Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 73

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Archive 70

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Baba Yara Stadium

Can someone review Baba Yara Stadium ? I see "pre-fix" and "typo" edit summaries that make major changes to the information in the article, and now new sources appearing. I don't consider it a "typo"-fix to replace the information in the etymology section with a completely different set of information. -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 05:24, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Toronto FC elimination

There are at least four sources that indicate they have not yet been mathematically eliminated, including the league itself. However, an editor claims that they are all wrong and his source is on the talk page of the 2012 Toronto FC season article. I would appreciate if someone were to check it out. If they don't win their next match, in about 18 hours, they are eliminated, and they do have to win all seven of their final matches to have any hope of stating in the post-season. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:50, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

They are mathematically unable to qualify. It's really obvious math. But it will resolve itself anyway either later today or next match day, so who really cares. -Koppapa (talk) 08:29, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Agree, a quick look at the table in the article would seem to indicate that the other editor is correct. Either DC United or Columbus Crew will finish above 42 points which is the most Toronto could get. I understand the sources claim otherwise, but I'm not sure it is a productive battle to take up considering the maths. Camw (talk) 09:07, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Verifiability, not truth? Mentoz86 (talk) 09:17, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I acknowledged that in my response, I still don't think it is the best use of time to argue over it - perhaps some common sense should apply? Camw (talk) 09:18, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Is a walkover the same as a forfeit? Hack (talk) 07:02, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Club names

After the umpteenth run in about this, the report,

OK, so imagine everyone (not just me, i am not the one eluding this "rule", there is NO CONSENSUS) obliged and piped all the club names in the article (box and story), still stuff unanswered about Spanish sides.

RCD Espanyol is Espanyol? Fair enough? So why is Real Betis Real Betis, and Real Zaragoza the same? Here are some examples which illustrate that the clubs are also known without the "royal" prefix in the English language/sources (http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/association=esp/news/newsid=834700.html#osasuna+sporting+wins+send+betis+down, here http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/association=esp/news/newsid=1795913.html and here http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/88/spain/2012/06/24/3198290/betis-defender-miki-roque-passes-away for Betis, http://www.goal.com/en-ie/match/86142/murcia-vs-c%C3%B3rdoba/preview for Real Murcia, http://www.goal.com/en/news/12/spain/2011/09/23/2678829/la-liga-round-5-preview-struggling-athletic-bilbao-host for Zaragoza and Betis, http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/apr/05/real-zaragoza-humberto-suazo-la-liga and http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/may/02/aguirre-zaragoza-real-madrid?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487 for Zaragoza alone). Of course several English-speaking sources contain the word "Real", but heck, so do the Spanish ones from time to time...To end this paragraph, i'd say that only Real Madrid and Real Sociedad have to have the prefix, not the others.

Speaking of common names, if that's the golden rule, why not change the article CD Numancia to Numancia, or S.L. Benfica to Benfica, or CA Osasuna to Osasuna, because the common name of the clubs is ALWAYS the latter case, not the former? I really must be missing something here...

Everybody usually points out "this is the English Wikipedia" even though i have tried to point out X or Y club is not known always in Z fashion in English language. I counter with the following: if this is EN.WIKI, how on earth a German modus operandi (the WP:KALRSRUHER bit) was so quickly accepted here, given that in the mentioned nation, clubs are called in the form of the following examples: Benfica Lissabon, Sporting Lissabon, Boavista Porto, Juventus Turin, Lazio Rom, Hercules Alicante, etc, etc...why not embrace these forms too if the formula is correct?

Attentively - --AL (talk) 18:54, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

This recent debate on the Naming of Portuguese club articles may be of interest. League Octopus (League Octopus 19:44, 12 September 2012 (UTC))

Why don't we discuss Inter Milan while we're at it... – Pee Jay 06:50, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:KARLSRUHER is one person's opinion written in their own user space, not some widely followed policy. I'd never even heard of it until you just linked it above and having now read it, I'm just going to ignore it completely. BigDom (talk) 07:16, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

PJ, this being the English Wikipedia, i think the name as it stands now (Inter Milan) is a correct approach. Then, on the other hand, Sporting Clube de Portugal has not been renamed Sporting Club of Portugal and Atlético Madrid Athletic Madrid, so there is a double standard in my opinion.

Original names vs. Media/fan coverage names? Attentively --AL (talk) 15:50, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I have just been explaining to one user why all Serbian clubs are named by their official name, while Red Star Belgrade is in English. I think my answer there applies for most of these cases as well, WP:COMMONNAME. Although commonname applies only to major clubs with significant media coverage, I do understand some of the points raised by AL. However, Sporting Clube de Portugal in English should allways be Sporting Lisbon, and not the literal translation of the official name. Also, Atletico Madric would never be Athletic Madrid simply because that second version was never even used in English language sources. PS: AL, please, why don´t you use indent and write comments like everyone else? Please. Your threads are allways a mess, with you allways using the asterix and messing other users indents. Btw, asterix should be used in discussions only when something really important is said. Please don´t take me wrong for saying this. FkpCascais (talk) 20:46, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Hillsborough

Resolved

After spending two days trying to convince editors at ITNC that a systematic coverup into killings is notable, frankly I'm at the end of my tether. Given that people will likely be looking for the Hillsborough Independent Panel's report right now, I would appreciate WP:FOOTY members' insight into whether at the moment, we serve the reader best by sending them to this or here. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 20:50, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Update: I have added a CSD A10 template to the one line appendix. Whether accepted or declined, I would appreciate a quick look to hopefully nip this in the bud. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 20:56, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I would say merge (for the time being). While there is considerable information there for a standalone article, it would serve better under the Hillsborough disaster to provide context. Lemonade51 (talk) 21:17, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

This is now resolved. I appreciate the opinions from users here (either directly in this thread, or at the article talk page). —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 09:41, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Name the face

Does anyone have any idea who the guy is on the left of this picture? All I know is it's a Darlington player following their 2011 FA Trophy win. Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 15:19, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Think it's Tommy Wright. BigDom (talk) 15:36, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

It's Liam Hatch. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 15:50, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it is now you mention it. They had three pretty similar looking players, with those two and Marc Bridge-Wilkinson. BigDom (talk) 15:58, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

It's WP:OR ;P Giant Snowman 16:03, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Can someone tell me what or who Liam Hatch is doing on this photo?

His best Peter Crouch impression I'm assuming? TonyStarks (talk) 03:39, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Retire and return

Paul Scholes retired and then returned to his old club - his infobox considers it one spell. Sam Hutchinson did the same, yet his infobox considers it two spells. Which is the preferred method? Giant Snowman 16:22, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

I say its a new spell. He was out of the squad. Completely retired and then he came back afterwards after signing a new contract. There is no real reason to have it continue. Cheers. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 16:26, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

In the case of Scholes, it's definitely two separate spells. The hidden note to that effect was only removed and ignored by an anon a few minutes ago... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:32, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Generally, if the gap spans more than a window, you should consider it two spells. We had a similar debate when Fábio Aurelio was released by Liverpool and re-signed two years ago - that happened entirely within pre-season, so that should be considered as one spell. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 17:40, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I wonder if the gap should get its own row in the infobox, to explain what's happening. That's what I did with Daniel Endres, who returned to his club after a year as a free agent. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 17:41, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Wait, I thought Scholes was resigned in January (or December). So not in pre-season. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 19:11, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd split it into two. He retired in the summer of 2011 and returned in January 2012. Having it as one entry definitely gives the wrong idea. TonyStarks (talk) 19:51, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

What is the feeling about having the games from the season listed in the league season article.

For example, in the 2012–13 A-League article they add the fixtures and results while Premier League does not (licensing) so what is the normal opinion on adding them. Cheers. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 19:09, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think a full fixture list with all goal scorers is needed. It would be to crowded. -Koppapa (talk) 19:13, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Template:Copa Sudamericana 2012

What do people think about the need for this template. Some clubs have been linked to it, but presumably they then need to be de-linked once the competition has finished, else the perennial qualifiers would have a string of these navboxes. I see however that an equivalent template exists for the Champions League. Is the view that they're OK as long as they are regularly updated/maintained/de-linked? Eldumpo (talk) 08:41, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Had brought this up here too. Keeping only the current one seems better than having old seasons too. Old ones won't be used on club articles but only on the tournaments article, where it is redundant anyway. I'd go for deleting all of them, but that's only my opinion. --Koppapa (talk) 08:55, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd be for deleting all of them too; all the information in the box is on the competition's page, people will forget to remove the templates from club articles at the end of each season and not everything needs a navbox. BigDom (talk) 09:58, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

This is by the way a good way to check inclusions: Tool. -Koppapa (talk) 11:06, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Change in nationality and historic team lists

Example: James Walker played for England U18s, and subsequently for 10 Football League clubs. Recently, while on the books of Eastbourne Borough, he has played for Antigua and Barbuda. So which flag does he sport on the historical list of players from the clubs he has been at? He played for them as a former England U18, not as an Antiguan, but his current "sporting nationality" is not English.

This is obviously only one example: the principle will apply much more widely; Walker is not even the only ex England U18, ex Gillingham player to have "become" Antiguan this week.

Of course, it only arises because of the undue attention given to the footballingly irrelevant issue of nationality in squad lists, and the undue simplification of the sometimes very complex issue of national identity to one flag in such lists. But given that that is the road we have travelled so far down, what to do in such cases (including, I suppose, Alfredo Di Stéfano). Kevin McE (talk) 11:32, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Adopt the Watford and Birmingham approach: explicitly list international representation, not personal nationality or presumed international qualification. So players only get a nationality and pretty flag if they've played at international level, and they get all flags/nationalities to which they are entitled. In the Birmingham list, Neil Kilkenny has three. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:47, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. On a side note - how does Ashikodi qualify for Antigua? Giant Snowman 11:51, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Good in theory, but when the list is consistent in layout with a list for the same club that has FL status, I'm reluctant to change it.

Born in Nigeria, raised in UK, eligible for Antigua: an unusual combination, but I'm sure FIFA must have gained some evidence... Kevin McE (talk) 14:19, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Could always improve that list as well? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:13, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Moses Ashikodi is eligible for Antigua through his mom who is Antiguan (his father is Nigerian). I'm guessing his parents lived in the UK and he was born in Nigeria on a trip back. TonyStarks (talk) 22:19, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

What about on previous season articles? Before he played for Northern Ireland Lee Camp was capped by the England U21 team? Do we assume that he was English until the season he played for NI? Malpass⁹₃! (what I've been ^up to/_drop me a ^___) 23:00, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

UEFA Super Cup

Just noticed an anomaly with the recent of list of winners to list of finals. Technically List of UEFA Super Cup finals is incorrect as there is only one match in the competition. As a result I don't think the finals prefix is the best of this particular list, perhaps it should be List of UEFA Super Cup matches? I should of picked up on this earlier, only just noticed when all the pages were moved. NapHit (talk) 12:23, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Or simply List of UEFA Super Cups? —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 15:55, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I think I prefer ...matches. List of Super Cups gives me a mental image of a row of different silver trophies, but that's probably just me. Whatever you call it, though, the sorting doesn't work, and I'd guess it never has done: sort any column to get an aggregate-score row to the top, e.g. Runners-up, and then try sorting any column right of the Winner column. Under WinXP/Firefox15, nothing happens. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:34, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorting didn't work for me either, as a result I've removed the colspans, which I believe to be the cause of the issue. If no-one objects I'll move the page to List of UEFA Super Cup matches, feel-free to revert, discuss or slap me down if you don't agree. NapHit (talk) 15:32, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Opinions wanted about including a link to a player's club profile in their Ext links section

An enthusiastic anon editor took it upon themselves to go round footballer pages removing dead external links and adding links to their current club profiles where these were missing. Their speed of adding current club links triggered spam filters, and they were warned for linkspamming. A discussion ensued at the anon's talk page about the definition of linkspamming, and the editor doing the warning suggested that "If this is a truly unique source that merrits inclusion, perhaps consensus should be obtained by a relevant Wikiproject for its inclusion in some sort of profile template."

So I'm raising the matter here. Does this project think a player's current club profile a legitimate addition to the external links section on their page or does it not? Ideally with policy-related reasons. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:56, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

You've entirely missed my suggestion, despite quoting me. My suggestion was for the Link to be included in one of this projects sanctioned templates, not the external links section as you've stated above. Multi article Mass spamming is prohibited by official Wikipedia policy. However as i stated; "If this is a truly unique source that merrits inclusion, perhaps consensus should be obtained by a relevant Wikiproject for its inclusion in some sort of profile template." So the correct question here is;

Should club profiles be linked to from from established WikiProject Football templates for inclusion in player profiles?

Thanks--Hu12 (talk) 18:59, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

So were you suggesting something like Template:Lfpfr, which links to a player's profile at the French Ligue de Football Professionnel website, only aimed at a player's club site instead? I'm afraid I do struggle to understand. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 20:03, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

The linkspam warnings handed to the IP seem awfully heavy-handed. The link changes were in good faith and were useful. Brusque templating was undeserved and bitey. Had similar edits been done by an established editor instead of an IP, its quite possible no-one would have batted an eyelid. As it is, the IP has not edited since. Perhaps another potential editor scared off. As to the suggestion of doing links by templates, we have thousands of biographies for current players. Each instance of a per-club external link template would be used on maybe 25-30 articles, and so such a process would involve creating hundreds of templates/template parameters. This would create far more work than it saved, unless there is something I too am failing to grasp. Oldelpaso (talk) 10:52, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I fully subscribe what Oldepaso said. FkpCascais (talk) 19:17, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Well said OEP. Not every new Wikipedian can swagger about, editing in a blaze of glory correcting misinformation like there's no tomorrow - some (like me for example) ~~find~~ found a little thing to get on with while learning the ropes as it were. I am rather saddened by the approach there, and if we have lost a prospective member with a genuine interest (and perhaps knowledge to pass on), that is a real shame. Malpass⁹₃! (what I've been ^up to/_drop me a ^___) 19:38, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Stand-in managers

While rooting through a box of old Gills programmes I haven't looked in for years, I found a reference to a match in the 60s when the manager was "indisposed" and the chairman took charge. Does he therefore merit inclusion at List of Gillingham F.C. managers.....? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:30, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

~~I think so, yes. – Kosm1 fent 07:36, 16 September 2012 (UTC)~~

Depends how long the manager was "indisposed" for. Absence for a couple of matches with a bad bout of flu or an operation is the sort of thing that happens all the time, and doesn't warrant the stand-in being counted as manager. If it was for a significant period of time, then yes. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:59, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Agree, he should only be included if it was more than just as a stand-in for a few matches, although the ultimate answer will depend on whether reliable sources include him in the manager lists e.g. does the Gillingham site list him? Eldumpo (talk) 08:58, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Rotherham manager Steve Evans has a six match stadium ban. So really Paul Raynor is in charge for six matches as Evans is ~~exposed~~"indisposed". But if the manager is not in a coma then he will most likely be picking the team, so perhaps the temporary boss is worth a mention in the notes, but nothing more really.--Echetus Xe 09:31, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

What's the difference between person X taking temporary charge for 3 games, and a full manager who is in charge for only 3 games before being sacked? Giant Snowman 10:12, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

The question for me is whether the person in charge answers to anyone. Steve Evans will continue to be the manager for the next six games, so Paul Raynor should in my opinion only be a footnote. On the other hand, when Malky Mackay was caretaker at Watford, Aidy Boothroyd was not his boss, Brendan Rodgers wasn't his boss, and therefore Mackay's stint does belong on the list (in my opinion). —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 12:38, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

All of the above comments confirm my own view that he shouldn't be included. I don't believe he picked the team, he certainly didn't sign any players, and he wouldn't even have had the luxury of getting to choose when to send on a sub, as it was before subs were introduced, so his responsibilities were almost certainly restricted to giving a pre-match pep talk. Including him would be on a par with including in an equivalent list whoever took over for the remainder of the game after that famous incident when Arsene Wenger was sent to the stands. Or, for that matter, Donna Powell. Oh, and for the record, the Gillingham site does not list him as a former manager, because the Gillingham site does not maintain a list of former managers.......... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:07, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I dont get it. Why is he not mentioned. He was manager for 1 game but he was manager. Manuel Preciado Rebolledo was manager of Villarreal for only a few hours (sadly) and he is mentioned on the list of managers on there page. Just add him and make a note stating the reason why he was in charge for the day. Cheers. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 16:10, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

But Rebolledo was actually legitimately appointed manager, signed a contract, etc, whereas the former Gills chairman just stepped in to cover while the real manager was (presumably) ill. It's like if my head of department at work says she's too busy to go to a meeting and asks me to go in her stead, it doesn't mean I can put on my CV that I was head of department...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 17:27, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

My activity will be pretty sparse over the next few days. I've got a CV to rewrite... —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 18:42, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

List of Central Coast Mariners FC players FLRC

I have nominated List of Central Coast Mariners FC players for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Giants2008 (Talk) 00:23, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Club notability in the United States and Canada (fourth tier leagues)

I am trying to determine whether clubs that play in the fourth tier leagues in United States and Canada are notable. Some fourth tier clubs that have played in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup are notable but what about the others?

