to that too. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 01:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Moved the existing organizations article to list of football federations; go right ahead and create articles if you think we need them. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Infobox Football club

Could an editor who is savvy about these things please make a change to the Infobox Football club syntax so that, when the "American = true" parameter is used, it automatically changes "Manager" to "Head Coach"? 99.9% of US teams use the term Head Coach rather than Manager. There is already one of these parameters to change "Ground" to "Stadium", and it would make life much simpler for editors like me who regularly work on US team pages to have it autochange rather than having to add another line of code to clutter up the infobox. Thanks! --JonBroxton (talk) 20:18, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

rollback needed

Can some one rollback User HoldenV8's edits on stadium articles? He seems to have removed various bits of formatting, added postal addresses, and also added some dubious information in the Old Trafford article too having just marked them as "minor" without an edit summary. Cheers. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 07:41, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

This is not a rollback task. Rollback should only be used for obvious vandalism. This is a good faith effort and the user needs guidance on his talk page and not a blind revert of everything he has done. You have do it the hard way. Sorry. Rettetast (talk) 10:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough then. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 14:28, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Harry Bruce and Halmstads BK

Harry Bruce (footballer)'s playing career appears to have ended in 1931/32. My book says he retired in 1939/40, but doesn't mention what he might have been doing in the intervening period to retire from. The Swedish club Halmstads BK appointed their first non-Swedish manager, one Harry Bruce, former English professional, in 1937, and he left in 1939. Joyce's Football League players book only lists one Harry Bruce. Now it appears to me that on balance of original research, synthesis of circumstantial evidence, and all the other things we can't do, it's bleedinobvious they're the same bloke, but could anyone possibly shed any reliably-sourced light on the matter... Thanks, Struway2 (talk) 08:29, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Halmstads BK site confirms he is English[11]. It could only but be him...May I add Halmstads BK manager template?--Latouffedisco (talk) 17:08, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I know it does. It also describes him as a former English professional [12]. Perhaps there is enough circumstantial evidence to assume them to be the same person, I'm probably being too picky... I'll add the template and a few words, cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Just be bold. We have clearly some evidences here.--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:07, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Play-offs ≠ league matches

Having reverted another editor's addition of one appearance to the infoboxes of 13 players after the Gills' play-off semi-final first leg, can I just confirm that I'm right in thinking that play-off games are considered "other matches" and not league games.....? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 18:04, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

You are correct. Even Soccerbase has managed to grasp that one (mostly). cheers, Struway2 (talk) 18:10, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

unfortunately, premiumtv-hosted club sites do tend to count them as league games, so it can get confusing... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 18:12, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

UAE Federation cup

I declined the speedy deletion on this one, added your project tag, and cleaned it up a bit. Anyone who's interested in articles that enter or leave one of the deletion processes should keep an eye on your project's WP:Article alerts page. - Dank (push to talk) 19:46, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Football players of Turkish descent

Is this a reasonable category, or does it qualify for CfD? Hubschrauber729 (talk) 00:22, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't seem too bad in itself, but it is one of those "hard to verify but gets slapped on every player with a bit of a tan" categories. What is it with people on Wikipedia being so crazy about people's nationalities? I once found myself trying to argue that Bob Dylan was not Turkish, I kid ye not! Either keep the articles within the category which strictly have a referenced source to say they have Turkish heritage or scrap it. It's all so inanely arbitrary anyway. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 02:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Frank Soo

Seems to be some kind of rucus over his 'real name'.--EchetusXe (talk) 19:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The lead is still a mess. Then there's the old full-stops either side of the references, of which I'm especially fond. Hopefully someone will bring it into line. - Dudesleeper / Talk 02:16, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I've added a better infobox and done a bit of cleaning up, I'll do some more later tonight after I finish my bloody dissertation! GiantSnowman 16:40, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Task force proposal (Football in Slovenia)

Please have a look at this proposal and support if interested. ~EdGl ★ 16:19, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Bobby Baxter

Could someone take a look at Bobby Baxter? The article looks in some cases like nonsense. His name Robert Denholm Baxter is the same like the scottish international Bobby Baxter (Scottish footballer), and he was Darlingtons top scorer with 3 goals?!? --Ureinwohner (talk) 21:01, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I've corrected the infobox - he actually scored 30 goals in his two seasons at Darlington and was top scorer in both of them.Also the name is correct (all per www.allfootballers.com). As he was born in Redcar, when his namesake was playing for Middlesbrough, it's probable that they were father and son - perhaps Denholm was a name used throughout the family. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 21:52, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

International players

Some websites say that some players are international but, then I found out that some of them didn´t get to play any game, they were only non-used substitutes. What to do in this cases? This players are clearly "inferior" to the real internationals with caps, but "superior" to all other players that were never called to the national team, since they did make part of the strict number of players that receved a call to represent their country. It also happens in the wiki categories, in the lists of players that make part of the different nations international players, we can find some players that are considered international but do not have any caps for the nt. I supose the reason is becouse of what I´ve said before, they were called but not used. Resuming, can a player with no capps, but having been called, be considered international, for lists purposes,etc. FkpCascais (talk) 18:45, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

A player who has been called up, but not received any caps, should NOT be considered an international player. GiantSnowman 18:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, he should NOT be considered an international player, but receiving a call-up can indicate the nationality a player have chosen.--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:10, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

That seems a pretty good rule of thumb but you could have cases where a player is called up against his will like Anthony Seric who was called up by both teams in a single match in 1998.The Hack 08:56, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

In the case of Seric, as he played for Croatia, he is (at least sportively) Croatian, then Australian.--Latouffedisco (talk) 11:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Its just becouse, for my lists, I used in some cases, the lists from the wiki Category:International players of (name of country), and then I find out that the lists were not that precise, so I had to check all the players... In some cases in some country international players category, I´ve find out there were: really international players+some Under21 players+some normal players, and some real (capped) internationals missing!? That category could/shoud be precise.Only capped international players, wright? FkpCascais (talk) 22:35, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Image of a medal

Does anyone know if there would be copyright complications if I added an image of a winners' medal from one of the FA competitions to an article or articles? I have access to one (ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies :-) ) but I'm not sure if I uploaded it whether or not people would start claiming that copyright lies with the FA or something and therefore it would be a copyvio....... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I dont know, would it be any different from trophies? File:The FA Cup Trophy.jpg chandler ··· 11:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Suggest you try asking at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:38, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Commons has categories of quite recent medals such as commons:Category:Olympic medals so I don't think there would be any probs but agree with Struway. Nanonic (talk) 12:01, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Johnny McIntyre

It appears there are two footballers called Johnny McIntyre; a Scottish one active in the 70s and 80s in Scotland and France, and one active in the 1920s for Sheffield Wednesday and Blackburn Rovers. Does anyone have a date of birth for the 1920s guy, so I can disambiguate properly? Cheers, GiantSnowman 13:04, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

At least three... The Sheff Wed one is called John McGregor McIntyre, born 4 Jan 1895 in Glasgow, died 1974. There's another, John McMutrie McIntyre, also known as Johnny, born 19 Oct 1898 in Glasgow, died 1974, who played 349 games for Derby and 58 for Chesterfield. Source: {{cite book |last=Joyce |first=Michael |title=Football League Players' Records 1888 to 1939 |publisher=SoccerData (Tony Brown) |location=Nottingham |year=2004 |page=170 |isbn=978-1-899468-67-6}} cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Cheers man, really appreciated. I've created them at (1895) and (1898); any chance you could use the Joyce book to add any more info to the articles? Thanks again, GiantSnowman 14:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

United

On Manchester United articles, is the use of "United" as the short form of "Manchester United" an acceptable usage? It is clearly the common usage when discussing that topic but it might create ambiguities at times. What do people think? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 16:54, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it should be ok except in articles/sections where two different teams both called United are being discussed. BEVE (talk)  19:59, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

It all depends on context. If it has already been established that the subject of a sentence is Manchester United, then surely "United" is an acceptable alternative to having to type out "Manchester United" again. It also introduces some variety into people's writing. Of course, if ambiguity with another United was possible, I would tend to use "the Red Devils", "the Manchester club" or similar. – PeeJay 01:08, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Manchester United should always be the usage on the first mention in a paragraph, and "United" should never be used alone if there is the slightest hint of ambiguity. In cases where it is patently obvious there is no problem in using a short form. However, "Man United" and other such informal terms should never be used. Nicknames are a tricky one. Using sparingly and in the appropriate place they can add colour into what might otherwise be a dry sentence, but in the wrong place they give an air of overfamiliarity. The same advice applies to all Uniteds, Citys, Countys, Wanderers and so on of course. Oldelpaso (talk) 15:38, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I broadly agree with that. Writing out the full name is a bit much sometimes but using short forms and nicknames can occasionally jar against the rest of the prose. Upon reflection, I don't think there are any perfect solutions or hard and fast rules to be made here. I think "the (insert home city) side/club" usage is almost always good one though and helps with variety. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Calling All Athletics Fans!} 14:37, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

So, if you're writing about a player's time at West Bromwich Albion, you should always give the club's full name (exc. F.C.) in the opening sentence. After that, you can refer to them as "Albion" or occasionally as "the Baggies", but never "West Brom" - is that correct? --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 15:09, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

That's the trouble with rules of thumb, there's always exceptions ;) "West Brom" is almost certainly a more common short form than "Albion", and is freely used in articles in the quality end of the press, but "Man United" would only be likely to be used in a headline or league table to save space. Capricious, but that's English for you. Wolves is fine, Pompey is iffy, and Notts Forest is right out. Oldelpaso (talk) 16:07, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Captions in lists

Can I just make a recommendation to editors? When compiling player awards lists (or similar) and adding their appropriate images, please don't just state that they won that award in the year X. It's pretty evident looking at the list. See here for an example.

We should try to pick out little facts which aren't so obvious to the reader. Try to cross reference the material in the list and/or draw information from the player's articles. Compare the previous version with the changes I made here. The little facts don't need to be trivial as there's often much information which can be drawn upon. For example, many people would overlook the 19 year gap between wins by Liverpool players. Again, without prior knowledge or a look at Klinsmann's article, most wouldn't know that he won the award in his first season in England. This does much to pique the reader's interest and adds descriptive prose to an otherwise rigid table of facts. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Calling All Athletics Fans!} 10:53, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree entirely, so long editors also remember to add sources for any added facts that aren't obvious from the list itself. Unsourced image captions would be a fail for Featured List status. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep, agreed on that. I would suggest not going over board on sourcing for some facts – for example I think the fact that a player played for a certain club during a certain period should qualify under common sense. Number of goals/appearances etc, on the other hand, would be better with a citation. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Calling All Athletics Fans!} 11:34, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Manager notability

Do managers follow the WP:ATHLETE guidelines (i.e. managed in a fully-professional league/competition), or is it more of a case of them passing general notability? Cheers, --Jimbo^[online] 12:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I've always used WP:ATHLETE i.e. a manager who has managed an international team, or a team in a fully-pro league, is notable. However, as with all footballers, a manager can fail WP:ATHLETE and still pass WP:N. GiantSnowman 13:05, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Anthony Delicat, Osvaldo Montero and Marco Antonio

I can´t find any information about this players, and I need help. All of them played in the Yugoslav First League. Anthony Delicat played in FK Vojvodina for 3 seasons, from 1983/86. The other two were players of Spartak Subotica in the season of 1990/91. Osvaldo Montero can also be Montero Osvaldo, and Marco Antonio is possibly brazilian, since there were other brazilian in the club at that time. Anybody knows something about them? FkpCascais (talk) 19:02, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I´ve found out Delicat is from Ghana. Its in the german wikipedia FK Vojvodina page, but there it says Alfons Delicat... FkpCascais (talk) 14:58, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