There are three fourth tier leagues - namely the Premier Development League, National Premier Soccer League and Pacific Coast Soccer League. In the past has there been any discussions/agreement that these leagues confer club notability? If not what should our present position be? League Octopus (League Octopus 11:04, 17 September 2012 (UTC))

I'd say teams in the USL Premier Development League = definitely, it's the top-level amateur league and is nationwide. Is the National Premier Soccer League even fourth tier? The intro claim of that is un-cited, and says "commonly recognized" and "generally considered" - by who? Same story with Pacific Coast Soccer League - "generally considered." Giant Snowman 11:09, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

The United States soccer league system shows all three leagues at the same level - it needs to be amended if it is incorrect. Six teams from the National Premier Soccer League and 16 teams from USL Premier Development League entered the 2012 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup but the PDL has more more conferences. League Octopus (League Octopus 11:30, 17 September 2012 (UTC))

The United States soccer league system clearly says "The tiers or levels here are approximate and not specifically so designated by USSF." Giant Snowman 11:38, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. The fact that Victoria Highlanders Reserves play in the Pacific Coast Soccer League Premier Division and their first team compete in the USL Premier Development League for me provides a clear indication that the Pacific Coast Soccer League is a lower standard. League Octopus (League Octopus 11:41, 17 September 2012 (UTC))

Looking at it, I'd personally say PDL is 4, NPSL 4-and-a-half, PCSL is 5. But that's OR and we need RS to V. Giant Snowman 11:44, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

There is no promotion to level 3 as i see it. Same no promotion from left to right, so calling them all level 4 seems natural. Weighing them seems worse. -Koppapa (talk) 12:17, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

There's no promotion/relegation from 1>2, 2>3, 3>4 etc. either - that's now how the US system works. Giant Snowman 12:20, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

In certain instances I see nothing wrong in "weighting leagues" that play at the same level. In my view Canadian editors have a bit of work to do to demonstrate that the Pacific Coast Soccer League club entries meet WP:GNG in particular as we do not have a national cup competition (of relevance) to refer to. The Pacific Coast Soccer League falls in my view in the "Grey Area" where it becomes more difficult to determine whether competing clubs are notable. I am swayed by GiantSnowman's position on the USL Premier Development League particularly as some clubs are entering the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. The more difficult one is the National Premier Soccer League where it would be helpful to determine whether or not the league should confer club notability. League Octopus (League Octopus 13:23, 17 September 2012 (UTC))

Just my two cents but just looking at WP:FOOTYN and those three leagues it would seem that the clubs in the PDL and NPSL would be notable as those league are national. Does not matter if they are amateur as these are not players. If they play in one of these two leagues and can pass GNG then I see no reason for not including them. As for the Pacific Coast Soccer League, the answer is in the name but you could do with the PCSL what we do with the clubs in the state leagues of Australia. If I am not wrong, Canada treats the PCSL as one of the top four leagues so the clubs could confer notability through that. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 15:26, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Re:WikiProject FIFA World Cup

I think maybe we should either:

A) Keep it as defunct

B) Possible revival

C) Just delete it

D) Merge with WikiProject Football/National teams task force

In the case of a possible revival, current members are to be deleted and page totally revamped. TollHRT 52 17:38, 10 September 2012 (AEST)

As proposed previously; a merge with Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/National teams task force would be the best thing. Mentoz86 (talk) 10:49, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok then, I've added this as another option. TollHRT 52 16:35, 11 September 2012 (AEST)

So its' settled. I will become a TaskForce, yes? TollHRT 52 13:17, 18 September 2012 (AEST)

Yes, merge it with the national teams task force. – Pee Jay 08:59, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Santi Cazorla

Situation is a bit silly as we speak, don't want to break 3RR, plus the other user (anon) does nothing but revert, no summary no conversation... I followed this player's career in La Liga and his early national team days, he was a PURE WINGER. With Málaga CF he had the odd game as a #10, but still played mostly as a winger.

Can someone tell me (i have not seen one full game of Arsenal this season yet) where has he been playing the last matches please? Thanks in advance. --AL (talk) 15:39, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Described as a "winger" here and here, among many others. Giant Snowman 07:55, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The headline of that CNN piece uses the word winger, but the content of the piece has Arsene Wenger describing Cazorla as "a versatile, attacking midfield player who can play comfortably on either side of the pitch or centrally". There are sources for both positions, going back years, Spanish and English. The es:wiki article describes him as pudiendo jugar en cualquier posición de la medular y centrar desde ambos costados: "able to play in any midfield position and to cross from either wing". Not sure that worrying about 3RR while using rollback on a content dispute without even trying to talk to the other editor is a sensible approach... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:17, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Again the scolding even after i took the trouble of coming here to "stem the tide" (now i will profit from one of Snowman's refs and use it in piece). I did not talk to the other user because i knew immediately the type of editor that was involved (and not because they are anonymous), and did he TALK TO ME? For the rollback i have no excuse. --AL (talk) 14:35, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Well fellows, the El País ref does cover both positions, winger and att.midfielder, just wrote the latter in intro. Thanks again to both of you. --AL (talk) 14:40, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Honours

Another go because i saw something in Gabriel Heinze with which i disagree 300%, would like to hear some more "voices" please:

User:PeeJay2K3 removed no fewer than three runner-up honours that the player achieved with Argentina, no small feat in my opinion, and medals are handed out to the second-placed team (and even third in most national team competitions!).

Then, we have that argument that, if a player has won many many honours, then he does not need to have the runner-up stuff mentioned. Quantity, quality? I think even Ryan Giggs or Paolo Maldini should have their runner-up accolades in the honours section, 500 or five it's the same, if a player "gets a medal" he should "get a mention".

Furthermore, Heinze does not even fall in that scope, he has only 10 honours (13 counting the removed), and why the (1) after some honours, isn't that (super)obvious?

Attentively - --AL (talk) 14:49, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Completely agree. An honour is an honour, no matter how big or small. Finishing as runner-up with Argentina in an international competition deserves to be listed. TonyStarks (talk) 17:39, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

What do reliable sources say? Giant Snowman 17:44, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what the case is with regards to players, but clubs and leagues regularly list runner-ups in honour sections, as does FCHD. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 17:57, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

If we really must list anything other than winner's medals, I think we should draw the line at runners-up. Third place should only be included on the rare occasion that a physical bronze medal is awarded (such as in the World Cup or Olympics), and fourth place is an absolute no-no for me. – Pee Jay 21:48, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the line should be drawn after runners-up unless a bronze medal is awarded. The only position that could potentially be mentioned after that is perhaps the highest position a team has ever finished in the league system e.g. 7th in League One etc. But that would be listed in Records, not Honours. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 22:01, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Third place in League Two is an honour because it gets you automatic promotion, same as first place. Some have been adding play-off final runners up as an honour but I disagree. The play-offs are a four team tournament, the winners get promoted and the other 3 get nothing.--Echetus Xe 23:20, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Of course PEEJAY, i agree totally with you and i never implied that fourth-places deserve a mention, that's not an honour. --AL (talk) 23:44, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Nathaniel Chalobah

Anyone mind unprotecting Nathaniel Chalobah? I created Nat Chalobah then realised he was probably better known by the longer format of his name, based on red links. Tried to move, but that's protected due to multiple deletions. He made his professional debut tonight. Thanks! HornetMike (talk) 21:30, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Article now at Nathaniel Chalobah, history restored, and dbl redirect sorted following move to Nathaniel Chalobah (footballer) in the meantime. Giant Snowman 17:49, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Unsourced number changes

This editor seems to be changing numbers in football articles for no apparent reason. Britmax (talk) 16:43, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

A VANDAL maybe? --AL (talk) 17:44, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Revert, warn, report to AIV. Giant Snowman 17:55, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/FC Bayern Munich/archive1

I've started a Peer Review for Bayern Munich. Kingjeff (talk) 01:00, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Under 22 Asian Cup

The AFC U-22 Asian Cup has been rescheduled to take place in January 2014, originally it was scheduled to take place in June and July 2013.

I have moved the 2013 AFC U-22 Asian Cup page to 2014 AFC U-22 Asian Cup to reflect this and have been asked by user:Druryfire to move it back. Where should the competition's page be located? To me, it doesn't make sense to have the competition named as the 2013 edition when it is taking place in 2014. TheBigJagielka (talk) 16:05, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Why should the article exist at all? Looks to violate WP:CRYSTAL. Giant Snowman 16:07, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I concur. On an unrelated note, under-22 seems like a weird age restriction. – Kosm1 fent 16:09, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

It should exist because its qualifiers have already taken place. TheBigJagielka (talk) 16:27, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Riiight - so qualified for the 2013 event happened, then the event was pushed back. What if it gets pushed back again? Giant Snowman 16:28, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

When I created the article it was 2013, then the AFC changed it to 2014 and then they changed to January BUT the AFC website stills AFC U-22 Championship 2013 (see here). Now, if anything, instead of changing the 2013 to 2014, we should keep it and rename the article 2013 AFC U-22 Championship instead of 2013 AFC U-22 Asian Cup as that is what the AFC says. Cheers. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 20:07, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Assuming the article's being kept, if it was originally the 2013 competiton, then logically it has to remain at that year whenever they actually play it. If something catastrophic had happened such that the 2012 FA Cup Final couldn't be played until 2013, it wouldn't have become the 2013 FA Cup Final. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 20:35, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

That depends on sources. The 1979 AFC Women's Championship was played in early 1980, but you won't find it ever named the 1980 edition. -Koppapa (talk) 21:09, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Struway2: I think it should be kept. The qualifiers have already happened and the host is officially selected. Much more info is known about this tournament and sourced in the article than say the 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship.

Koppapa: I think we should just go with what the AFC have it as and until they change it we keep it as 2013 AFC U-22 Championship (or Asian Cup). --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 21:18, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

If the article is correct about the eligibility rules, you could have 23-year-olds playing in an under-22 competition. Hack (talk) 01:02, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Yep. Qualifiers in 2012 and games in 2014. You would have 21 year olds in 2012 be 23 by the tournament (example (or would be) is Jeje Lalpekhlua). Also Kosm1fet, they are the new qualifiers for the Olympics. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 01:08, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Stadium capacity

As far as I recall we had agreed that the number indicating the stadium capacity in club article infoboxes should be allways the seating capacity, am I right? Also, what about the stadiums that still include standing parts? FkpCascais (talk) 00:06, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

The number should be what the reliable sources say, although standing areas within the stadium should be included. If there is a reference to a concert being watched by 'x fans' I wouldn't put that as the capacity, as what we should be including is the 'normal' capacity. Eldumpo (talk) 06:54, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Hm, but the problem Eldumpo is that for some stadiums we have sources saying different capacity numbers, precisely because there is one for seating capacity (UEFA official matches), and a higher one which includes the standing areas.

Some editors (although mostly IP´s) prefer to add the "higher" number, although that is not the one corresponding to official matches, neither is explained how they get to that number and usually being an "aproximate" one, while most of the more established editors prefer the "seating capacity" as that is the one used for international matches and the one which can be known with precition.

I think that this can easily be explained in the article body, however the part which has been constantly in a slow edit-war in numerous club articles has ben the number in the infobox. Now, what is the adequate thing to do?

Option A: To add only the seating capacity.

Option B: To add total capacity, which includes the standing areas.

Option C: To add both, with a proper indication of what each number indicates, exemple (15,675 seating), (32,356 total) - with references for each, of course.

Now, it would be really great if we could archive consensus on this, as this situation is common for several stadiums in the world. FkpCascais (talk) 17:01, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Option A would be misleading; standing at football grounds isn't prohibited in many leagues (and in those that it is, it's very rare that stadia have standing spaces) so it would be absolute nonsense not to include the standing areas in the total capacity. Option B would be fine, but in my opinion the third option is best if the precise numbers of seats/standing areas are available. BigDom (talk) 18:03, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Personally I think Option C is the only option if the information is available. Haig Avenue has it like that and it works fine. I only added it like that some time ago because when I worked for the club the ground grading was my responsibility (and the website at the time oddly, not the awful one they have now) so for ease of access of information I added it to the site and it's been kept like that. Most clubs don't advertise the two separate figures however they have to be taken for ground grading reasons. The information for club in the UK should be there, it might just be hard to find. Narom (talk) 18:28, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm surprised to see this is or was any other way, but, as others have hinted, Option C is really the only option that makes sense. mg SH 23:12, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

2012–13 UEFA Champions League group stage

Maybe someone could take a look? history. --Edgars2007 ^{(talk/contribs)} 06:42, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Yay, another pointless edit war! – Kosm1 fent 13:24, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Seems like an old friend has returned? Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Syjytg. Chanheigeorge (talk) 18:09, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Same person as this who keeps on getting banned for edit warring, then blanking their talk page to remove evidence of vandalism warnings. They also regularly edit war on 2012–13 FA Cup Qualifying Rounds and European World Cup Qualification pages (see here for the last time I brought this user to the project's attention. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 21:46, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Questions for a new editor

A new editor has some questions and is posing them in the wrong place. One such question, "Please provide me with a reference that says flag has to indicate the nation for which a player has played most recently even if it is at youth level", is posted at User talk:Arsenalkid700#Jenkinson's nationality. A response there would be helpful. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:17, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

If someone would like to mentor the editor asking the question, that might help as well. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:19, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

There is a topic above on this very situation I had with Emmanuel Frimpong. We could link him to that. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 19:52, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, just messaged him that topic above. Hope it helps him, if not then I will probably tell him to come back here because I cant explain any better. Cheers. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 20:11, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Same editor mucking about with Arsène Wenger. Would someone who knows something about the Arsenal manager please review the edits? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:14, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

What is the point of adding "while young English talent such as Theo Walcott, Kieran Gibbs and Jack Wilshere are still building careers at the club". What will happen once guys like Frimpong or Jenkinson or Aneke or Afobe come in, will we add them as well? Why cant it just be one simple sentence in which only Wilshere is mentioned along with Cole, Sidwell etc. as he actually started at Arsenal and is an England senior. Walcott and AOC are Southampton while Gibbs is not at the same level of notability as Wilshere to put into that sentence yet. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 03:42, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

First of all, to the editor who started this topic, thank you for your kind words. It would be great if an Arsenal expert could modify that specific part of the Arsene Wenger article, because the discussion between me and another editor has lead to the conclusion that it is problematic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Walter_Görlitz#Arsene_Wenger Also, this is for the general audience: indirect verbal bullying and assault are considered unacceptable.

In my opinion, this section should be removed by the person who started it as soon as possible. This page is for editors to share their thoughts on soccer (football), not raise questions about some specific editor like this section does. --Miunouta (talk) 07:55, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

First of all an editor is more then entitled to raise concerns over the editing patterns of a certain editor when they effect articles which fall under this project once they have already tried to speak to them on their talkpage. Görlitz started this section in an attempt for someone to come along & advise you Miunouta as you'd be more receptive with someone else which you hadn't butted heads with. So no it isn't bullying in anyway as you suggested & the thread shouldn't be removed. Maybe one should take advise instead of going on the defensive. If there's anything you need to ask feel free to ask me. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 08:28, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Miunouta: Take it like this, being a wikipedian writer is almost like being a professional journalist. You can write some things and edit this and get some praise etc but you will get criticism and the best way to deal with it is to read it and change from it. Don't let it discourage you or feel like your being bullied. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 13:40, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

2012–13 Burnley F.C. season

Would anyone mind taking a glance at 2012–13 Burnley F.C. season#Statistics and help fathom why the appearances won't line up properly in the 'League' and 'Total' columns? I've checked it over and everything looks to be in place, I can't see any instances of Template:sort being misused. Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 11:42, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. -Koppapa (talk) 08:40, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that when the {{sort}} template is used, whoever's done it has put a leading zero e.g. for Ross Wallace's league stats it is {{sort|06|4 (2)}}. But when it isn't there is no leading zero, just a plain number, so all the players who have made sub apps get sorted before the players who haven't. BigDom (talk) 09:25, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, thought that was the prefered way. If 4 (2) should sort like the numebr 6 then do {{sort|6|4 (2)}}. If there is a 06 to sort, i guess that template goes for alphabetical sorting. -Koppapa (talk) 09:32, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

What should be done when either plain numbers or sortkeys get to double figures? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:46, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

They should all be sorted using leading zeros for single figures. The problem before was that some used a sort key and some didn't but the sort template should be used for all the numbers in the table. BigDom (talk) 15:41, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Runner-up honours in player articles

After that situation in Gabriel Heinze, in which Copa América runner-up honours were removed even though the player has few honours (some argue that if a player has many conquests, no need for the second places, not me), i'd like to propose the following in much more straight-forward fashion: a voting session, maybe some consensus will emerge from this "election" (or not, depending on the turnout).