There was a Rufin Delicat that played internationally for Gabon (appeared in a WC qualifier in 1989 according to RSSSF). I wonder if it's the same person who played for Vojvodina. Jogurney (talk) 19:02, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

It´s not impossible. I only have two informations: one yugoslav website that lists the players that have played in Yugoslav First League, where only says,Anthony Delicat and that he played 8, 5 and 8 games in those 3 years with 0 goals, and the german wiki where he´s Alfons. The period is almost the same, so it is posible. Maybe he´s Anthony Rufin Delicat, known as Alfons in Germany,a ghanaian that latter played for Gabon... just joking... or not... what a mess! Thanx a lot, I´ll try to find if Rufin played in Europe, and if so, where. FkpCascais (talk) 22:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The reason I mentioned it is Delicat is a surname of French origin, which would be more common for a Gabonese footballer than a Ghanaian footballer. Nothing certain, but perhaps worth a look. Jogurney (talk) 23:12, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I still can´t find anything. You´re right, but the german wiki clearly says ghanaian, but it says Alfons... If he´s really from Ghana, it would be more logical to be Anthony, since they speak english there. FkpCascais (talk) 16:37, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Don McRae (cricketer)

A (low priority) gentleman on my watchlist has just been renamed from Don McRae to Don McRae (cricketer) due to other McRaes coming into existance, which has highlighted a minor dilemma I guess I was coming to sooner or later. He is arguable notable equally for both football and cricket having played 1 international football match and 1 cricket test. I have noted on the DAB page his notability for both, but is there a better naming scheme that covers both? it looks a little odd having Don McRae (cricketer) in the relevant football categories, but equally Don McRae (footballer) would look odd in the cricket ones.--ClubOranje^T 10:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Move to Don McRae (sportsman)? GiantSnowman 10:53, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

If it was me, I'd leave him where he was, and create a redirect from (footballer). If you call him (sportsman) he'll get moved again as soon as another sportsperson called Don McRae turns up. He won't be the first (cricketer) in the footballer categories. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:06, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

If you look at Category:England international footballers who also played Test cricket, you will see that three of the articles have the suffix "cricketer". IMHO, the McRae article can remain where it is, with a redirect from "footballer". - Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 11:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

If (sportsman) isn't acceptable, I'd say move to Don McRae (footballer); he was first and foremost a footballer. He made his international football debut in 1936, and didnt play for NZ at cricket for another ten years, in 1946. GiantSnowman 11:29, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

First a footballer, possibly. Foremost, I don't see how we can tell. He was playing first-class cricket in the 1937-38 season, and seven years of that 10-year gap were taken up by the war. Doesn't really matter which we choose, anyway, so long as there's a redirect. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:40, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've also had a quick search of Neil Brown's site, and there doesn't look to be any post-war league footballers in England or Scotland called Don McRae, so the redirect shouldn't cause any problems. GiantSnowman 12:04, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, while you were all happily chatting about it, I went ahead with Stuway's original suggestion and simply made the redirect. Thanks for your inputs. Interesting there is a category for England international footballers who also played Test cricket I know of at least 2 other New Zealanders who appear to have played both also.--ClubOranje^T 12:41, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Name changes

Hi, I'm currently busy creating an article (thru translating the German one, mostly) on Hermann Stöcker. He has played for the same club from 1956-1969, however the club changed names twice during that period. How should I put that into the infobox? Madcynic (talk) 13:53, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I would go for the last name the club had when Stöcker finished his career. In this case, 1. FC Magdeburg, its still the clubs current name, too and the history of its name changes can be found at the article! EA210269 (talk) 14:01, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Simon Cox (footballer born 1987)

please add this to your watch lists people keep adding unsourced info about a move to Leicester. Jimmy Skitz's Answer Machine 15:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Rangers F.C.

The Rangers website at gersnetonline [13] seems to have disappeared. As this had a fantastic amount of detail about Rangers players etc., does anyone know if it's been moved? --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 16:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I seem to have answered my own query - the link has changed slightly from .net to .co.uk - phew! --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 16:19, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Argentina and Brazil football rivalry

Should official FIFA sponsored Futsal and beach soccer World Cup tournaments be included in this article and added to the competition chart that features the head to head tournament results between both national teams?http://www.fifa.com/tournaments/archive/tournament=500/awards/index.html http://www.fifa.com/tournaments/archive/tournament=106/awards/index.html Selecciones de la Vida (talk) 03:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I dont think so, the article is about the football rivalry, not futsal or beach soccer. chandler ··· 03:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't futsal & beach soccer fall under the realm of football or should the article just concentrate on 11 vs 11 play? If that's the case are we to assume that there is no football rivalry between both teams if & when they encounter each other in the futsal and beach soccer World Cup tournaments? FIFA considers both as association football under its international governance. The AFA (Associacion de Futbol Argentino) in their official website feature all futsal and beach soccer national teams under their direction. http://www.afa.org.ar/ Selecciones de la Vida (talk) 04:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Sebastian Ryall

Hi, there has just been a media release regarding charges laid against Sebastian Ryall for engaging in a sexual act with a minor. I'm about to go out, so I won't have a chance to source and watch the page until I return later tonight. Could a few people here keep an eye on it please as I imagine it may see some vandalism and any information added to the page about the alleged offence will have to be checked for sources to comply with WP:BLP policy, as well as trying to keep it neutral (especially as the player has pleaded innocent and is yet to face a trial).

I'll leave some news sources here that may help if anyone wants to have a go at writing something neutral or check facts that are added. [14] [15] [16] [17] Camw (talk) 05:00, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Colin Dobson

Hes spent some time in Arabia and has been the coach of the Bahrain national team if anyone takes an interest in that sort of thing. No sign of him past 1996 and nothing much on Google, though this did catch my eye. Posted from Bristol, but surely not eh?--EchetusXe (talk) 15:28, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Could easily be...GiantSnowman 16:12, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Giggle

Just thought I'd post this - I found it quite hilarious!