Should player articles contain runner-up classifications for cups (and in national team tournaments, the third-places as well - that i know of, the only one that does not have such a match is the UEFA European Football Championship, all the others do)? My vote YES. Please write your vote after my signature below.

Attentively - --AL (talk) 23:56, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

My vote is no, runners-up honours should not be included simply because they are not honours. Clubs don't list the occasions they were runners-up in their honours, so I don't see why we should list them for players. NapHit (talk) 13:04, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Not exactly true; Burnley list runners-up positions in their Honours list, as do Accrington Stanley. Note that those are the only two English clubs I checked. In France, Niort count cup finalists and league runners-up as an honour (again, the only one from that country I looked at). BigDom (talk) 13:19, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

The Sky Sports Annual has a box for honours on each club's page, which includes runners-ups in cups and leagues. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:56, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I would support such moves, however I do have one question on my mind: why was this discussion separated from the original one. Seems a bit unnecessary. Malpass⁹₃! (what I've been ^up to/_drop me a ^___) 14:08, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, clubs list them, but I'm still not entirely convinced we should list them in the case of players. Maybe in the case of a player who has not won much, but for someone like Ryan Giggs or Paolo Maldini i really don't see the point. NapHit (talk) 16:14, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Kind Malpass, because last discussion was stale to say the list, and i went "for the kill" in this separate one: YES or NO (with a succint explanation as to why people chose A or B)? Still, it seems a bit difficult to achieve that, can't tell you why, but i still apologize if the move was incovenient. --AL (talk) 14:10, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Nearly two full days gone, TWO votes (mine and NapHit's), even the guy who removed the stuff in Heinze was notified by me to please come and cast his vote, did not even care to do so. Really why am i surprised with this turnout? The (lack of) consensus continues...and why should i go to Heinze's article to add (duly!) his runner-up honours when they will be removed? --AL (talk) 18:15, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree with GiantSnowman's point above: What do reliable sources say. In Norway you get a medal for finishing 1st, 2nd and even 3rd in Tippeligaen as well as the winners and runner-ups in the Norwegian Cup. I'm against a consensus that "forbids" including runner-ups honours, because if the sources include them we should include them. On the other hand, I wouldn't even consider adding a runner-up honour to Ryan Giggs' article or the mostwinning Norwegian player Roar Strand. Mentoz86 (talk) 16:04, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Images up for deletion at Commons

Hi, just a heads up over this this deletion request at Wikimedia Commons. These have been nominated as they are suspected to be copyvios, but in my mind this seems wrong with there being no actual proof to suggest they are indeed copyvios. Apparently things work differently over at the Commons, as the burden is on the uploading user to prove works are free, rather than the burden being on others to prove they aren't free. Just seems a little wrong that the uploading user is essentially being seen as insincere with the licencing he/she has provided, when there's nothing to actually suggest this is the case. Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 16:10, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I think you are wrong. No EXIF data and small resolution of the images does suggest a potential copyvio, as these are indications that the images were possibly copied from another website. Additionally, no source is given besides "own work", and if they were the uploader's own work, they would contain EXIF data. Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 06:20, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Emmanuel Frimpong nationality and hopefully a consensus for the future

I was looking through my watchlist when I saw that User:Phenom V1.0 edited the Arsenal F.C. page in which he said that Emmanuel Frimpong is Ghanian. His reason was "He was born there and he stated he wants to play for them" (Not his exact quote, just a basic sentence of what he meant). Now while that was a good reason it should be noted that Frimpong has played for England at youth levels and as such should have the England flag till he plays for Ghana as England is technically his FIFA nationality and on top of the squad list it says "Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality." Now correct me if I am wrong but wouldn't that mean that England is Frimpong's FIFA nationality and that Ghana is his non-FIFA nationality till he is capped so on the Arsenal FC page it should say that he is English. Moving on I undid but he came back saying that we should respect Frimpong's decision. Now it is his decision but again it does not really matter till he plays for Ghana, at least that is what I thought. So I undid again, using what I think now is one of my worst examples ever in my life when I think about it but it is true, and he comes back being a bully. Now I dont want to undo the edit again as 1) I have officially had enough of this. 2) I rather not put myself in 3RR territory and 3) I dont know if I could hold back from being a dick myself. Better to come here basically. Also User:Blethering Scot came in and eventually became the gentlemen of the situation for me and made me realize yet another mistake by me in the past few months.

Anyway that is what happened and I rather come to a conclusion on this. Not just for Frimpong but for all future cases. The question we should answer here is... Should a player who has already represented another country at youth level but wants to represent his birth country (or another) at senior level have his flag changed to that desired country or should we stick to what team he played for last internationally... whether at youth or senior level?. Cheers. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 22:21, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

An unrelated but similar issue cropped up with Daniel Potts (footballer) when he represented the US in an under-age competition. if in doubt you report what is accurate. "Frimpong is a professional football player. He represents Arsenal, and has played for junior England teams at International level. In 2012 he stated his interest in representing Ghana, a country he qualifies for by XXXX". This leaves his nationality undecided.

As for his flag, it should stay as "England" until such point as he actually actively changes his alliegance through representation (call-up would suffice). As we all know, declaring interest in representing a country does not necessarily make you of that country. And I point back, at that point, to Dan Potts. Koncorde (talk) 23:39, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

In Frimpong's case, his flag should be England. If he wants to represent Ghana he will need to submit his case to FIFA for approval to switch his international allegiance to Ghana. As long as that's not done, he is considered English in the sense that he is only eligible to represent England internationally. Also, his intro should still say English footballer as well, no reason why we should avoid saying that since he is by definition only eligible for England right now. When his paperwork is submitted and processed by FIFA then his flag and intro can be changed to reflect that. TonyStarks (talk) 00:54, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

The fact he requires clearance does not mean he is not eligible, as by default he must be eligible in order to apply for clearance. Pedantic I know. Koncorde (talk) 21:54, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

You're right .. but I meant eligible as of right now. Also, no guarantees that FIFA would accept a nationality switch, there's always the faint possibility of incomplete paperwork. TonyStarks (talk) 04:55, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

There is an interesting case involving Tarek Elrich. He has played an unofficial match for Lebanon but is ineligible to officially play for them because he once sat on the bench in a competitive international for Australia. Hack (talk) 13:31, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Red Cards in footballbox summaries

What is the reason that red cards are being added in the summaries of Cup competitions? I'm starting to have an edit war with a User:Irshav about having the red cards in the 2012–13 Ukrainian Cup. Previous seasons in the Ukrainian Cup season did not record such information. I do notice that its in the 2011–12 FA Cup but it not in some of the earlier seasons. This kind of information is in the match report which is a separate parameter in the footballbox template.

I'm against this kind of additional information due to:

lack of consistancy across seasons
what makes a red card information inclusive while missed penalty kicks and yellow cards not
match reports links are there for complete summaries
not consistant across different competitions

12 November 2011	Bury	0–2	Crawley Town	Gigg Lane, Bury
15:00 GMT	Hughes 83'	Report	Barnett 49' Doughty 82'	Attendance: 2,436 Referee: Mark Brown

Thoughts??? Brudder Andrusha (talk) 03:01, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

My view is that we should not be using this collapsible box for these articles, especially as MOS:COLLAPSE states: "Scrolling lists, and boxes that toggle text display between hide and show, should not conceal article content" There really is no need for these boxes to be used, they should be replaced by simple wikitables, which are WP:ACCESS compliant and ensure we as a project are meeting the MOS. NapHit (talk) 17:00, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

OK... The Ukrainian Cup season is not using collapsible boxes. The example is from the 2011–12 FA Cup which I assume should be the principle season example on this English version of WP. And your opinion about red cards, which is what this thread is about? Brudder Andrusha (talk) 18:52, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

If we use wikitables instead of these collapsible boxes then there is no place for red cards or goals, in my opinion we don't need either. NapHit (talk) 19:40, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

2011–12 FA Cup should be changed to match previous seasons. The collapsible footballboxes are ugly and bloat the article with far too much unnecessary info. The only matches that should have that level of info are those from the Sixth Round through to the Final, and that does not include red cards, yellow cards or missed penalties – just goals. – Pee Jay 22:56, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I suppose red cards might have been included because of their importance to a match. Most match reports would mention red cards and goals as an important part of the narrative of a match. To suggest yellow cards come close to this is a bit silly. This excellent live service's dropdown box has a similar convention. mg SH 06:14, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

While red cards may influence any game in term of result information its the scoreline and the goals that essentially are the most important part of the match and thats what would be includes in the article. Also this kind of information is probably available from season long ago. I also have problems with the collapsible footballboxes which I have been using (inherited) in a club's football season i.e. 2012–13 Carlisle United F.C. season. Now I know that some other clubs who have a much high profile have different variations of displaying results and probably they are better. However the effort for conversion is just too much for this volunteer... Brudder Andrusha (talk) 12:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Ryan Bauer

User:Ryan.bauer777 has created an article for himself - Ryan Bauer. He then also added himself to the Fleetwood Town F.C. squad. He claims that he has played 46 league games, scoring 11 goals for the Cods...... Would someone with better knowledge than me, sort this out please? thank you. --♦Tangerines♦·Talk 13:14, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Tagged as a hoax. Giant Snowman 13:16, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Fleetwood did not even have a game on 12 November 2010 (2010-11).--Arsenalkid700 (talk) 13:27, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for sorting it. --♦Tangerines♦·Talk 14:02, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Zkerdro League

Just came across Zkerdro League - is this notable? It has a couple of blue-linked clubs but virtually nothing comes up in google. Hack (talk) 15:17, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

No hits at the Non-League Daily, probable hoax? Giant Snowman 15:29, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I've tagged the associated Huxton F.C. as blatant hoax, as well. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:52, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Club articles that meet WP:FOOTYN but fail WP:GNG

CF Granma is a random example (in this case from Cuba) of a club article that meets WP:FOOTYN but clearly fails WP:GNG as there is nothing in the way of content and no sources.

I have long asked myself what is the minimum amount of work that would be required to upgrade such articles to WP:GNG - there are an awful lot of them that need upgrading!.

Can anyone provide me with a few good examples of "minimal content stubs" that do enough to meet WP:GNG.

I provide below a couple of my examples:

Santa Maria FC (Portugal)
Rotebro IS FF (Sweden)

Your examples would be appreciated. League Octopus (League Octopus 11:25, 25 September 2012 (UTC))

CF Granma is a club in the top national division. I'm very hesitant to see top division clubs getting deleted because they fail GNG. Any other club which passes FOOTYN but clearly fails GNG should be deleted IMO. Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 11:36, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

If an article fails GNG, and there is no possibility of it meeting GNG, and this has been the case for a number of months/years, then it is not notable. Giant Snowman 11:40, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Is it possible to reach broad agreement on a minimum standard necessary to upgrade such articles to meet GNG? League Octopus (League Octopus 12:18, 25 September 2012 (UTC))

You just need to evidence that they have "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" - which should be decided on a case-by-case basis. One article may have 2 sources and meet GNG, another may need 4 or 5. Giant Snowman 12:22, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm guessing Cuban news articles don't appear on Google News? Hack (talk) 13:57, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

That's exactly what I worry about; top division clubs from less developed countries should have received at least some coverage in offline sources. – Kosm1 fent 08:46, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Coverage in Google News is poor but if one refers to the local papers in ABYZ News Links one begins to pick up material (see below). The big problem in Cuba is filtering out baseball.

League Octopus (League Octopus 12:42, 26 September 2012 (UTC))

Uttam Rai

This player plays for the India national under-16 football team and has 8 goals in 5 games now along with 2 goals in 2 games in the AFC U-16 Championships so far and it seems because of that many people are asking me to create his page or they are threatening to create it themselves. Now I already had to delete the page earlier this month but I fear another attempt is on the horizon. So in order to prevent this can someone just redirect the name Uttam Rai to the India U16 page. Once its ready I will ask for it to be created. See ya in 3-4 years :) --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 15:31, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Unsure of the idea of redirecting non-notable players to youth teams. There's also a chance that the redirect gets hijacked and an article is created anyway. If that's the case - AfD, could SALT is deleted and re-created. Giant Snowman 15:36, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed with GiantSnowman, let it run the usual flow (AfD and SALT if recreated). Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 15:40, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 15:43, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

National Cups - are there more competitions that we should refer to?

With reference to the Club Notability Tables detailed lists are provided of the current national cups on a country by country basis.

However, historically some national cups may be missing from the listings if they have been terminated and later replaced by another competition. An example has been provided to me in Australia by Hack that we should be including the defunct Australian Cup (soccer) and the NSL Cup.

Can you help me identify any other current or defunct national cups that are missing from the listings?

There is also another interesting issue to consider as at the moment there are only two countries in the world where we currently use more than one national cup for Club Notability purposes. These are:

England - FA Cup, FA Trophy and FA Vase (and previously the FA Amateur Cup).

Scotland - Scottish Cup and Scottish Junior Cup

In my view it is statistically absurd that there are not any other (secondary) national cups in the world that we might use for Club Notability purposes and I would like to suggest that we also include the following:

Italy - Coppa Italia, Coppa Italia Lega Pro and Coppa Italia Serie D

Spain - Copa del Rey and Copa Federación de España

Other national cup competitions can be viewed at List of association football competitions. League Octopus (League Octopus 08:30, 25 September 2012 (UTC))

Don't forget the Football League Cup. – Pee Jay 10:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

It is a good point PeeJay. Many countries also have League Cups - should we consider them to be national cups for the purposes of Club Notability? Why have they not been used for Club Notability purposes in the past? League Octopus (League Octopus 10:49, 25 September 2012 (UTC))

Because in most cases, League Cups have got higher entrance requirements than the domestic cup. Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 10:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is true; oftentimes, if a team has played in its country's league cup, it will almost certainly have played in its country's FA Cup. However, it is probably best to make sure that notability is satisfied by including league cups in the notability criteria, as long as entry to the league cup is not restricted on a geographical basis. If any competition restricts entry based on geography (e.g. north/south divides, sub-national divides, etc.), we should look at that competition in greater detail to determine whether competing in said competition confers notability. – Pee Jay 11:27, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

In my view the Club Notability Tables would become over-complicated if we include the League Cups. However, the question/criteria Has the club played in the past in a competition of comparable status to one listed in the Blue or Yellow Columns picks up League Cups in my view. Where there has been no national cup for long periods - as in Australia - I think we should be including competitions like the NSL Cup.

Can I assume that there is no opposition to the use of the following secondary national cups for Club Notability purposes?

Italy - Coppa Italia Lega Pro and Coppa Italia Serie D
Spain - Copa Federación de España

....and I can update the Tables accordingly? League Octopus (League Octopus 12:47, 27 September 2012 (UTC))

Aron Jóhannsson

Could any admin please unprotect Aron Jóhannsson to make room for a page move. The article is currently at Aron Johannsson. Mr. Johannsson has made some forty appearances in the Danish Super Liga since the article was protected, meaning he clearly passes WP:NSPORT. Thanks. Sir Sputnik (talk) 18:05, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Done. Oldelpaso (talk) 18:17, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

2012 Afghan Premier League

First off, yes Afghanistan have a national football league, just started a few days ago. Anyway second, I just created the article for the 2012 season but the 8 clubs that are in the league are far away from being notable. I tried but I cant find any information unless you want 8 super stubs. I have un-highlighted the names of the clubs and if you do find enough information for a club then go but if you find one that is not then it should be deleted. Cheers. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 04:22, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Try this BBC piece for more info on the league. Giant Snowman 07:52, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Ya, I used that for a school report but thats not enough. There just isn't man sources to use to make actual pages yet for the teams. I am sure the online managers of the APL will eventually provide info but till then I dont see the reason why. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 10:03, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Fulham 3rd kit

Who can create the new Fulham third kit for Fulham and 12/13 season page? New shirt JMHamo (talk) 09:29, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Can someone with experience of templates help me.

I am doing some work with United Sikkim F.C. and while doing so I tried to make a squad template for the club. Sadly I made a mistake but I could not fix it but I found some way (I forgot) and now I have two squad templates (Template:United Sikkim F.C. squad and Template:United Sikkim squad) and now when I am editing the players for the club I dont know what template I am adding. If anyone can just combine the templates that would be great. Thank you so much. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 01:35, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Done. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 08:00, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you WFC. Cheers. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 12:46, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Club notability in Brazil (State Leagues)

With reference to the Brazilian football league system are many of the following 27 State Championships "not notable" in terms of conferring Club Notability?

Has this issue been properly covered in previous debates? I find it difficult to get a firm grip on this one and it does not help that some of the club listings are well out of date. League Octopus (League Octopus 19:57, 17 September 2012 (UTC))

The state championships are not fifth tier, as clubs competing in the state championships play in the same year in the national championships using their main squads in both competitions. For example, Santos FC won the Campeonato Paulista this year and they are currently competing in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A. --Carioca (talk) 20:09, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I would say playing in the state championship top-level confers club notability. Even the lowest ranked states have teams qualifying for the Copa Brasil. Eldumpo (talk) 21:26, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that there is a substantial difference between the level of, exemple, Campeonato Paulista and Campeonato Carioca, and the more rural ones... A bit like comparing the top level championships of different countries in Europe... A question for Carioca, are all state championships fully professional? FkpCascais (talk) 01:31, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Apologies for the error re fifth tier status I have amended the title. It would be much easier if we can reach consensus that all State Championships (top tier) confers club notability - there will always be some Championships that are weaker but if the clubs from the weaker championships are still progressing to the Copa Brasil is there really an issue? I suppose what I am trying to determine is that there is nothing in Brazil like the "Northern Territory situation" in Australia?

The other question is whether there are any State Championships (second tier) and (third tier) that you consider confers club notability? League Octopus (League Octopus 08:09, 18 September 2012 (UTC))

I have to believe that clubs which have competed in the top division of the fully-pro Carioca and Paulista championships are notable (those leagues get loads of coverage in Brazilian newspapers/magazines). Many of the other state championships have similar, but lesser coverage, which should be sufficient. I don't think the lower-tier divisions (even in RJ and SP) get enough coverage but I'll defer to Carioca on that matter. Jogurney (talk) 18:53, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The RJ and SP lower-tier divisions receive some coverage, for example by Lance! newspaper. The state championships are important in Brazil, they were first played in the early 1900s, while the first national competition was first played only in 1959. The national championships only start after most of the state championships are over. --Carioca (talk) 20:04, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I am running into difficulties assessing the lower tiers of Campeonato Paulista. Which of the following divisions confer club notability?

Campeonato Paulista Série A2 (2nd tier)
Campeonato Paulista Série A3 (3rd tier)
Campeonato Paulista Segunda Divisão (4th tier)

In my view the Campeonato Paulista Segunda Divisão does not confer notability but further advice would be appreciated on Campeonato Paulista Série A2 and Campeonato Paulista Série A3.

The lower tiers of the Campeonato Carioca are much more difficult to assess. The article on Campeonato Carioca (lower levels) - covering the 2nd & 3rd tiers - needs further development. At the moment it is difficult to form a view on club notability issues for Carioca especially as the Portuguese Wikipedia does not list the current club constitution. Soccerway lists Carioca 2 but my general feeling is that we should leave the Carioca lower tiers alone for the time-being. League Octopus (League Octopus 09:30, 20 September 2012 (UTC))

The Campeonato Paulista Série A2 and the Campeonato Carioca Second Level receive enough media coverage. Besides that, clubs, in Rio de Janeiro state, like Bangu (1985 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A runners-up) and America Football Club (seven time Campeonato Carioca champion and with regular Série A participations in the 1970s and in the 1980s) in recent years competed in the Campeonato Carioca Second Level (America competed in 2012 and will compete again in 2013, and Bangu competed in 2008), and in São Paulo state, clubs like Associação Portuguesa de Desportos (1996 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A runners-up) and Guarani Futebol Clube (1978 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A champions) in recent years competed in the Campeonato Paulista Série A2 (Portuguesa competed in 2007 and will compete again in this championship in 2013 and Guarani competed in 2007 and in 2011). --Carioca (talk) 21:14, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I take the point that you are making Carioca re Campeonato Carioca Série B. Things become a lot clearer with reference to Campeonato Carioca de Futebol de 2012 - Série B - but I will do a WP:GNG check re media coverage. League Octopus (League Octopus 12:38, 23 September 2012 (UTC))

From a quick check of the small clubs (low stadium capacity) in Campeonato Carioca Série B there it is clear that clubs in this division meet WP:GNG. League Octopus (League Octopus 09:17, 30 September 2012 (UTC))

How? – Kosm1 fent 09:32, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Using Google sources and news. I have not "fine-grained" it using ABYZ News Links - Rio de Janeiro but we can if you can identify any deficiencies. League Octopus (League Octopus 14:07, 30 September 2012 (UTC))

If you want the position tested further I am happy to tackle a PROD/AfD if you wish to put one forward but I consider the position to be clear cut. League Octopus (League Octopus 17:33, 30 September 2012 (UTC))

Quinta del Buitre

This article has been unreferenced since 2009 according to the tag. Anyone that knows Spanish football well enough and specifically Real Madrid want to take a crack at it? Also, seems like parts of it, added by an anon IP, are opinion, nothing more. For example, "this period has often been likened to José Mourinho's spell at the club for the tactics employed." Seems like whoever wrote that is basing his/her analysis of a couple of El Classico's considering that Mourinho's team broke the record for number of goals in one season (yes I might be a bit biased!). Thanks. TonyStarks (talk) 02:26, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Why is this even a page in the first page. Looks like it should be deleted. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 02:52, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

That was one of the greatest generations of all times and certainly deserves a nice article, but you noteced well that it is flagrantly unsourced. I am currently so involved with updating Serbian football that I have little time left, but I noteced the corresponding article from the Spanish Wikipedia is almost the same and it does include sources. I´ll see what can be done, but that article has potential to even be a featured article, and I am not exagerating at all... Well, having took advantage of my Spanish friends and having meat those football Gods in the hotel while they once played in Lisbon back then has perhaps something to do with my enthusiasm :) Anyway, its importance within Real Madrid history is huge and they basically set the base for the Galacticos. FkpCascais (talk) 03:09, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

@ArsenalKid: A golden generation of the biggest and most successful club in the world, pretty self explanatory on why the article exists. @Fkp: I'll check the Spanish article and see if I can add some references to the article. However, a subject expert will still need to fix it up. TonyStarks (talk) 03:13, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Just did some deeper research and saw that even Arsenal have a page on our golden generation. Fine, if it must :). Would love to help with the article but I am no Real Madrid nor Spanish football fan to help. Good luck. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 03:38, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

The article is not so bad in a sense that what is written there is so-so OK. Some articles found on Spanish media are much more passionate and unbalanced for the way we need it here. However, that is trully the case, those guys really surprised everyone and Spanish football was really spectacular at that time mostly thanks to them (OK, Cruyff´s Barça and Futre´s Atletico helped too). The 5 came from club´s youth program so that makes them also kind of unique and they set the foundations of Real Madrid´s modernised youth program that is still in place and that still failed to make such a good generation of domestic footballers. But even more important is their style of play which was basically kept when leter Mijatovic, Suker, Roberto Carlos, Seedorf, Redondo and others were incorporated and won the Champions League. FkpCascais (talk) 04:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Rangers FC player notability

Currently at the AfD for Lewis Macleod there is some sort of fake rule being conjured up about how even though Rangers play in a league that is not fully-pro the fact that they are so well known nationally in Scotland means that the players who play for the club should be notable as well. Now I tried but I got bored in talking on that AfD so if anyone else wants to take a whack at it, be my guest. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 19:40, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Be careful how you phrase things like this, you're very close to WP:CANVASSing there. I have added my twopenn'orth, though I suspect it may not be to your liking. Oldelpaso (talk) 21:19, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I know I could have phrased this better... I am just a lazy sod :p --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 21:26, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Despite the fact that Rangers play in the fourth tier of Scottish football, I suspect that the majority of the players would still pass WP:GNG given the amount of media coverage the club gets from reliable sources. Keep in mind, Rangers is one of the most supported clubs in Scotland (if not most?), and over 45,000 showed up for their last home game. So while the players might fail WP:FOOTYN, I can still most passing WP:GNG. Of course, it would have to be proven on a case by case basis. TonyStarks (talk) 20:33, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

For those who were interested, here is a link to another national newspaper article focusing on young Lewis Macleod. Thankfully the dispute was resolved on the side of keeping the article, but it might come in useful if the pro-deleters were to try again. Gefetane (talk) 09:15, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

What is the proper way to list american college soccer careers?

Hello, when looking around at the wikipages for the american players here in Sweden I noticed some of them have their college teams listed in the "senior career" part of their pages with full stats like Reuben Ayarna, Brian Span and Samuel Petrone. Others have them listed under "youth career" instead like Alejandro Bedoya, Craig Henderson and Calum Angus. So which is the proper way? 109.228.168.57 (talk) 01:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It's not really youth and it's not really senior. There is a college career parameter in {{Infobox football biography}} that was supposed to have been activated about a year ago. Hack (talk) 01:17, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Jack Hall (footballer born 1885)

Cattivi (talk · contribs) - impressive as always - believes that Jack Hall is the same 'John Edward Hall' found in Joyce, based in part on this. I agree, but as it is OR, please can somebody verify? Giant Snowman 17:37, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Joyce lists two John Edward Halls - one born in Tyne Dock (which is part of South Shields) in 1885, who played for Barnsley & Preston NE amongst other clubs from 1905 to 1911, and one born in Bermondsey (SE London) in 1898, who had a brief playing career, including with Fulham and Luton Town between 1919 and 1921. According to the article, the Jack Hall who managed PSV and Feyenoord was apparently born on 6 May 1885 in Southfields (SW London), although this is unsourced. The document produced by Cattivi says that this Jack Hall was born in South Shields; I guess that could have been misread as Southfields. My reading of all this, is that the manager and the Barnsley/Preston player were one & the same and the correct place of birth is Tyne Dock, South Shields. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 18:01, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

p.s one other clincher, Joyce says that Hall played for Pontypridd some time after 1911, before playing for South Shields. His son William was born in 1913 in Pontypridd, and his other two children were born in South Shields in 1915 and 1920.

I'm happy that the Hall from South Shields and the Hall from Southfields are one and the same - fancy adjusting the article with the new info? Giant Snowman 18:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Done. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 18:49, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Much obliged. Giant Snowman 18:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

William John Aitken and George Aitken (football manager)

Isn't this about the same person? When Aitken was with Juventus, there was a ban on foreign players, but not on foreign managers. Cattivi (talk) 09:55, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

La Stampa 16 July 1930 page 5 [1] Cattivi (talk) 14:50, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Can you translate this for us non-Italian speakers? -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 15:05, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I cannot find the segment. However, it appears they are different individuals. Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 15:17, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The place and date of birth disagree, which is pretty significant, albeit George's are not sourced.... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The newspaperarticle says after training Juventus for 2 years Mr Aitken has joined Cannes as player-manager.

[2] is another source. Cattivi (talk) 15:37, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The foreign language Wikis say that George Aitken was a pupil of Herbert Chapman who took charge at Juventus 1928-1930 but left after players objected to his intense training sessions. This site says he was born in Edinburgh in 1885. The William John Aitken guy has a much better recorded life history. Is it possible that he played for Juventus whilst a guy with the same surname managed the club? Quite possible. Unless he started calling himself George for some reason I don't see how he would have got separated into two people. Maybe someone at the Italian Wiki will have a book on the history of Juventus.--Echetus Xe 21:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

They agree with me in Italy [3]. it:George Aitken Cattivi (talk) 18:13, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I'm convinced and have merged the articles. A Port Vale player went on to manager Juventus. Who knew?--Echetus Xe 21:01, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

National cups and player notability

Just wondering if any discussion had occurred around WP:NFOOTY not presuming notability for players appearing in fully professional national cups. I notice that the now-defunct WP:FOOTYN presumed notability for players making an appearance in a match between two competitive teams. Hack (talk) 02:19, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I always thought the rule was if the player played in a domestic cup and both the teams involved are fully-professional then you are considered notable. If not then I am stuck in a bad, bad situation because I have been creating articles for some Football League Trophy and some Football League Cup players. Same with many other editors on here. I thought this was the norm. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 02:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd thought that too but the football section of Wikipedia:Notability (sports) says

"Players who have appeared, and managers who have managed, in a fully professional league, will generally be regarded

as notable. See a list of fully professional leagues kept by WikiProject Football."

There are a couple of problems - 1) the various cups (FA Cup, League Cup, etc) are not leagues, and 2) aren't listed in Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Fully professional leagues in any case. Hack (talk) 02:41, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

It is not listed in WP:NFOOTY, but there is a consensus that playing in a cup-match between two teams from FPL's confers notability in the same way that playing in a FPL does. Mentoz86 (talk) 08:44, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Think WP:NFOOTY needs tightening to either say domestic cup games between clubs in fully-pro leagues count as presuming notabilty OR they don't. To say nothing on the subject of cups is not helpful to editors. The nomination of Serge Gnabry for deletion highlights this.--Egghead06 (talk) 08:49, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

This is a project consensus (WP:FOOTYN) that was superseded by NFOOTY. However, any cup competition with only fully professional clubs partipating (for example, the Greek Cup and the Football League Cup – among others) can be considered a fully professional competition and thus meeting NFOOTY's requirements. Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 08:52, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

So it would be fair to say the consensus would be that the text of WP:NFOOTY should be something like below?

"Players who have appeared, and managers who have managed, in a fully professional competition, will generally

be regarded as notable."? Hack (talk) 08:59, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

But the FA Cup isn't a fully-professional competition. It would be better to say something like "in a fully professional league, or in a cup match between two teams from fully professional leagues." Giant Snowman 09:17, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

This is a terrible idea. Does this mean that a player from a fully pro club who (for example) has appeared once in a Europa League qualifier against another fully pro team is notable? – Kosm1 fent 09:23, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I support GiantSnowman's suggestion, and to Kosm1fent's comment above me: yes. Mentoz86 (talk) 09:24, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Kosm1fent - people are only notable if they meet GNG; they are only presumed notable if they meet NFOOTBALL. It would be extremely unlikely for two fully-pro teams to meet in a qualifier. Giant Snowman 09:26, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Terrible example, sorry. :P – Kosm1 fent 09:27, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman, not very unlikely at all: see 2012–13 UEFA Europa League qualifying phase and play-off round. Plenty of qualifiers between fully-pro teams. BigDom (talk) 17:26, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

@Kosm1fent: Why wouldn't we consider a player notable if they're played in a qualifier between two professional teams in Europe? This is continental competition where the top teams from each league compete. If anything, 1 match in Europe should be given more weight than one league/cup match, granted of course it's between two professional teams. TonyStarks (talk) 21:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

But then the question has to be: Do the players in qualifying matches between two fully-pro teams receive enough coverage to pass GNG, and do they receive any more coverage than the players in those matches where one or both teams are semi-professional? BigDom (talk) 09:31, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

One match between two fully pro teams wouldn't be enough to pass GNG, regardless of if the match was in the league or in the cup. But when looking at the team-sheets for the cup-matches, the teams normally plays with "better" team against better teams and often let the reserves have their chance when playing against amateur teams. But in England it looks like the top teams think differently, by playing with their best team in the FA cup against amateurs while letting the reserves play in the League Cup and Europa League against other teams from FPL. --Mentoz86 (talk) 08:46, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Mario Balotelli

If there's an admin passing by, would they mind dealing with 84.20.172.93 (talk · contribs), who has been making unfounded allegations at Talk:Mario Balotelli? Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 21:50, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Someone else blocked him for 1 week. Giant Snowman 08:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

International caps

A quick and small question! What counts as a international cap, a full FIFA, UEFA, CONCACAF etc competitev game or any game regardless of the player start it or comes on as a substitute?Halmstad (talk) 22:46, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Any game regardless. However, you look at my argument earlier regarding Sweden vs Qatar U23, that wouldn't count as an official friendly. In which case it wouldn't count as an official cap. – Michael (talk) 00:45, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The official classification according to FIFA is International "A" Match. Basically, it's a match where both teams field their "first representative team". This may be a friendly or a competitive match. The difficult part is working out which games are A matches and which are not, given the lack of consistency between countries and confederations. Hack (talk) 02:42, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Just look at the countries profile on the FIFA website which lists there "A" matches. However it does get confusing when the FIFA website says this match is "A" and then the next day it is not and then the next day it is again and so on. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 02:54, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the FIFA website is usually the best reference. If the match is listed there, it's considered a cap. But like the previous user mentioned, sometimes they'll list it, then de-list then re-list it, although that's mostly the case for smaller footballing nations. TonyStarks (talk) 09:22, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Ricardo Oliveira Fernandes

I imagine appearing for Chelsea's...RESERVE side does not confer notability. AfD candidate as can be no? In Portugal has only played in divisions 3 and 4.