But obviously I'll be ignoring their plea, mind. Mattythewhite (talk) 15:48, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Haha, that's brilliant! GiantSnowman 16:10, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Image

I've asked for the creation of this file File:Soccerball mask transparent background.svg. Do any of you have any idea of which article should it be placed? Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 22:55, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Current squad and recent call-up sections for national teams

Just wanted to know what people thought of these sections which seem to appear in most national team articles. I don't personally see what the point of them is. They don't tell you who appears regularly or who was a shock call-up who'll probably never play. For a lot of teams it just leads to a long list of redlinks and a doubling of the size of the page. Would you support their removal or do you think there's a reason for them to stay? Stu.W UK (talk) 14:01, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Current squad = good, it's the same as a 'current squad' section on club articles, and will have been annoucned by the official FA, so can be properly referenced. Recent call-ups = bad, they are always horrendously out of date and unverifiable. GiantSnowman 14:09, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I think "recent call-up" sections are necessary for national teams due to the amount of players who are announced as part of the squad but then withdraw due to "injury". As long as it is limited to a definite time horizon (say a year) and to players who have actually played, then it is easy to verify (eg Scotland). Jmorrison230582 (talk) 14:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I agree with that, keep the last call up (current call up) and remove the recent call up, which can become very long in some teams. (link to sort of previous discussion some month ago) chandler ··· 14:29, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd definitely agree that "recent call ups" is unnecessary. The only reason I think they exist is for when more established squad players are not currently picked and people don't like to see the big names missing. I'd strongly favour a focus on just the current squad. When a bigger player is missing from the current picks: we all know it. When a lesser player is missing from the current picks: frankly, who cares? I'd appreciate more input on this matter to see if these views are widely supported or not. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Calling All Athletics Fans!} 14:30, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with jmorrison and chandler - I personally find the recent call-ups section very useful and informative, and people who work on the articles regularly don't seen to have any problems keeping them up to date. --JonBroxton (talk) 16:44, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

so you dont agree with me really? ;-) chandler ··· 16:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that, although it should be worth having an idea who the players are, neither heading is very helpful. If the most recent game is a friendly, then the list if players shown as the Current squad is often a list of fringe players, and if that friendly was at the end of the season, this will remain the so called current squad for several months. I suspect that it was to counter this, or to include the player who is injured but normally part of the squad, that recent squads started appearing, but these are rarely maintained, so players can be found on them 2 years or more after their last call up. In mid June (no major tournaments, several months before the next international) is it meaningful to talk of any "Current squad"? And for how long will the Djibouti panel for their last match in October be described as current (FIFA.com lists no next match planned)? Kevin McE (talk) 17:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't have any problem with it being a weaker team. That's just how it is some times. I also think that it doesn't matter if there are months to the next match, it should list the latest squad (with the note over like "The following players were called up for the match against the X on 13 May, 2009.") chandler ··· 17:59, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree in having more players that the ones called for the next match, so in that way it makes sense to have the "recent call-ups" section. Insted of eliminating this section, I propose a further revolution: to have a list of the players called since the first qualifing match, with the number of games played and goals scored in the qualifing group, but maybe that´s too much change for now... For European teams it may make sense, since we are in the middle of the qualifing. Having only the last call will really be too simple. Maybe we should think in making, in the future, the hidden lists for all (at least European for begining) capped players in the NT history. I´ve seen that some countries do have it. I will also vote for deletion the qualifing maches, notable matches,... in the NT page. There is already a separate page with all the groups and all the matches, so it would be more practical to just link it, instead of coping the group games in the NT page. FkpCascais (talk) 20:36, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm in support of the Recent call-ups section, as it would be useful to see more national team players rather than the 20-25 that was last called up. However the Recent call-ups section are a little bit POV. As Sillyfolkboy mentioned, a lot of people are unhappy if their favorite players are missing even though the latest call up is years ago, see this example. My suggestion is that to have a general consensus on Recent call-ups that only players who was called up during the last 6 or 12 months should be included, without any exception. But I also wouldn't oppose the complete removal of the Recent call-ups if they are too difficult to maintain, Current squad should be enough for the national team article. Martin tamb (talk) 13:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

One more thing while we were on this subject, I think the No column on both Template:National football squad player (goals) Template:National football squad start (recent) should go. This leads to people adding incorrect squad number and often just a usual squad number for a certain players. Perhaps a different template for non-tournament squads without No column. Martin tamb (talk) 13:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) So from what I can tell, the consensus from this and the previous discussion seems to be that the most recent squad remains, but 'recent call-ups' goes. Does that sound right? Stu.W UK (talk) 12:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how any reasonable person could say that the above is a consensus. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 12:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I would say from the previous discussion removal was supported by all 4 users. In this discussion removal has been supported by 4 more people (plus Chandler who was in the previous discussion). FkpCascais supports inclusion of more players and Jmorrison230582 supports the status quo provided there's a definite time limit. Martin tamb is ambivalent. 8 in favour with 2 opposed and 1 in the middle seems to me like consensus and I was under the impression I'm a reasonable person. Stu.W UK (talk) 13:24, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll support whichever most people agreed, but I must warn you that a lot of people will oppose the removal. Few years ago I was involved in an edit war regarding recent call-up squad about a 'regular player' who was missing from the list because he was not called up for a while and a 'non-regular player' who was included in the previous squad but another user want to remove him from the list. The edit war between me and Kingjeff resulted in more debate involving more user and subsequently they agreed on the removal of recent call-ups from Germany article and when a user tried to apply that on England, the regular editors of England article strongly opposed and started another debate without reaching any conclusion. And look what we had now, the recent call-ups was back in Germany page after just a few months after the debate occurred. Recently, a few days ago I removed a player who wasn't called up in almost 2 years from Australia article and then a user (actually a user and an IP address but I think they were both the same person) came along and called me idiot and told me to stay away from 'his' article (I don't want to have another edit war so I let his edit stays). I did tell him to came to this discussion but I suppose he ignored that.

Well, what I want to say is, it is difficult to reach consensus on this subject, a lot of editor weren't aware of this discussion and will keep editing what they usually see on the article. I suggest we need more votes and more people to reach a consensus otherwise it's just a 10 people discussion while there are possibly hundreds of editor who still weren't aware of this discussion. If you want to count the vote, please note that I'm leaning towards the removal after the recent event on Australia article. Martin tamb (talk) 14:05, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, some recent call up sections don't specify a recent call up time limit - making it a bit of a jumble. I reckon this should be properly enforced at the very least; 12 months seems fine. One thing I think is pretty stupid is the date of birth section, not to mention the constant moving target of age. Most people know the general age of a player and are one click away fro the exact birthdate. I'd recommend that for removal at the very least. Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Calling All Athletics Fans!} 15:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Well how about this then: Recent call-ups must list all players called up in the last 12 months. 'Age' as a category is removed. If a team doesn't play a match for over a year then their 'current squad' is also removed as it is no longer 'current'. The advice about who gets included in a squad section all gets put on the National teams style guide. Anyone objecting to the alterations can be pointed to that page and it can be suggested that if they want to change the guide then it should be done on the talk page through consensus. Stu.W UK (talk) 17:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Stu.W UK about a 12 month recent called up time frame and I would also like to point out that the Argentina national football team recent call-up section has been using a time frame for a while, the time frame in this article, has been respected and accepted by its editors. Hopefully a consensus could be reach and the same can happen with all the recent called up sections.--Bocafan76 (talk) 00:22, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I would really disagree with both points, I don't think the latest squads should be removed, even if matches were played long ago. I still think the recent call-ups should be removed just because it will be to lengthy and harder to source. chandler ··· 00:40, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of 12 months time frame, I'll support the idea. Martin tamb (talk) 07:35, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

In reply to chandler, I have another idea, what if the current squad list the latest callups and the recent callups list only the callups from the previous match. For example if England has a match in September and October, the current squad would list the squad for October matches and the September would list the squad for September minus the players who was included in current squad. This would be short and easy to source. Martin tamb (talk) 08:29, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't like that, a player could have a basic injury and be out for six weeks and miss two consecutive squads; or the team may have a sequence of matches where they only pick players from their domestic league - Argentina is a good example of this at present. Ask anybody to name current Argentina players, they would say Messi, Mascherano, Tevez, etc., but they are not in the "current" squad. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 21:22, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

But the section is there to show the current squad, not the biggest names. chandler ··· 21:46, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

The whole point is that the page should show what the squads are, not what an editor thinks they would be if the coach chose from a global selection. If you want to know who the coach considers to be the best players, look at the team's World Cup or continental cup squad. Stu.W UK (talk) 13:28, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we should rename it to "Squad you would pick if you were on Football Manager and all players were fit"? (ho ho ho). Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 20:33, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Well if a player was injured and missing two consecutive squad then it's too bad for him, he won't be included coz he's not recent enough. Well, I guess the 12 month time frame was better and more widely accepted, but as chandler said, it's difficult to source and sometimes can be too lengthy (let's see how long recent call-ups for Argentina after those local-based squad match). - Martin tamb (talk) 03:05, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Horace Williams

Swiss side FC Lucerne has a manager between 1931 and 1933 called Horace Williams; anyone know if it's the same Williams as the Welsh player active in the 1920s? Cheers, GiantSnowman 18:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

As I created the template, I wanted to ask the same question...Looking at my book about foreign players in France,, he played for AS Saint-Etienne in 1933-34, coming from Amiens SC. But it doesn't say how long he played for Amiens.--Latouffedisco (talk) 07:57, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

It seems to be the same player. Abergele in 1931-32 ( probably very short spell)next club Lucerne. 1933-34 Denbigh (not very long). Also born 1-1-1900 died 29-10-60 middle name Frederick —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.194.206.66 (talk) 13:40, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

→ I'm always a little suspicious of anyone with a birthdate of 1-1-1900, it is often used as a default date for people where the birthdate is unknown. It seems unlikely so many of these Williams' were born the exact same day.--ClubOranje^T 11:41, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Source scottish league players record by Emms and Wells. Nothing about his career in France in this source (don't trust all their stats!!) 62.194.206.66 (talk) 13:46, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Probably all very short spells. Also my book has proven false sometimes, so I don't really know. That's why I did not link the template. Cheers.--Latouffedisco (talk) 16:55, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes the first book about football history without errors has not been written yet, and that will never happen. It's rather strange that there's nothing about Horace Williams career in France in the Emms/Wells book. One of the main contributors of this book is Jim Creasy, he did research on British footballers in France, . Maybe he isn't so sure anymore (or forget to add it) I noticed there were some problems with the first name of GS Kimpton recently on Wikipedia. I think I can explain this. The main source of many publications/ websites on British football are still the Breedon books published in the 80's, early 90's He's often called George because Gary Clark and Duncan Holley wrote this in their book published more than 20 years ago. Michael Joyce owner of allfootballers.com and writer of the pre-war English player records book, often used as a source on wikipedia.hasn't kept his database up to date with all the latest research. In fact he doesn't react at all anymore when you send him a mail with additional information or some errors. 62.194.206.66 (talk) 00:24, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Found some additional information in the New Brighton complete record book. Horace Williams played for Amiens june 1929-december 1929 according to this source. Lucerne coach in October 1931. Banbury Spencer manager in 193462.194.206.66 (talk) 06:53, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Seems like he was the one and the same guy, then. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 07:00, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

YEP62.194.206.66 (talk) 07:13, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