Attentively - --AL (talk) 14:42, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Already nominated - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ricardo Oliveira Fernandes. Giant Snowman 15:23, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much to all involved! --AL (talk) 15:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Top 25 countries in FIFA

I have sympathy with this edit by User:Dr. Vicodine, because the map of the top 25 countries in the rankings will constantly be going out of date. However, it does add a utility beyond simply a map of all FIFA countries, because just about every territory on the planet has FIFA representation, so the power base can't be seen. Is there a stable way we can depict football's present-day powerbase, avoiding OR and using the NPOV (and V) basis that the rankings offer?

I can think of just two options, depicting countries:

that appeared in the top x in the preceding calendar year (very stable, requires an annual, slightly fussy rehash, but will still appear to be somewhat out of date, especially toward the end of the year)
that have ever appeared in the top x (probably pretty stable, but doesn't really meet the "present-day" criterion, and artificially picking a period of years heads towards OR)
the top 25 as of Jan 1st that calendar year (always right year, no OR, stable) --Dweller (talk) 11:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Are there other options? If so, please add them to my list with your assessment of their pros and cons, but sign on the line so people know they've been added.

What do people think would be best? --Dweller (talk) 10:25, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

How about a map showing only the countries that have been ranked #1 under the FIFA system (ie since the early 1990s)? This could then be further filtered by colour showing those that were ranked #1 in the 1990s, 2000s or 2010s. This would be far more stable because the #1 position does not change as frequently. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 14:29, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

That would work fine, but as it would only spotlight seven countries (to my reckoning), one of which (Netherlands) would be barely visible in a thumbnail image, I'm not sure it would have anywhere near as much utility as the "top 25" map (now posted in this section) does. --Dweller (talk) 15:43, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Who needs a map anyway? Why not state the majority of the top 25 countries are European or South American? -Koppapa (talk) 16:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

A picture speaks a thousand words, Koppapa. This is a case where illustrating is far more than merely decorative. --Dweller (talk) 16:27, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

The powerhouses Europe/SA haven't changed. So i would care if it is half a year old, as long as it states that .Koppapa (talk) 16:35, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

On a related note, IPs are putting

in infobox next to FIFA rank of every country. Dr. Vicodine (talk) 19:07, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

And not only IPs: I made a point of removing these strange unlabelled symbols last month, and was given very short shrift. There has been some discussion at FIFA World Rankings and some (rather unfocussed on this issue) at tl:Steady; these icons might make sense in tables, but in the infobox of the nft articles they are uninformative (especially the steady one, which is simply a turquoise rectangle). Kevin McE (talk) 19:57, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Anyway, let's not derail the conversation about the map with more symbology problems, that's a different issue, one not constrained to football articles and one that should be discussed in its own thread with a more global audience. Back to the main topic, from my perspective, the graphical depiction of the top 25 is inherently unstable. I'm not sure how frequently FIFA update their rankings but I wouldn't be surprised if it was monthly, so the current format is definitely unacceptable from a stability and long-term accuracy perspective. It may be a long shot but can we provide a map which is programmatically coloured? Then updating it monthly would be no more onerous than updating the many templates (e.g. tennis rankings templates) which change often, sometimes weekly. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. How does that work? --Dweller (talk) 08:33, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Right now, I'm not even sure we have something that does work that way, but it would be something along the lines of the graphs on a hurricane page, which are defined programmatically rather than by creating a .png or similar graphic file each time, making maintenance a lot easier. If we had something similar for the map image (and I don't know if there is one!) then we could use that. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Whatever we do, the last thing we should be copying is the storms project's complete rejection of NOTNEWS. It causes far more problems than it's worth, and nobody should ever rely on Wikipedia as being accurate at the very minute they view it. My take on this is simply that we should date any graphs: if we need some sort of "power base" representation, it should be drawn from a source which averages the last 25 years or whatever. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I think we need to be a little careful about moving so far from NOTNEWS that we present stale information as current. The rankings have been going for 20 years, and I'd rather present a reader with something reflective of today's position than a historical average, which would fall foul of OR anyway.

How about the simple option I've just added as option 3? --Dweller (talk) 11:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Option 3 looks fine. -Koppapa (talk) 13:48, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Option 3 all the way. – Kosm1 fent 13:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Called up for the national team, but not capped.

Two players in my watchlist, Raheem Sterling and Joshua Gatt was called up to their senior national team in September, but was not capped. The senior national team has later been removed from their infobox with the rationale "not yet capped". I had the impression that it didn't matter if a player was capped or not, as long as they was a part of the squad at some point? What is correct? --Mentoz86 (talk) 09:57, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Unless a player has actually played for the national team, it should not be included in the infobox. Giant Snowman 10:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

But the Template:Infobox football biography states: A list of international teams that the player has been a member of, including non-senior teams such as U21, one per attribute, earliest to latest. Nothing about being capped, only been member of. --Mentoz86 (talk) 10:17, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Then we'll change the infobox documentation. Imagine if those players never play, and never get called up again until 2010 - are you really going to have 2012–2020 England 0 (0) in the infobox? Does it include those called up for training camps etc.? What about those historical players for who records of squads might be lost? What about Stuart McCall who was called up by England U21 but never played, and later played for Scotland? Giant Snowman 10:24, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Team isn't the same as squad. You get called up to a squad, and play for a team. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

By squad, are we talking about just attending training or a listed player sitting on the bench? Hack (talk) 10:44, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

That's the thing, it's so open to interpretation - whereas with actually being capped, you've either played or you haven't. Clear cut. Giant Snowman 10:46, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Actually that's the same. You either play, or don't. – Kosm1 fent 10:47, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Reliable sources do not typically consider someone to have had an international career until he's actually played in an international game. That's the best argument to support leaving the international section blank until a given player has actually set foot on the pitch in international colours. A less-compelling but still reasonable argument is that this is the dominant consensus of many years of both discussion of the subject and practice in articles. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:55, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

You can be tied to a country under FIFA eligibility rules on the basis of being listed in a competitive international even if you don't take the field. Hack (talk) 11:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, a player's debut according to most reliable sources is when they played their first international game, not when they were called up for the first time. Hack, that's true but not the point – every dual international gets to pick one senior international side, this has nothing to do with having played for said national team. – Kosm1 fent 11:02, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. Our convention is that the infobox does not track when a player commits to a certain international team, or when he is first called up, or even when he is first listed on the bench during a competitive game: it tracks caps, and caps require participation during active play. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:56, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the inputs that say we only insert NT stuff in box when/if a player PLAYS, other "reasonings" are not relevant (pledging allegiance to team, going to dinner with the federation president, etc). Andrés Palop has been given as a good example on several occasions. --AL (talk) 15:13, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we agreed this on several occassions in the past. Adding the nt for every non-used call would make it very difficult to deal in long term, so having the evidence of an debut on the pitch and inserting it only then allways seemed the best option. Even so, numerous IP´s and editors still add the info to several players as soon as they are called adding the 0 (0) into the infobox, but consensus here has been widely accepted long time ago. FkpCascais (talk) 16:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Revert all the edits!!! – Kosm1 fent 16:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The same problem has now arisen with two England rookies - Ryan Shawcross and Fraser Forster. I have reverted the edits to the infoboxes, but no doubt they will be re-instated. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 10:02, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Expert needed: Mohammed Hassan (footballer) / Mohamed Hassan (footballer)

Is Mohamed Hassan (footballer) linked from Football at the 1928 Summer Olympics – Men's team squads actually Mohammed Hassan (footballer)?. I suspect so, but can't find a good source to confirm. Can anyone here ? - TB (talk) 21:03, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

If so, he would have been 16 years old at the Olympics. Unlikely, but not impossible. Oldelpaso (talk) 21:25, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Not that they're not prone to the occasional mistake, but FIFA lists them as two different individuals - Olympic Hassan and World Cup Hassan. Neither Mohammed/Mohamed Hassan appears at sports-reference for the 1928 Olympics either. Giant Snowman 21:51, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

There's a difference in the line-up of the Argentina-Egypt match, that's why you can't find him on sportsreference. On FIFA Moussa El-Ezam [4] only played against Italy. On sportsreference

[5] he played 2 games. Don't know which one's correct. Cattivi (talk) 07:45, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Martin Bengtsson

This is a fascinating article - but is the player-turned-musician in the article the same as Swedish musician Martin Bengtsson? Giant Snowman 12:20, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

No, the footballer-cum-musician (born 1986) was a 17 year old at Inter in 2004, while the other musician was active in the late 1990s. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 12:31, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Associate/Provisional members such as Réunion and Gibraltar

Réunion is not a FIFA member but is an associate member of the Confederation of African Football and has played international matches against teams like the New Caledonia national football team. I have come across this article on Jean-Michel Fontaine, an international player with the Réunion national football team, and assume that the player is deemed notable "having played FIFA recognised senior international football". Am I correct and can articles be prepared for other players in the Réunion national football team?

On 1 October 20012 UEFA admitted Gibraltar as a provisional member. As recently as 11 March 2011 the Gibraltar national football team played the Faroe Islands national football team. What will be our position in terms of player notability in the event of a similar match against a FIFA recognised senior team? Does provisional membership carry any influence on player notability?

While UEFA's Executive Committee admitted the GFA as a provisional member, it is pending a vote at its Congress in May 2013 to make Gibraltar a full member. Previous history suggests that this matter could continue to drag on after next May.

At the moment there is an article for Gibraltar player, Christian Sanchez, which you may wish to consider for deletion. League Octopus (League Octopus 13:32, 5 October 2012 (UTC))

FIFA regulations governing international matches. [6] :'International "A" Match: A match arranged by two members and for which both members field their first representative team. ("A" representative team)'. Member: 'An association that has been admitted into membership of FIFA by the FIFA Congress' There are more additional rules and regulations, but I'm not going to copy the entire document here. Cattivi (talk) 16:17, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

If those are FIFA-recognised matches, then they normally should be notable per WP:NFOOTY – common sense however should come into action for borderline cases of only a couple international appearances for a provincial member. – Kosm1 fent 16:26, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Antonio Reguero

Could a passing admin please recreate this article; subject is making Scottish Premier League debut tonight in Highland derby match between Inverness CT and Ross County. Thanks. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 19:42, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Done - I actually mean to restore last week cos he played in a Cup match, thanks for reminding me! Giant Snowman 19:54, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Sweden vs Qatar U23

Got a problem. The Swedish international match against Qatar U23 was obviously not a full international. I've had to go back and drop that under each individuals international cap sheet (the ones who participated in the match and had it counted on their stat). The match occurred on the 23rd of January and I just noticed all of this right now. Again, since it was against Qatar U23 and not the Qatar senior team, it should not count. – Michael (talk) 18:51, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

The Swedish FA does count it as a full international. --Reckless182 (talk) 18:54, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Here is a source where the match is specified as a full international by the Swedish FA. --Reckless182 (talk) 19:00, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I was just dealing with a similar situation regarding Mecadonian national team and their participation in one tournament in Iran back in 2005 where they sent the U-21 team as a Macedonia B team (as the tournament was suposed to be among senior squads), so some websites like the Macedonian FA and EU-Football.info count them as international appearances while FIFA.com and NFT doesn´t... If I remember well, we count the appearances which are considered by FIFA as official and listed in their website, the rest of the matches can be indicated as B team appearances, or differently according to each particular situation. FkpCascais (talk) 18:58, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I am with Mike on this case, because same as in the situation I mentioned, the national FA considered it A international, but FIFA didn´t, so I think FIFA precedes the decition. FkpCascais (talk) 19:05, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

This has been discussed before here, and I have to say that my opinion this has not changed: It's the FA (in this case the Swedish) that awards the caps, so we should follow their rules. Either way, Mike's approach here looks to me like WP:OR - we should only rely on reliable sources, so unless we find a source that doesn't include the match against Qatar U23 we shouldn't have this discussion. --Mentoz86 (talk) 08:29, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

But Mike has a realiable source, FIFA on its official website doesn´t count it as official match.

A similar thing happend with Hovhannes Grigoryan who´s article was deleted because he had one cap for the Armenian NT (that would normally make him pass GNG) but was not counted as it was against a German U-21 team (link, using Tranfermarkt because it is German and the easiest way to find "unofficial" German U21 match). FkpCascais (talk) 16:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I don´t want to be missinterpreted here as taking phanatically sides or something, specially not as all involved here are fine editors with much appreciation on my behalve, is just that I recall we had some dual criteriums here on different cases. Anyway, whatever is decided, I am fine, but it would be good if we do acknolledge a consensus, as there are plenty of these cases around, and some are counted one way, others on another. Cheers to all. PS: Yes, I now remember that discussion, thanks for bring it up, but seems we never got to finish it... FkpCascais (talk) 16:54, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

What do reliable sources say? FIFA website, NFT etc.? Do they 'award' the cap? Giant Snowman 21:23, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

NFT didn't reward anything regarding that. – Michael (talk) 22:44, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Nor does FIFA. – Michael (talk) 22:47, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

So its decided. Does not count. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 23:00, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Bingo. Giant Snowman 23:14, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Reliable sources, except FIFA and NFT obviously, has included it. Every other reliable source will list FA's number of caps instead of FIFA's number of caps. I agree that Swedes who played in that particular match shouldn't be notable because of it (just like Hovhannes Grigoryan), I think we should use the number of caps awarded by the National FA , as the FIFA's number in most cases is an artificial number of caps that noone really uses. --Mentoz86 (talk) 01:43, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Here is the link to Grigoryan´s AfD. I actually don´t agree with your approach Mentoz, in a sense that either is a cap and as such considered a full A NT appearance making him pass GNG, either is not an full A NT appearance thus insufficient for passing GNG. You saying that it is a cap but a kind of cap which is not enough for passing GNG makes it even more ambiguos and basically providing an argument that it isn´t a full A NT cap. I think that the discussion here is more about who has the precedent, FIFA or the individual FA over the decition of attributing NT caps, and once we decide this, the same should be applied for GNG. FkpCascais (talk) 02:27, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Just a quick question as I only participated minimally here... Why is this section this long? It should have been like this... User A: "Do caps for a Sweden vs. Qatar U23 game count?" User B: "No because that match is a under-23 match and by wikipedia guidelines does not count." I dont see what is so hard about this. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 02:31, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

@Arsenalkid700: Well, theoretically there is a doubt when a national football association considers one match as official and FIFA doesn´t and it is not so bad to discuss it a bit, specially because if we are dealing with players that played long time ago (exemple, 1920s, 1930s, we may often rely on country FA database and we need to ensure if that is crystal clear and if allways the best option, or not. Suppose that Swedish FA considers that match as A appearance for the players and inserts it into their NT stats, and FIFA doesn´t, what then? But, I think my next question will solve this all...

@Mentoz, I was looking to the official Swedish FA website. Even by having difficulties with the language, and with the eng option only giving me the website home page translated, I did managed to found the match report and, yes, I recongnise, it does list it under A national team events, right? However, when I go to individual players pages, like Niklas Hult for exemple, who played in that match, I don´t see the national team data anywhere but seems that there isn´t for any player, only league stats. But, is there a list with national team appearances and a way to confirm that Swedish FA is counting that match as an A NT appearance for players? FkpCascais (talk) 03:04, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

@Arsenalkid700: It would be straight-forward if the Swedish FA had the same view as you, but unfortunately they don't and they count this match as a "full cap".

@FkpCascais:To your first reply: I believe there is a difference: to pass the notability criteria, WP:NFOOTY (any FIFA sanctioned senior international match) you would need what FIFA considers a "full cap", while when someone looks up Wikipedia to find out how many matches e.g. Billy Wright played for England the answer should be 105 not the 104 matches that FIFA believes he has played. But I agree that it might sound inconsistent. To your second reply: here is a list of all the players that has played for Sweden in 2012 with all the A NT matches in the right column, from the Swedish FA's website. (doh, I just realized that a "yes" would be sufficient for that last question :P) --Mentoz86 (talk) 13:35, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, in a peculiar manner I did kind of asked you to provide me a source where we could verify that Swedish FA does count that match as A appearance and adds it into players database as such :) so you did well, thanks.

It is confirmed then, Swedish FA does attribute the match as A international (exemple: Hult played vs Qatar U23 and Bahrain, and Swedish FA has 2 (0), while FIFA only counts the Bahrain match), and by doing it it enters into conflict with FIFA regarding caps.