That would explain why he is called George everywhere... Very interesting how a mistake made 20 or 30 years ago is still widely spread. My book about foreign players in France starts in 1932 (Debut of professional football in France). It is still very hard to find sources about footballers in France before. About British footballers and football managers in France, they were very very numerous before WWII. There is still some work to do...Cheers and thanks for your help. PS: You should have an user account;-)--Latouffedisco (talk) 08:53, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Talking of inaccurate "reliable sources", the Breedon books, and Michael Joyce, this article from a Swindon site is quite interesting. I find the last couple of paragraphs particularly painful where referencing my own special interest is concerned... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:50, 16 M ay 2009 (UTC)

I have created an account, but I have no intention to become a regular contributor. I prefer to do research on the history of Dutch football. Cattivi (talk) 10:07, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

This explains why Michael Joyce doesn't update his database anymore with historical data. I must say it's partly his own fault. One of my 'contributions' to his database is Vernon Allatt playing for Heracles Almelo in 1987-88 not exactly something you can google, he added it without asking for sourcesCattivi (talk) 11:12, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

As you wish, but thanks again for your contribution. These facts are interesting for wikipedia and us, as we are sometimes treated as being unreliable, etc...No? --Latouffedisco (talk) 14:58, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

hmm... Yes, sometimes I'm not very kind to people when they copy information from Wikipedia without checking. But the number of quality articles is slowly growing. Maybe in 5-10 years time it's pretty good. Me working on Dutch football on Wikipedia would probably be very disruptive. Holland is one of the worst researched countries in Europe! and I can't use my own research here. I was a bit harsh on the Steve Emms Richard Wells book, but I respect their work. It contains information you won't find anywhere else, and they are the first ones to admit that it's a start not a definitive record. If you have a question you can ask, and I will give an honest answerCattivi (talk) 16:36, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Just to confirm, my Gillingham books all reproduce the same (reportedly inaccurate) info about Travers..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:31, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

.............but they don't give Horace Williams' birth date as 1 January, they just say 1900 -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:33, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

The Date of Birth is from the Emms-Wells book, researched by Jim Creasy. He found DOB's and corrected DOB's, the results can't be found in any other book. Creasy is a leading expert in this field Cattivi (talk) 11:23, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

book Cattivi (talk) 12:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Very interesting, thanks.--Latouffedisco (talk) 13:51, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Brazil player statistics

Anyone knows a good website or reference for players' statistics in the Brazilian league and Copa Libertadores? I'm having difficulty in finding a good source for most Brazilian players. Thanks Martin tamb (talk) 06:58, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

My portuguese isn't much cop I'm afraid, but is Futpedia any good? Bettia (bring on the trumpets!) 09:17, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, it's very useful. Martin tamb (talk) 10:12, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Futpedia is the best for Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A and Copa do Brasil. Soccernet covers some of the local competitions and the Copa Libertadores, but they don't provide many statistics on the local tournaments. Jogurney (talk) 13:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Once again, thanks for the informations, I really appreciate the responses from both of you. Anyway, I would like to know if there are any other good resources apart from those mentioned above. Martin tamb (talk) 14:12, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I found another good resource - UOL. They don't summarize player statistics like Futpedia, but you can find links to match reports for Serie B, Serie C and many of the local competitions which will show who has played and who has scored goals. Jogurney (talk) 14:56, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again. Martin tamb (talk) 07:36, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Possible hoax

Could some kindly Hammer fan please look at newly created Alex Antrobus who is at best a non-notable youth, but possibly never even played at that level. Never quite sure whether to speedy or prod these ones.--ClubOranje^T 04:58, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

This Bebo profile is about an Alex Antrobus who has the same birthdate as the 'player' and comes from Derby, although there is no mention of his football 'career.' My gut feling says it IS a hoax, but we should say play it safe and PROD it as failing WP:N and WP:ATHLETE. GiantSnowman 12:02, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

No-one of that name in the 2008/09 West Ham under-18s. Blatant hoax IMHO. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 12:26, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I've been bold and tagged it for speedy deletion as a hoax. The worse that happens is a sysop turns it down and we have to PROD and/or Afd the article. John Sloan @ 12:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Football League First Division et al

I haven't formally proposed a split but I thought I'd get a few opinions first. I'm thinking that Football League First Division should be split into Football League First Division (1892–1992) and Football League First Division (1992–2004). They are clearly separate entities (especially as the former was the top tier of English football and the latter the second) and cannot really be compared. An alternative may be to create something like Top level/tier of English football, Second level/tier of English football that could include the various historical incarnations, with summarized sections for daughter articles such as Premier League, Football League First Division (1892–1992) etc. Any move/split would require considerable thought due to the large amount of disambiguation of backlinks, but I think a discussion is worthwhile at least. --Jameboy (talk) 23:57, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

No. They are techinically the same competition, the same way the "Football League Championship" is the same competition now under a different name. The winners are all awarded the Football League Championship Trophy. It's no different than, say, the Southern League being a third-tier until 1920, then at the fourth tier until 1958, the fifth tier until 1979 etc. In fact, I don't see why we need separate articles for individual divisions of the Football League anyway. - fchd (talk) 05:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

But we have examples where we have grouped by level, not name, e.g. List of winners of English Football League Championship and predecessors rather than (for example) List of winners of English Football League Second Division. It would seem more sensible to ignore the name in this instance and consider the level of football being played. --Jameboy (talk) 23:15, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Sam Gilligan

Just found out this guy managed Gillingham for two seasons during the club's non-league days. Apparently he joined as player-manager from Liverpool - could someone with access to Joyce's book or similar confirm that he definitely played League football before I create an article on him? Cheers!!!!!! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:34, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Joyce p. 101: Samuel Anderson (Sammy) Gilligan b. 18/1/1882 played for Belmont Athletic/Dundee/Celtic/Bristol City 188 lge apps (78 goals)/Liverpool 41 (16)/Gillingham/Forfar Athletic. See also [18], [19], [20]. hope this helps, cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Awesome, cheers Stru! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

tier-II leagues in UEFA 2008-09 season article template??????