In my view, this is enough evidence for a discussion to take place, as we clearly have different reliable sources giving different stats, and we need to set stone on how we deal with this regarding infobox numbers of NT appearances. Personally, I changed my position from favouring FIFA to undecided regarding the infobox display weather FIFA or national FA numbers should be added. Regarding the GNG part, yes, I see your point Mentoz, you´re right. FkpCascais (talk) 17:11, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

The Breedon Book of Football Records (2000)

Does anyone have a copy of this book? Can you confirm that it includes full results for all English league seasons, and the dates of games played. Also, does it contain intermediate league tables throughout the season. My query relates to cites made to it at 1981–82 in English football. Thanks Eldumpo (talk) 15:43, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

SuggestBot

Don't know why i did not think about this earlier (by "this" i mean write here to clear my doubts)...

This WP programme sends, as the name implies, suggestions of articles to improve/cleanup/"de-stub", depending on the given user's field of preference. I registered there as required, received one "briefing" the following week or so, but that was it! Never again have i "heard" from SuggestBot, would like to know why if anybody knows.

In a (very) related note, i have asked User:Joao10Siamun (originally the guy that told me where to go and register there) two or three times his opinion on why the flow has stopped in my account, received nothing but silence. Why he completely chooses to ignore me is not known to me.

Attentively - --AL (talk) 22:47, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you only signed up for a one-off delivery of suggestions. Instructions for receiving the suggestions regularly are at User:SuggestBot/Getting Recommendations Regularly. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:24, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

You haven't got the template to your talk page, neither the userbox on your talk page. If you add one from the link stru has provided you'll get them back Narom (talk) 17:07, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks, happy week to both of you. --AL (talk) 20:22, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Champions League template

I created some template for the standings of the group phase of 2012-13 CL, I found some user that rollback all my edit because they said "These articles have never used a Template before and there is no reason to start now, apart from the fact that you removed 718 bytes of information. Templates are unnecessary especially for such a small table as the Group standings table. Please refrain from using this in the future and reverse previous edits." For me is not only a space matter but also a convenience reason, tonight we update all the standings of group E-H in 5 second with 4 edits. Aren't the a useful template? Or they out the standard? If they are out the standard why we used that for Football at 2012 Summer Olympics? If it is good one why it is not the other? So I open a discussion on 2012-13 CL's talk page but no one answer and I hope here some one answer me with some real motivation and not only with "we do like that until now so why change?" Stigni (talk) 21:42, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

As I said on the talk page of the Champions League season article, I agree with the use of templates for the group standings. Not sure about using them for individual matches, but definitely for group standings. – Pee Jay 21:56, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry also I wasn't so sure that was useful but now I'm talking only about group standings' template because also today there is a user that rollback all my edits after I ask if there was someone that has some kind of problem about it. Stigni (talk) 22:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Nipping this in the bud

I've commented on the TfD, but this needs discussed further. I actually agree that if we are going to have these tables transcluded on 5+ pages that we should probably templateise that, but I think we should go one step further and create a {{Champions League group stage}} meta-template which provides an easy syntax for doing the whole lot. This would both simplify and standardise the output. This needs done fairly quickly before these get out of hand. Thoughts? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:19, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Something needs to be done because this will eventually get out of hand. If the template is used in 5+ articles then fair enough it serves a useful purpose, if not then there is absolutely no point in them existing. What is wrong with a standard wikitable? A further point is that no previous Champions League article utilies templates of these kind and by December the group stages will be finished. Thus, one of the main points of having the templates will be eradicated as they will no longer need updating. To me, this is a further reason to delete as its a solution to a problem which does not exist. NapHit (talk) 12:12, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

In my idea these template is used in 6 pages: 2012-13 CL, 2012-13 Cl group phase + 2012-13 <Team> season but some user reverse all my edit when I try to put on the club season. I also agree to create a meta-template for 4 team group, it could be use in other competition as well (Europa League). Stigni (talk) 13:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I rebuilt this template: Template:2012–13 UEFA Champions League group B standings and it could be used like a model for other group phase with few teams (4-5). --Stigni (talk) 10:30, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Just to let the project know that Stigni, is now creating loads of similar templates for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This is starting to become ridiculous now, we really don't need these templates, they do not serve any purpose and creating templates for a tournament that is four years old, just to save a bit of space is a joke. NapHit (talk) 13:07, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Raymarcbadz ask me to do that (see my talk page), so if you have some problem talk with him. Stigni (talk) 13:18, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

True, if finished, there is no point in having a tempalte anymore. Haven't thought of that. I wouldn't wory about to much for those templates, sure there are 5 sites but those highly visited sites have like 25+ editors. So there is not much updating work for a single person plus having it in a template actually makes it a bit harder to update (for IPs). I'd go without them. -Koppapa (talk) 14:17, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't matter who told you what to do, you're the one creating these pointless templates. Do we really templates so we can save space on an article that was only 30,000 bytes long in the first place. Your not actually saving space anyway, yes the page may load faster but the info is still on the site, so its not solving any issue at all. It is also very misleading for readers, who spot an error, go to fix it and find they can't because it is in a template. Sooner these templates are done away with the better. I've nominated some of these templates here. NapHit (talk) 16:06, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Category:Chinese footballers

Nlu (talk · contribs) has been removing Category:Chinese footballers from relevant articles because he feels that "a 400+ person category is simply not a useful category for any purpose", citing WP:DIFFUSE - however I feel that the category, and all similar (i.e. English footballers, French footballers etc.) should remain as it is perfectly valid. Wider thoughts welcome. Giant Snowman 13:33, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Of course it should remain. While I understand his point of view, how could such a category be appropriately splited? – Kosm1 fent 13:42, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Giantsnowman states my position correctly. The category is not invalid per se; that's not my argument. Basically, it is my belief such a large category cannot be useful; that's why I've tried to diffuse them by creating province-based origin categories. Since all of these are Chinese provinces, they are logical subcategories of the parent category. The category tree structure on Wikipedia exists for a reason: it's to avoid this kind of an unwieldy categories. (See, e.g., Category:Footballers from Beijing. Gemchi (talk · contribs) had already inspired this process by creating Category:Footballers from Qingdao a while ago — there are lots of footballers from Qingdao and Dalian, for whatever reason!.)

I would also urge people to stop and think of a moment: for people who are international football fans, you might think that there is some usefulness to have a single undiffused Category:Chinese footballers category because it still creates some differentiation, but China is such a large nation in population that such a category, in the total scheme of things, will simply become such a huge and eventually unorganizable mess. It would be as if there were only a single undiffused category for Category:Cities in the United States (which is a good example of why diffusion is useful whereas if it were populated by tens of thousands of articles, it is useless). Don't simply bow to the temptation of "Well, those are just Chinese football players!" For other examples of how an undiffused mess Chinese people categories can become, see Category:Chinese people by occupation; there are other categories in similar situations that similarly need to be diffused. Don't just get lazy and remain with the status quo. --Nlu (talk) 13:43, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Nlu - what do the province categories actually mean? i.e. how is a player eligible? Born there? Grew up there? Where are the reliable sources that state player X is from province Y? Giant Snowman 13:45, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The articles themselves generally do state the players' place of birth. To the extent that they don't, I check the Chinese Wikipedia articles. If they don't state places of birth, I leave the articles undiffused. But the articles themselves are generally very good at stating places of birth (unlike some other Chinese people categories). --Nlu (talk) 13:47, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

What if the player was born abroad? or if they were born in Beijing to parents on holiday, and then grew uo back in Shanghai? Giant Snowman 13:50, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd treat them as from Beijing. Those are relatively rare cases, and we shouldn't let rare cases deter us from diffusion. Again, the category tree structure capabilities on Wikipedia exists for a reason. It's to avoid unwieldiness. (And Chinese people formerly were not going to be able to do something like you suggested easily; they still mostly cannot do it except for the most wealthy.) --Nlu (talk) 13:53, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

What I'm getting at is that 'born in X' is not the same as 'from X', and the new categories are fundamentally flawed. I don't mind them remaining (providing they were actually referenced as opposed to OR based on birth place) but alongside the Chinese footballers category, as opposed to replacing. Giant Snowman 13:55, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The same things could be all "From" categories (and those exist in almost all Wikipedia biographical tree structures without much issues) because there has to be some practical way of handling this kind of situations. I'm trying to be respectful (and I hope that I'm not being disrespectful), but I'd suggest looking at the organizations of some non-footballer biographical articles to see how it works in practice outside of the footballers structure. In the hypothetical situation of someone who was born in Beijing and grew up in Shanghai, the person can be double-categorized if there is good reason.

As one Chinese proverb says, "One should not stop eating just because one might choke." There may be difficult diffusion cases. Those specific cases can be either double-categorized or simply not diffused. But that shouldn't stop us from organizing the category in a more logical and less unwieldy manner. --Nlu (talk) 14:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

And, hopefully not to get overly repetitive or preachy, but I'd urge everyone to read and re-read WP:CAT, particularly the points in WP:DIFFUSE and WP:SUBCAT. As WP:SUBCAT says:

If logical membership of one category implies logical membership of a second, then the first category should be made a subcategory (directly or indirectly) of the second. For example, Cities in France is a subcategory of Populated places in France, which in turn is a subcategory of Geography of France. Many subcategories have two or more parent categories. For example, Category:British writers should be in both Category:Writers by nationality and Category:British people by occupation. When making one category a subcategory of another, ensure that the members of the first really can be expected (with possibly a few exceptions) to belong to the second also. Category chains formed by parent-child relationships should never form closed loops. If two categories are closely related but are not in a subset relation, then links between them can be included in the text of the category pages.

To be blunt, there is nothing special about footballers that should call for a separate treatment from what (most) of the rest of Wikipedia does. General Wikipedia policies should not be departed from absent a very, very good reason, and I fail to see one here. --Nlu (talk) 13:58, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

To also be blunt, you have not provided an acceptable alternative. Giant Snowman 13:59, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

What is special about footballers that makes what works for the rest of Wikipedia not work for them? --Nlu (talk) 14:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

In the absence of an acceptable alternative, the "Chinese footballers" category should be restored forthwith. – Pee Jay 14:03, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

What makes this a special case that requires a departure from the general policies in WP:CAT? --Nlu (talk) 14:04, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I would say, please avoid making Category:Footballers a separate fiefdom with its own special rules. What applies for the rest of Wikipedia should apply here. --Nlu (talk) 14:05, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

And please take a look at the category: I had not "removed the category"; I had diffused it. I am not happy that the diffusion work has effectively been undone without a good reason. But that is not obviously a reason to diffuse it per se. Still, the idea that a "restoration" is necessary implies that the category had been deleted or modified; it had not; it had been diffused (subcategorized), which is a standard modus operandi here on Wikipedia. --Nlu (talk) 14:10, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

(And, obviously, the discussion is less than hour old, but...) I'd also suggest that the idea "there is no reasonable alternative!" (which I do not agree with) presupposes that the status quo is acceptable. Frankly, it is not, and no one above has really suggested why such a large category has any usefulness (and therefore would constitute a "reasonable" state of things). If my idea of diffusion by provincial origin is not "reasonable," suggest another one. --Nlu (talk) 14:14, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

People (footballers included!) are different to cities. It is much, much, much easier to determine whether a city is located in X province than a person is from. Giant Snowman 14:15, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I'll concede that point, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be diffused. I mean, this is the situation like where it might be difficult to categorize a piece of art (see, e.g., The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci)). But that doesn't mean that we simply lump them into a category of Category:Art and leave them all there. That renders that category useless.

To borrow a real life analogy, a child asked to organize his/her toys into bins by category may find toys that are difficult to categorize; that doesn't mean that he/she should simply put them all in a single, large, unsortable bin just because categorization may be difficult in some cases. We do the best we can, rather than leaving it as such.

I would also urge people to look at Category:People by province in China — a structure that I had no part in creating but has worked well (and the general structure that these provincial diffusions would fall under). If people of other walks of life are not that difficult to be categorized by provinces, what's special about footballers that requires special treatment? --Nlu (talk) 14:21, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

(And this kind of organization is not unique to Chinese people; see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_July_6#Sub_category_pages_of_Category:People_by_first-_.28and_second-.29_level_administrative_country_subdivision for a partial list of countries that have this kind of categorizations. Again, it's not considered "unacceptable" generally; why should it be for footballers?) --Nlu (talk) 14:23, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

(For a fuller list, see Category:People by first-level administrative country subdivision.) --Nlu (talk) 14:24, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd say all people are difficult to sort. By your logic, actress Ashleigh Cummings (on today's main page) would be placed in 'Actors from [Saudi Arabian city]' rather than (the correct) 'Australian film actors' - ridiculous. Also note that Australian film actors is a category of nearly 900, much more than the 400 in 'Chinese footballers'. Giant Snowman 14:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I completely agree with GiantSnowman. Furthermore, Category:Chinese footballers actually has a function - it categorises all footballers who are eligible for the China national team. Categorising those players by the city/province they come from is not functional, since there are no meaningful representative sides for Chinese cities/provinces? – Pee Jay 14:43, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I've already personally written to Nlu (talk · contribs) about my dislike for him deleting Category:Chinese footballers from the player pages. While most of my arguments have already been expressed my biggest concern is that I find the navigation too esoteric, how is a casual football fan supposed to know what province these players are from?

User talk:Kai Lau 25 September 2012 (UTC)

(unindent) But by that logic, no subcategorization should be done -- which would render categories useless. Plus, no one is going to be determining player eligibility by looking at that category anyway, particularly since, as times goes on, that category will get larger, and larger, and larger. American sportspeople categories generally are organized by state (and cities, when the cities are large enough) without the evil that has been spoken of for subcategorization, and I would argue that those categories are more, not less, useful as a result. --Nlu (talk) 00:31, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

(As an aside, my responses may be slow at times at least for the next few days; I am in a jury trial right now, and I'm probably diverting myself too much from that trial already getting into this discussion. :-)) --Nlu (talk) 00:32, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

No, that's not what we're saying at all. Is a city in X province? Well either it is or it isn't. Is a player from X province? Well he may be, he may not be - basing on place of birth is no indicator. Giant Snowman 08:49, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I still don't see why this is a concern in the football context where in other parts of Wikipedia, this concern basically is a nonproblem. --Nlu (talk) 13:28, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

It applies for all categories relating to biographies. Giant Snowman 15:03, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Category:Footballers from Beijing is a perfect subcategory of Category:Sportspeople from Beijing and you could continue diffusing Category:Sportspeople by city or town, but it shouldn't be a replacement for Category:Association football players by nationality, but rather an addition. Most articles are categories in the following categories: Category:1974 births, Category:Living people, Category:Sportspeople from London, Category:English footballers and so on. In this case you could change Footballers from London with Sportspeople from London, but leave the English footballers as it is. Football is different then other projects because our view on nationalities are different then other projects; while other projects decide the nationality by checking their birth of place or passport we decide the nationality after which national football team a person played for. To take an example: Vadim Demidov was born in Riga, and lived his first years in Soviet before moving to Norway and later played for the Norwegian national team. He fits into Category:Sportspeople from Riga and maybe also Category:Footballers from Riga, but that would put Demidov into the Category:Latvian footballers which is totally wrong. Your category-tree might work in China, where people isn't moving (?), and Chinese people are indeed Chinese people. But we should leave it as it is for consistency, to not get a total mess in Europe with even more nationalistic POV. Mentoz86 (talk) 09:59, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps, but the Soviet breakup is itself a sui generis issue that is unlikely to recur. Further, just because there are exceptions doesn't mean that we forget about the rationale of subcategorizing at all. Joe Alexander (basketball) is in Category:Sportspeople from Beijing (and prior to my creating that category, Category:People from Beijing, and I didn't put him there) for good reason; he's "from" Beijing. Category:People from Beijing itself is a subcategory of Category:People by province in China, which in turn is a subcategory of Category:Chinese people, which may mean that, for some purists, Alexander is in a category tree that he doesn't belong. But it's an exception rather than the norm. If we're going to be stuck up on these categories, we might as well throw the categorization scheme to the wind and make the structure an unusable mess — which, I have to say, Footballers is becoming. I believe I am proposing a sensible way of fixing it, at least in the Chinese context, and I am hoping that in practice, it will persuade people that it works and that the concerns about it are overblown — certainly such concerns have been considered nonexistent in the American context.