User:Abdul Qayyum Ahmad has added links of second-level league season articles to Template:2008–09 in European Football (UEFA). As for my two cents, I find it rather unnecessary for three reasons. First, no teams from these leagues are able to qualify for a European competition via their league position. Secondly, the majority of those leagues is not even notable enough in a European context. Finally, those articles are not regularly maintained (sparing a few exceptions), which, if my mind serves me correctly, has been an inclusion criteria for every league.

However, I wouldn't have a problem if the section would be created as a standalone template, but only with those articles that enjoy a halfway decent maintenance. What are your thoughts on this? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 12:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I think, they shouldn't be there for the very fact, that clubs from there can't qualify for European competitions on the merrit of league placings there, as you said. Your second suggestion, a separate template, makes sense, even if not all articles are regularly maintained. Who knows, by making somebody that reads the 2nd Fussball-Bundesliga article aware that second division articles exist for other European countries, they might be interessted in contributing to those, too. Go for a separate template, I would say. As to User:Abdul Qayyum Ahmad, I've noticed he made quite a few edits that have been reverted by other users, shaking their head as to what he is on about. He tries to help but doesn't always get it quite right. EA210269 (talk) 01:46, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I would be OK with having them on the same template if just for greater exposure so people browsing can be aware of them, but perhaps it would take to re-format the template so the European competitions are on top so it goes from highest to lowest prestige. chandler ··· 02:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Its possible, but its going to become a very large template. EA210269 (talk) 02:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Or perhaps going

• Top divisions
• Second division (collapsed)
• Third divison (collapsed) (or all the lower leagues that are maintained, with all those inside a collapsed header called "Lower leagues"
• Cup competition
• League cup competition
• UEFA competitions

or UEFA on the top. chandler ··· 02:14, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguating Primera División leagues

There are 10 Primera división leagues, and with the exception of La Liga, they all do not have consistant ways of disambiguating them. First off, they are all in Spanish, which seems ok because FIFA and other sports outlets (ESPN) do call them Primera División. Chile, Paraguay, Costa Rica, and Mexico use the possessive in Spanish ("de México", and so on). This method seems to be the way it is used in ESPN's website. Argentina, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela use the descriptive adjective for the country. El Salvador uses the official name of the league (I suppose), but at the same time, Primera División de Fútbol Profesional (English: First Division of Professional Football) can techinically apply to all Primera Divisións since they all are the top division of professional football.

So the thing is, should there be a consistent way of disambiguating all Primera Divisións? If yes, here are some possibilities:

• Since the names are in Spanish to begin with, use either "de Country" or the adjective (ex: de México or Mexicana).
• Use an English descritor (ex: "Mexican Primera División", or "Primera División of Mexico")
• A normal disambiguation (ex: Primera División (Mexico))

If not, let's hear some suggestions. Digirami (talk) 16:57, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

My preference is using an adjective such as Primera División Uruguaya, however since this is the Enlgish language Wikipedia, your final suggestion seems best (Primera División (Uruguay)). Jogurney (talk) 18:34, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I would probably go for "Mexican Primera División", that is similar to "Russian Premier League"/"Scottish Premier League", I would though personally also move the Spanish Primera to either "Primera División" as the main one (seeing how already Segunda División and Tercera División are about the Spanish leagues), or "Spanish Primera División" if ppl don't feel its primary enough in English use. This mostly because as far as I understand the interwiki links to the Spanish wiki (es:Liga de Fútbol Profesional (España) vs es:Ligas de fútbol de España vs es:Primera División de España which all links to en:La Liga) "La Liga" would have a similar meaning to "The Football League" in England, that is something that covers more than 1 league. chandler ··· 18:59, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

To really add, I also think this discussion should involve the naming of all the Segunda Divisións and Tercera Divisións which currently are named without consistency. As I said above, the Spanish Segunda and Trecera are on the main articles (without notes to other alikes), for example the Mexican third division is located at Segunda División Profesional and forth at Tercera División de México. I also think having season articles look better in the format "Mexican Segunda División 2008–09" over "Segunda División 2008–09 (Mexico)" etc. chandler ··· 19:12, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. All the more important to settle this ASAP.

With regard to the Primera's, using a English descriptor (i.e., Mexican) seems odd since "Primera División" is Spanish. It works with Russian & Scottish Premier League since "Premier League" is in English. The first suggestion, I reiterate for consideration, is the method used by ESPN (although they have something slightly different for Peru, but so does Peru's FA).

Personally I wouldn't have any problem with that mix of English and Spanish, we do have a similar case in Slovenian PrvaLiga, which I'm guessing is part of another case of inconsistency if we look at Prva Liga, some are "First League" some are "PrvaLiga" some "Prva Liga" etc... Perhaps we need a larger discussion about naming leagues, because I suspect there can be more cases. But back to mixing languages, it might just make it clearer to have the country in English. chandler ··· 19:46, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The usage of "[English name] Primera División" seems to at least exist for example Spanish, Mexican and to some extent Argentine (I haven't googled any of the other) chandler ··· 20:08, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

As I see it, in the Spanish speaking leagues, we have three options, for consistency.