I'd also urge a temptation to be provincial (no pun intended) as to football. Look at the entire Wikipedia. Look at how similar categorization schemes have worked well in the entire Wikipedia. --Nlu (talk) 13:28, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

And I'd also add that perhaps the Demidov example is a demonstration that this categorization scheme works, rather than that it doesn't. I must say that I'm an outsider as far as football international transfer rules, but in the ice hockey context (which I am familiar), Evgeni Nabokov views himself as Russian and is viewed as Russian, but has played games for Kazakhstan before after having been born there. Movements of this nature are also quite common in table tennis and badminton. I am going to assume, as an outsider, that had Demidov wanted to play for Latvia, he could have. --Nlu (talk) 13:31, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

One more thought: if you want more input from people who have more experience with categorizations and really think that the provincial subcategories are unworkable, do a WP:CFD to propose deleting them. (After all, if they're unworkable, why should they exist?) I think you will get to hear from people who are familiar with categorization scheme here on Wikipedia outside the football context who will make good arguments that this categorization scheme works. --Nlu (talk) 14:19, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not saying that these categories should be deleted, they are perfectly fine as long as you replace them with "Category:People from Chinese province" and keep the Category:Chinese footballers in the articles, and as long as "Category:Footballers from Chinese province" is not a sub-cat of "Chinese footballers". Mentoz86 (talk) 15:29, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

That defeats the entire point of diffusion, however. Again, large categories can get unwieldy (as I submit that this category is). --Nlu (talk) 19:23, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I think that we even have worste cases, like Category:Association football midfielders with a total of 13,113 (by time I´m writting this) regarding WP:DIFFUSE but this project tends to do things in its own rythm without disturbing the so-so harmonia around here... Basically, Category:Chinese footballers is a very usefull category, as puts you all toghether all players that are eligible to play to China, and by now should definitelly be kept, and if any changes are to be made that should include wider consensus and other country categories as well, as China is not the only cat overpopulated. But, personally, for time being I think we have much more important stuff to work before (don´t take me wrong for saying this, please Nlu, I perfectly respect your concern, I just don´t think it´s time for it now). Best regards, FkpCascais (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you: diffusing Category:Association football midfielders and Category:Chinese footballer and create Category:Chinese football midfielders would be a better idea then what is done at the moment. Mentoz86 (talk) 21:47, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

(unident) FkpCascais, you hit on the head of the nail here in one important aspect: "this project tends to do things in its r[h]ythm without disturbing the so-so harmonia around here[.]" That should not be the case; Wikipedia is Wikipedia, and football articles should not be in its private domain immune from the rest of Wikipedia rules and policies. I'd urge the members who are in this "harmonia" to consider whether this is a proper state of things. --Nlu (talk) 01:49, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

And please don't forget this rationale why categories exist at all:

The central goal of the category system is to provide navigational links to all Wikipedia pages in a hierarchy of categories which readers, knowing essential - defining - characteristics of a topic, can browse and quickly find sets of pages on topics that are defined by those characteristics.

(This is from WP:CAT.)

When the "set of pages" becomes 400+ pages (or, as FkpCascais noted, 13,113 pages), that "central goal" doesn't exist any more; what exists is a jumbled mess that has no use to anyone. I've been dealing with the Category:Chinese footballers category only because I consider myself sufficiently knowledgeable about Chinese geography; I don't propose to know the other countries' geography well enough (save that of the United States, of which I am a citizen, and of the Republic of China (Taiwan), where I was born) to properly subcategorize. (And frankly, I am not a football fan — of either the global or the American variety — to be sufficiently interested to do so.) But I do care about the Chinese footballer category to want to try to make its category structure useful, efficient, and properly pruned. Again, I'd urge everyone to read WP:CAT, understand why categorization schemes exist, and understand why the current state of things completely defeats the purpose of the categorization concept. And, again, remember that this is part of Wikipedia, not its own separate domain. --Nlu (talk) 01:57, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I fully respect your approach of citing policies Nlu, and I cannot say nothing more except that your point is right. The aspect I meant with the expression of "so-so harmonia" is that usually these sort of edits, such as inclusion of such categories, has been widely established for years, and making some sort of change would work much better if we sort out the best solution for all these cases (as Chinese cat is not the only one having this DIFFUSE problem), rather than one editor solving one specific cat on its own way.

I am not saying that your changes were right or wrong, but just saying that your decition on one specific cat may affect the way other cats in that same situation would/could be dealt.

To resume myself, I basically agreed people reverting you simply because your move may implicate further changes affecting other categories and that should definitely be discussed first within the project scope to solve out the best decition for all of them, rather than particular editors solving each particular case in its own criteriums. Your approach may end up being the most appropriate one, maybe not, maybe another is adopted like positional division, or even some third way of splitting them, we just need to build a consensus here first on how to deal with them. I think that numerous categories had this DIFFUSE problem for long time, so I think it wan´t hurt so much th project just to keep them while the discussion is not concluded and the best option agreed. Sounds well?

So, basically, Nlu thinks that geographical division would be the best approach for China; Mentoz86 liked the idea of splitting them by playing positions; I personally don´t have a formed opinion yet; do we have any other options? FkpCascais (talk) 18:21, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on anything category-related, but I don't think the player eligibility thing is much of an issue. We have Category:China international footballers for those who have played for the national team. I'm not sure 400 is a problematic number though, that's only two screens worth. Some of the categories in Category:Association football players by club have over 1,000 (and I'd be dead against any further subcategorization of those). Oldelpaso (talk) 18:58, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Any further thoughts? To be very frank (and I know I might sound snobbish in doing so), I don't think the arguments against geographical subcategorization make sense at all, and I do believe non-subcategorization renders the category useless under WP:CAT. Would there be acquiescence, at least? If not, while I am in a trial right now still, I do intend to take this to the WP:RFC level since the current state of affairs appears to be against the principles in WP:CAT. --Nlu (talk) 02:01, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

This project has been strangely calm for this last couple of weeks, not sure what going on... usually it´s not like this.

I think that it is undeniable that WP:DIFFUSE favours the division of overpopulated cats but it also begins by saying that "there is no limit on the size of categories".

The thing is that there are some practical reasons why keeping things the way they are seems saffer. One is that you may be opening the Pandora box for other countries... Nationalism for exemple had been occasionally painfull to deal around here and some editors will certainly jump into separating country cats into regional ones and so. Another one is the familiarity of the context. For instance, while it is accessible and logical to add Chinese footballers for a Chinese player to everyone, I am sure that a very low percentage of non-Chinese editors are familiarised with Chinese geographical divisions in order to insert the right subcat. Personally, I am not opposed to your proposal, I am just a bit skeptical that it is practical. FkpCascais (talk) 05:17, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Some of the subcats of Category:Association football players by nationality are certainly huge. E.g. Category:Argentine footballers (2761 pages), Category:Brazilian footballers (4410 pages), Category:English footballers (13664 pages), Category:French footballers (3324 pages), Category:German footballers (3430 pages), Category:Italian footballers (3644 pages), Category:Japanese footballers (2694 pages), Category:Spanish footballers (2505 pages). Fitto for subcats of Category:Association football players by position: Category:Association football defenders (11067), Category:Association football forwards (10895), Category:Association football goalkeepers (5871), Category:Association football midfielders (13124)

In the spirit of WP:DIFFUSE, I suggest new subcats of Category:Association football players by nationality and position - e.g. Argentine association football midfielders. The above discussion suggests that this would feel a more natural way of diffusing the national footballer categories than by geographical subregion, since it corresponds better to the categorisations actually used by football fans. (Many fans recognise the nationality of a footballer, while ignorance of the nation's geography mean they wouldn't recognise a geographically organized subcategory. The nationality in question is also that regulated by international footballing bodies, which is in imperfect correspondence with - and membership criteria sometimes better defined than for - geographically defined subcats.) Does that sound a sensible way forward? Dsp13 (talk) 04:23, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I think you hit it right on the spot and in my opinion your proposal seems to ideal among the ones proposed. I would even go further and suggest that we replace 2 overpopulated categories, exemple Category:Chinese footballers and Category:Association football midfielders to only one Category:Chinese football midfielders, making the other two overopolated cats obsolete. I would definitelly say yes for this option. FkpCascais (talk) 18:23, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

The usual way to do things isn't to actually delete the parent categories, but put a catdiffuse template on it. (The other question is whether new categories can be called things like Category:Chinese football midfielders or have to be called things like Category:Chinese association football midfielders. But I guess you guys have lots of experience resolving that question!) Dsp13 (talk) 20:04, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Category:Chinese association football midfielders would be the correct form of the cat (my lapsus up there), and yes, the catdiffuse was obvious, I am just wandering if one cat could be diffused in two parental cats as I sugested. FkpCascais (talk) 20:57, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

sounds good to me. In that case, looks like there would be 42 ppl in the intersection of those cats. Dsp13 (talk) 21:51, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and the best thing of all is that seems that we found the best way to diffuse the overpopulated cats and consistently apply it from now on whenever is needed. What about this related discussion, would it be appropriate to make that new cat where all the regional cats would be included then? FkpCascais (talk) 22:37, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

OK Dsp13 (talk) let me get this straight, you've gone on to delete the Category:Chinese footballers from as I speak 44 players even though the majority of the people here still believe that this page has relevance.

You're also created a new page Category:Chinese association football defenders, which needs further discussion such as 1) What about players who play in several positions? 2) Does a player fall into this category if they've only played a few minutes there, or only one game there? 3a) Are you gonna apply a simular page to all the other countries? 3b) If not why not?

User talk:Kai Lau 9 October

Hi Kai Lau - sorry I didn't see your comment straightaway. Most of the discussion relating to this seemed to have moved to a thread (Categorization) lower down the page. There's some discussion of your 1) and 2) there. As regards your 3) and 4) I was not going to apply a similar page to other countries and positions unless there seemed to be some consensus that this was a good idea. If you have objections please do express them, and hopefully the best way forward can be found. If the best way forward is thought to be to revert the changes I made, then I certainly won't object! Best, Dsp13 (talk) 14:11, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

F.C. United of Manchester season articles

I have a situation where there has been an article created for the 2012–13 F.C. United of Manchester season, I have give it an Afd but he contested the original PROD, with this response. I have also noticed that he has made season articles for every season back to 2005–06, what is the situation here. --Liamtaylor007 (talk) 18:13, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Season articles for a club playing in the 7th division .. |: TonyStarks (talk) 23:36, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Where the club receives exceptional coverage in national media for a club at that level (c.f. the current situation with a certain club playing in the fourth tier of the Scottish league system right now), it's entirely possible that such an article could meet our notability guidelines. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:22, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

User:Alexanderalgrim

Has anyone, in FOUR or FIVE years (not sure of the exact number), managed to reach out to this person? I ask this because i see his page is/was (will be?) absolutely flooded with AFD requests. No summaries, no replies to our messages, no nothing.

Attentively - --AL (talk) 23:10, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Well we do know he is 100% still active on here (See: [7]) but ya this is freaky. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 23:14, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Many editors don't bother talking. It's only a problem if they don't listen. Giant Snowman 08:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Seems to be PRECISELY the case, Snowman. --AL (talk) 15:11, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Consultation

One user moved Fernando Mendes to Fernando Mendes (footballer). Problem is (in my view) that Fernando Manuel Mendes is also a footballer, isn't the new approach somewhat wrong and/or misleading? I also think the WHOOPS tag was much more effective than what is present in both players' article, as the other Mendes person in disambiguation is not a footballer, but that's a different (and much more debatable) issue methinks.

I try to move "Fernando Mendes (footballer)" to "Fernando Mamede Mendes", was not allowed. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance --AL (talk) 23:52, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Going by WP:COMMONNAME, Fernando Mendes (footballer) should be moved to "Fernando Mendes (footballer born 1937)" and Fernando Manuel Mendes should be moved to "Fernando Mendes (footballer born 1966)". Mattythewhite (talk) 00:00, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Mattythewhite. Giant Snowman 08:07, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Pages moved. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:26, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Historic League Tables - the best sources?

Many of us use RSSSF for our historic league tables but there are some other superb sources available:

Austria - Austrian Football Site (Andreas Exenberger) - contains Austrian tables from 2002/03.

Austria - Austria Soccer - historical records of Austrian first and second tiers.

Australia - OzFootball - Australian State Leagues and more

Denmark - Danskfodbold.com (DBU's Officielle Statistikere) - Danish tables (top 3 tiers) back to 1927/28.

England - NonLeagueMatters Tables Index - English historical tables going back to 1945

Germany - Deutschen Fußball-Archiv - German Football Archive with many league tables

Portugal - ForaDeJogo - Portuguese historical league tables

Spain - Futbolme Spanish historical league tables

Spain - AREFE regional - regional league tables in Spain

Sweden - Clas Glenning - Swedish final tables

I will be adding these to Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Links but there must be more great sources for historic league tables. Can you advise me of any more? Thanks. League Octopus (League Octopus 14:22, 3 October 2012 (UTC))

Confusingly, there's also NonLeagueMatters.net which has tables for loads of leagues all the way back to the 1880s. Number 5 7 14:33, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Does the The English National Football Archive have all the Football League and Premier League league tables? Is it free to access? League Octopus (League Octopus 14:38, 3 October 2012 (UTC)).

Oo thanks for them. Maybe i'll eventually finish off List of Southport F.C. seasons now! Narom (talk) 14:48, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Apart from RSSSF and Statto, a source for many English leagues is FCHD, which has the virtue of being accepted as a reliable source. And WFDA is actively adding to its Welsh historical tables. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:01, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I've previously compiled a list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/English non-league task force (Online resources) for the Non-League Taskforce if that's any use. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 19:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Here are all the Slovenian First League season tables with all matches and 15-20 topscorers in a distance of a simple click, just choose the season: League official website. FkpCascais (talk) 03:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
I´ll find you more, give me a minute. Btw, I supose you know Claudio Nicoletti and his data collection. FkpCascais (talk) 03:16, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, this one was easy, as the Montenegrin First League was only formed in 2006, but here on Montenegrin FA official website you can find the tables of all seasons: Just click on te season at the "Arhiva" section on bottom-right. Here is the same but for the Second League. FkpCascais (talk) 03:24, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Here are the Macedonian First League tables since 2002, although in Cyrillic and with the period 1992-2002 missing, I know... but here it is anyway, it´s the Macedonian FA official website. FkpCascais (talk) 03:41, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Here are all Croatian First League tables, just click the season. FkpCascais (talk) 03:44, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Now, for Serbia, here is a website where you can find all first and second (and even some 3rd, 4th and 5th leagues) from 1920 till 2006: just pick a decade "Period" in the left column. The period 1920 till 1992 corresponds to Yugoslavia, and 1992 to 2006 to FR Yugoslavia, named Serbia and Montenegro from 2003 to 2006. Here you have the rest of the tables (2006 till nowadays) and also the previous ones with the exception of the some Vojvodina played in Second League but they were during the 1980s. An easier way to have access to all top league season tables of Yugoslavia and Serbia since 1945 till today is perhaps Partizan´s official website: just pick a season. FkpCascais (talk) 03:59, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Here you can find an all-time table of the Yugoslav First and Second leagues. Yugoslav First League tables (1923-1992) can also be found here.
All Bosnian top league tables can be found here, just click the season on left column. Most of the second Bosnian league tables can be found here. FkpCascais (talk) 04:15, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

This is incredibly helpful FkpCascais. Many thanks. League Octopus (League Octopus 09:25, 6 October 2012 (UTC))

Incorrect tables - how should we address the problem?

The Internet is hardly a good source for tables, especially for lesser countries. The plethora of point systems and tiebreaker rules used worldwide means that anything that does not have some printed (newspaper or book/annual) confirmation is suspect, particularly if the table is generated from results stored in a database, then it is likely to be wrong in at least some cases. I have seen enough errors in seemingly foolproof tables that only became apparent when consulting the relevant newspapers.109.173.212.187 (talk) 16:51, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

This raises a secondary issue which is of importance. However, it is questionable whether newspapers and books are anymore likely to be correct than a website. I have noticed some errors that emerge in our current WP tables - in particular those updated by Editors on a weekly basis. The three sources that I use for historic Portuguese tables sometimes conflict which can be a nightmare to sort out. League Octopus (League Octopus 18:43, 10 October 2012 (UTC))

Eise Aden Abshir

Hello. Please pay some attention to the article with a lot of unsourced data. -- Postoronniy-13 (talk) 22:22, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Categorisation

One of the important discussions has been allowed to die slowly without beinjg solves, but I think that a good proposal has been made by one user and I would like to call the attention to project participants and invite everyone to give opinions in order to see if we could solve the WP:DIFFUSE problem found in numerous footy categories that we use. This is the discussion, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football#Category:Chinese_footballers, it´s up there and see bottom of it for the new proposal, comments or even new ideas would really be appreciated. Thank you all. FkpCascais (talk) 18:29, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I think Dsp13's proposal of division by position is a good one. But it is insufficient in itself; it is still likely to end up with categories that are still overly large (albeit a little less so). Football fans may consider geographical division to be not particularly helpful, and I would beg to differ (at least for Chinese players): geographic origin is quite important in the Chinese world, and if necessary, we can do both; this is not an either-or proposition. The fact that there may be other potential diffusion issues for other nations is not a good reason to say that Chinese footballers should not be also diffused by geographic region.