• Use the full Spanish names (steal them from es:), this would give this:
  • Primera División de México, Primera División de México 2008–09
• Use a English format by mixing the languages, so no-one has to be confused about that "España" is "Spain" for example.
  • Mexican Primera División, Mexican Primera División 2008–09
• Use English names inside a disambiguate parentheses, so no-one has to be confused about that "España" is "Spain" for example.
  • Primera División (Mexico), Primera División 2008–09 (Mexico)

The same format would have to be used with different national variations of the lower leagues called everything from Primera División A, Primera División B, Segunda División, Segunda División B to Tercera División etc. On that, there might also be need for disambiguation for other sports where the top division is called "primera división" chandler ··· 21:32, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I can't see whats wrong with the Primera División Argentina format as an option, it cuts out the use of the Spanish word "de", (es:Primera División de Argentina) but the meaning remains clear without creating a linguistic hybrid such as "Argentine Primera División". The option with brackets is inferior because it does not lend itself to prose, so the wikilink would almost always have to be piped to something gramatically intelligable. As far as I'm concerned "Primera División Argentina" and "Primera División de Argentina" are the best options. 22:08, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Would you have the Spanish or English names of the countries (can't tell by Argentina :P)?, I just find something like "Primera División Mexico" or even "Primera División Spain" looks strange, and not really in the current naming convention of leagues. "[the team] plays in the Mexican Primera División." sounds better than "[the team] plays in Primera División Mexico." imo. chandler ··· 22:15, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, in "Primera Division Argentina", Argentina is Spanish for Argentine, and not the name of the country. In any case, the Spanish name for the countries in Latin America is the same as the English name, except that Mexico and Peru are written with accents in Spanish (Perú & México). Spain is still España. Digirami (talk) 23:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

If it's between "Primera Division de Argentina" and "Argentine Primera Division", I'm leaning toward the second. The "Primera Division (Argentina)" option looks awkward and weird. Digirami (talk) 23:07, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Would be nice if more people could get into the discussion but I really think we need a consensus for naming the articles, including season articles and everything. I'm open for any consistent format (Even though I think Primera Division Mexico would look strange and perhaps not compatible with any naming convention). Sure "Primera Division (Argentina)" looks awkward, but it is perhaps what WP:DISAMBIGUATE say we should do. chandler ··· 16:17, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Well it would seem, at least in the press, that the Primera Divisions always include some adjective. So there is precedent for using either "Mexican Primera Division" or "Primera Division de Mexico", making "Primera Division (Mexico)" an increasingly lesser option. But I agree, we need more input from other users. I sent out a message to a couple users who edit other Primera Divisions articles to ask for their input. Let's see what happens. Digirami (talk) 03:36, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think the best option is completely grammatically correct Spanish. Use of Spanish orthography with some words in English is awkward at best. I would just go for Primera División Mexicana or Primera División de México. My personal preference would be for the first of those two, but that doesn't even seem like it's really being considered too much. matt91486 (talk) 13:27, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Well there seems to be too many possibilities, all of which could work. (I think) We just need to find out which idea is the one most likely to used in the media, and use that here. Digirami (talk) 20:00, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Only just noticed this now: Not sure if any of you are familiar with Spanish but the "división de Mexico" style is pretty much the linguistic equivalent of both "Division of Mexico" and "Mexican Division". The "de" (of) is used throughout Spanish instead of the possessive, hence, instead of Sophie's Choice they have La decisión de Sophie. Obviously with countries a demonymic option is available (Mexicana).

However, this option is not the best transliteration as "Primera Division Mexicana" is closer in meaning to saying in English: the Mexicans' First Division or the First Division of Mexico. Taking this into consideration, the best options are straight no translation "Primera División de Mexico" or "Mexican Primera División" (or even Mexican First Division...?). I would opt for the first option as usage in English is not fully established thus we should default to the origin language (as would be the case with esperpento). Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 23:27, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you learned Spanish, but here in Miami and in Latin America, "Primera Division Mexicana" means "Mexican First Division" ("Mexicans' Primera Division" would mean "Primera Division de los Mexicanos" in Spanish).

The most prevelent usage in Spanish, by looking at their article names in Spanish wiki, is "Primera Division de (country)" (ex: es:Primera División de México). We could use that, but it gets tricky, for lack of better word, with Mexico & Peru because of the accents, Peru again because their possessive in Spanish is a bit different (it's del Peru not de Peru), and Spain because its España in Spanish (Primera Division de España). That why, when it comes to the country and its demonymic, I think we should use English for ease of use (think "Spanish Primera División" or "Primera División of Spain"... and so on). Digirami (talk) 09:05, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I would vote for "Primera División de Argentina", "Primera División del Perú", "Primera División de Uruguay". -- Alexf^(talk) 13:36, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Alexf, an would like to comment that other leagues and tournaments use non-english language characters in their names examples:Fußball-Bundesliga 2008–09, Úrvalsdeild 2008,2008 Trophée des Champions, so having spanish language characters shouldn't be a problem or an obstacle, since other leagues and tournaments already use non-english characters in their names.--Bocafan76 (talk) 21:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

And do the same for Spain (Primera División de España, etc.) should it come to that? Digirami (talk) 22:35, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

It is how the eswiki have done it... But a question could be if Primera División could be the common name for the Spanish league (to keep in the current format of Segunda and Tercera which are the Spanish)? [21] chandler ··· 22:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this is the right approach. While I do agree that a move of La Liga to Primera División is in order, the appropriate way to disambiguate between different Primera Divisións would be to use parentheses, unless the official name of the league uses "de [country]". – PeeJay 22:49, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

(reindent) By what I can tell, they are all known as just Primera División within their own country (the two possible exceptions is El Salvador, and Peru, which looks like they switch between Primera División and Primera División Profesional). With that said, they all have some descriptor when there is a need to differentiate one Primera División from another, whether it be "Chilean" or "de Chile" for example. I would also like to add that whatever disambiguator we decide on should apply to every Primera División league, not just the ones in the Western hemisphere, which I assume the majority might be planning. If anything, the ones in the Western hemisphere are probably more known as Primera División than La Liga (especially Argentina and Mexico). Digirami (talk) 05:42, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

well I personally want La Liga moved because the term applies to the Primera and the Segunda collectively in Span (as far as I understand es:Liga de Fútbol Profesional (España) without translation) chandler ··· 05:51, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I understand and agree with your point. But, I just think it would be quite off, for lack of a better term, to the have the principal Primera División page to be that of the Spanish Primera División. The main Primera División page should be the one that currently exist under that title. Digirami (talk) 07:55, 19 May 2009 (UTC)