While one might argue that the diffusion criteria I used created other issues, I would ask people to take a look at Category:Chinese writers and Category:Chinese artists. The genre diffusions that people had done previously is a good and necessary diffusion, but left the categories still overly populated. I made the additional diffusion categories by dynasty (i.e., historical periods) and by geography. The three types of diffusion also allows ready further diffusions in the future should the subcategories themselves get too large. I think the result is a more navigable and consistent diffusion scheme. Obviously, footballers can't be diffused by dynasties, but geographic diffusion is basically neutral, easy to do, and useful in the Chinese context. I don't believe the fact that it may be more difficult to do so in the cases of some nations should mean that it can't be done in addition to, not as an alternative to, the positional diffusion that Dsp13 proposes. --Nlu (talk) 20:19, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think that adding a specific regional category would not be a problem. We already have that case for Spain, Category:Spanish footballers by autonomous community, which are used along with Category:Spanish footballers, and I think there are a couple of more of cases around.

Personally, I do understand the regional importance within China, no problem with that, I think that some editors mostly opposed the idea that the regional cat starts to be used as replacement for the country one. So can we conclude to diffuse the Category:Chinese footballers by playing position, and use the regional ones as separate? FkpCascais (talk) 21:20, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

But it's not a replacement; subcategories are part of the tree. Category:Footballers from Liaoning, for example, is a subcategory of Category:Chinese footballers, so by moving an article from the latter to the former, the article remains in the Category:Chinese footballers tree. --Nlu (talk) 21:52, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate to make a new parent category Category:Chinese footballers by Administrative divisions where all the regional Chinese categories will be inserted? FkpCascais (talk) 22:18, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Dsp13 already did it. (Category:Chinese footballers by province.) --Nlu (talk) 23:27, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I've created and diffused things to Category:Chinese association football defenders. I'll pause there in case objections show up. Dsp13 (talk) 10:00, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

What about if a player plays in two positions? Giant Snowman 15:25, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

That makes them both, not neither, and in that situation the player would be part of the "Fossian association football defenders" and "... midfielders" as well. Malpass⁹₃! (what I've been ^up to/_drop me a ^___) 18:08, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Even if they are a midfielder who only plays one match in defence? Giant Snowman 18:14, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Presumably if a reliable source describes the player in question as playing in the position in question, then yes. Malpass⁹₃! (what I've been ^up to/_drop me a ^___) 18:48, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

So if Wayne Rooney went in goalk for a game due to injury, and the BBC match report said 'Goalkeeper Wayne Rooney made a clever save', then you'd include him? Giant Snowman 18:52, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

No. There's a subtle difference, one I don't believe for a second that you've missed. If (say) BBC Sport describes a player as a defender/midfielder, then that is what we go with. Malpass⁹₃! (what I've been ^up to/_drop me a ^___) 18:54, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

But in my example BBC Sport has described him as a goalkeeper... Giant Snowman 18:56, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe we are talking in terms of positions played in on a semi-regular basis. Along the same lines, would you put goalkeeper into Rooney's infobox? The infobox info on positions is what I would go with. Malpass⁹₃! (what I've been ^up to/_drop me a ^___) 19:10, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Any conclusions? --Nlu (talk) 05:30, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

I have reverted all of Dsp13 changes he made to the player pages. Personally I don't understand why an alphabetical table of contents wouldn't be sufficient in seperating players. Anyway outside that I think the page is fine the way it is.

Yours sincerely User talk:Kai Lau 16 Oct 2012

Dead references incoming

This was spotted by User:Rumping so credit goes to them. BT Internet are closing their customer webspace and deleting the content. Which means that all references that end with btinternet.com or btinternet.co.uk will become dead links on 31st October 2012. This project has a lot of references that are based on btinternet sites, so it may be worth getting busy with www.webcitation.org. The following are lists of all the articles that use btinternet.com and btinternet.co.uk. - X201 (talk) 13:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

So far as I know, the main one would be the old Football Club History Database website at www.fchd.btinternet.co.uk/ . Not too much of a problem as all that needs to be done is for the .btinternet.co.uk to be replaced with .info so that the user is deirected to the up to date new version of Football Club History Database at www.fchd.info . I can't think of many other websites that use that ending. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 13:13, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Regarding FCHD, has the URLs remained the same other than the change from .btinternet.co.uk to .info? If so, I will run AWB to change them all. Giant Snowman 13:16, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

That is definitely the case for all the clubs, BT: [8], Info: [9]. It's a little bit more complicated for a few seasons. Example for the Football League it didn't work, BT: [10] Info: [11]. Whereas FA Trophy seasons do work, BT: [12], Info: [13]. The majority of ones I find are club ones and seasons that work though. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 13:36, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Browsing through the lists I noticed links for individual clubs and some links for Women's Football league tables and cups. - X201 (talk) 13:33, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Here is the full list of articles making use of Football Club History Database's old url [14]. AWB could indeed be used to change these to .info, though it would be advisable to check any ones that aren't club pages to make sure the correction has worked. The Football league ones also need to have the /fl/ removed, I think. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 13:49, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

After a bit of work on removing season and competition pages, the only btinternet.co.uk links left in article space are club pages. Thus it would be fine to replace the ones in article space with .info. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 14:41, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I've sorted out all the ones that linked to wolves.stats.btinternet.co.uk and directed them to wolves-stats.co.uk instead. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 16:01, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Are people aware that there is a reference template for the FCHD ({{fchd}})? If we use that, then we only need update the template when sites change. Number 5 7 11:56, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay so I've removed all main article space links to the fchd.btinternet.co.uk website and changed them to the newer fchd.info. With regards to the template that Number57 mentions, yes eventually it would be great if all the urls were replaced with that template. But first things first I just made sure the main article space links don't become dead links at the end of October. FCHD aside, there is still a problem with other btinternet sites that are used on football articles. I've made as good a list as I can of these offending websites that will die at the end of the month. We either need to find replacement references, or make sure that the pages are archived.

Mainspace football articles	URL	About	List
Done	http://www.fchd.btinternet.co.uk/	Football Club History Database	[15]
Done	http://www.btinternet.com/~a.drake/	Sheffield Wednesday database	[16]
Done	http://www.btinternet.com/~rfc1871/	Reading F.C. database	[17]
Done	http://www.btinternet.com/~portconnection/ http://www.portconnection.btinternet.co.uk	Southport fansite	[18] [19]
Done	http://www.trevor.jones4.btinternet.co.uk/	Player stats	[20]
Done	http://www.btinternet.com/~c.beirne/	Managers	[21]
Done	http://www.btinternet.com/~dajaca/	AFC Darwen	[22]
Done	http://www.btinternet.com/~brentours/	Aston Villa and Non-league	[23]
Done	http://www.btinternet.com/~croydonathleticfc/	Croydon Athletic F.C.	[24]
Done	http://www.btinternet.com/~m.d.pratesi/mp/quizball1967.html	David Ford (footballer)	[25]
Done	http://www.btinternet.com/~rob.frowen/presenters_d.html#David%20Davies	David Davies (football administrator)	[26]
Done	http://www.btinternet.com/~sutton.united/buchan.htm	George Smith (footballer born 1915)	[27]

Cheers. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 15:10, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Some of these websites look self-published - are they reliable? Giant Snowman 15:22, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I guess that also needs to be decided before the end of the month. Does the info they reference need to be removed from articles in that case, or just the link (leaving the article missing references)? Any that pass the RS test should probably be archived at http://archive.is/ or something like that. Once that's done, the btinternet problem will be avoided (for WikiProject Football anyway, other projects have plenty of btinternet references/links too) Del_♉sion23 (talk) 15:30, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

FCHD has long been established as reliable at multiple FAC/FLCs, don't know anything about any of the others............ -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:58, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

1985 Wales vs Scotland football match

Thoughts? Doesn't look to be notable to me, other than for one (tragic) event... Giant Snowman 19:33, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Ye apart from Stein's heart attack, there is nothing notable about the match. Not sure if that alone warrants notability, probably not. NapHit (talk) 21:23, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I've taken it to AfD - see here. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 04:38, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

It's a notable match even in isolation from Stein's death. This is hardly a violation of WP:ROUTINE. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:00, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Club Season - Competitions Overall

I think that this table is quite useless (e.g. 2012–13 Arsenal F.C. season#Overall) because that informations are already present in the infobox (current/final position/round) and the started round can be find in the article without any difficult by itself is a quite useless info. Stigni (talk) 08:48, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

To have such a section in the middle of the article seems pointless to me. But if you move it to the top of the article, like they've done in the article about 2011–12 Liverpool F.C. season, it is pretty useful. --Mentoz86 (talk) 12:56, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Bradford City squad

An IP keeps on removing 2 players, and adding 1 new one, to both the squad list and squad template, citing this site - but it is my club and I cannot recall any news stories saying Steve Williams/Dean Overson left and Jack Bentley joined - but then I was away a number of times over the summer and may have missed the reports, as I did with another player (Dominic Rowe). Williams lost his squad number following a fall out with management, and Overson went out on loan, but that's it. Can anyone help at all please? Thanks, Giant Snowman 16:29, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Overson was at Barrow, but his loan ended about 3 weeks ago so he's definitely back at Bradford now. Don't know about the others, sorry. BigDom (talk) 16:48, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Bentley is listed as a youth team goalkeeper, and may have a squad number, but if the club haven't announced it, we can't put him in on the say-so of some bloke's website ahead of the club, per WP:RS. Williams and Overson weren't given squad numbers, per this, so they won't appear at FootballSquads, which is a squad numbers site. Though if the squad list is supposed to be just first-team squad members, and sourced to the club's player profiles pages, perhaps they shouldn't be in it either, as they haven't got numbers and don't appear in the list of players with profiles? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 17:11, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Vancouver Whitecaps again

The template is clearly about the entire history of teams with the Whitecaps name. Has been for a long while, nearly the start of the template. Today I recognized that their historical stadiums were not listed and I added them. An editor who has pushed the point that MLS clubs are not a successors to any with similar names reverted and pushed his preferred view of the matter onto the article after removing my change. I see two options, creating two separate templates to accommodate this opinion or make the template reflect the history. Again, the team believes it is the successor to the NASL Whitecaps and that has been repeatedly thwarted by this and several other editors. There are more articles. Just search for 1974 in the news section for links to some of them. I would appreciate a bit of help at the template thanks. Template talk:Vancouver Whitecaps#This is about all Whitecaps teams, not simply the MLS incarnation. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:31, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, you're both on 3RR so quit that, and continue the talk here. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

TRM, for what it's worth Walter's description of the situation is rather one-sided, to say the least, given that it obliterates the repeated objections by numerous editors to his continued efforts to format the Whitecaps articles to reflect his perspective. While I'm not crazy about repeatedly reverting, it is only fair to note that the majority of my changes at the template involves rolling it back to the pre-existing version (not my preferred variant) while asking repeatedly for discussion per WP:BRD. --Ckatz^chat _spy 20:41, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Sure thing. My first instinct is to stop you both going beyond 3RR because that way, as you both know, has blocks and shit associated. Secondly, BRD is ok, but only so far, it's an easy weapon to wield when you want to advance a position of your own with no justification. It's often misused. Not saying that's the case here, but BRD is a tedious stick. Thirdly, you're both experienced editors, so let's encourage all contributors to discuss the debate here. Then we can work on a solution. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:45, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I would like the issue addressed rather than the editors. My description is not one-sided. It's simply factual. The article has listed past seasons to 1974 for two years now. Is that one-sided? Also, asking for discussion is nice. Actually starting one is nicer. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:51, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

As described at the template talk page (since there are two parallel discussions now) the template is primarily focused on the MLS team, per the articles linked from the first lines of the template. The edit you made today presents the older stadiums - never used by the MLS squad - as part of their playing history. --Ckatz^chat _spy 20:55, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

The primary focus of the template is not the MLS, it is the club. There are more articles related to the current, MLS club only because there are more editors willing to work on that, but all of the club articles are linked in the template. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:53, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Kayne Vincent... Japanese, Aussie, or New Zealand. The debate with Asian squad rules begins!

Currently I am updating the Prayag United S.C. squad and I saw that they signed Kayne Vincent as there fourth foreigner. Now in India, the I-League, and most Asian footy leagues there is a rule where you can only have 4 foreigners on your team but only 3 of them can be from outside of Asia. One of them MUST be from Asia. Now that is where I have a concern. Prayag have 4 foreigners. 2 Nigerians and 1 Costa Rican and one unknown. The reason I said unknown is because since they already have 3 players obviously from outside of Asia then how come the fourth player they have is from New Zealand. New Zealand is not Asia nor are they part of the Asian Football Confederation. Now I know this unknown player (Kayne Vincent) is also Japanese and may have Aussie citizenship but I am having trouble finding proof. Goal.com says that he is Australian but I rather have a back-up source just to be sure. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 15:42, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

This piece says he has a Japanese mother - and that his dad is a Kiwi. No mention of Australia, no idea where that has come from, maybe someone getting the flags mixed up or something? Giant Snowman 15:47, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh god.... I forgot to mention that Vincent has played for the New Zealand U20 football team and I know that means that we would automatically put New Zealand down as the flag but based on what GiantSnowman put down should we make this a special case where we put it as Japan because of the 3+1 foreigner rule? --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 15:54, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

No, he is NZ as that is his sporting nationality. The fact he has a Japanese mother, and therefore does not count as a non-Asian foreigner, should not affect that. Giant Snowman 15:58, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Kevin Prince Boateng count as UE player but he played for Ghana because his mother is German. This case I think is similar, so for this rule he count as Japanese. --Stigni (talk) 16:02, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Ya but the AC Milan page and Serie A page counts Boateng as a Ghanaian (as seen with his flag) so what I will do is that I will give Kayne Vincent the New Zealand flag and then on the 2012-13 I-League page when I make the "Foreign Players" table I will leave a note stating why Vincent counts as an Asian player as well. Cheers. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 16:16, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

I also added a note to Prayag United's page to clarify feel free to modify it. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 16:26, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. And thank you to GiantSnowman and Stigni for helping me solve this. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 16:32, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Rotherham United players

A few years ago, Rotherham UNited published a Word document which gave stats and a brief bio of all former players. A copy is saved on my computer so I can access the info, but I can't find the original URL anywhere. How would I go about citing this? Giant Snowman 13:01, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

http://origin-www.themillers.co.uk/page/PastPlayers/0,,10360,00.html cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:05, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

It's a publication, you can name the publisher. It might not be easy for readers to verify without undertaking an extensive search to track down a copy of it, but it is in principle verifiable, which is all WP:V insists upon. We don't disqualify obscure, out of print specialist books as sources: this is essentially the same. Your stock should stand high enough for readers to AGF, and I suspect that the revelations of such a document are likely to be so extraordinary that anyone will challenge the claims. (Before ec: D'oh) Kevin McE (talk) 13:09, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Perfect Struway, cheers! Giant Snowman 14:42, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Unlikely edit of kit

Hi,

While using WP:STiki, I came across this edit. It looks unlikely to me... but I could be wrong. The editor is new and has made a number of edits of this type. Could someone who knows about these things check out the edits? Thanks.

Yaris678 (talk) 21:09, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Club Notability Tables (and Test)

I have prepared an essay on Club Notability Tables (including a Club Notability Test) but am unfamiliar how we should undertake consultation and feedback on such an essay?

Should it be considered as a personal essay by League Octopus or can it be considered as a possible candidate as an addition to WP:FOOTYN?

Where should comments be left?

(a) The essay's Talk page?

(b) WT:FOOTY?

(c) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Notability?

Can somebody please advise? Thanks. League Octopus (League Octopus 19:15, 24 September 2012 (UTC))

How about women's football? That doesn't seem to be included. Overall I think it's a good idea to have this page as a reference point. I'm not sure where a discussion should be held on its accuracy, usefulness, or possible inclusion within club notability guidelines. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 11:41, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I think that if we can reach general agreement on men's football it will then be time to consider women's football. I sincerely hope that the current essay can provide a reference point and I encourage everyone to start using the Tables. That is the best way to identify any gremlins! Some discussions have started on the essay's Talk page and I hope more will follow. However I do wish that someone can give formal advice on Wikipedia's consultation procedures - there must be some guidance laid down? League Octopus (League Octopus 08:17, 26 September 2012 (UTC))

Some interesting discussions are taking place on the Club Notability Test, India and Iceland - this feedback on the Talk page is very useful. League Octopus (League Octopus 12:30, 27 September 2012 (UTC))

I have now created two short-cuts to enable the essay to be quickly accessed - WP:NTABLES and WP:NTEST. League Octopus (League Octopus 07:50, 1 October 2012 (UTC))

I have added Former countries to the listings. League Octopus (League Octopus 10:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC))

WP:NTEST is now being used in live examples - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aris Esymis F.C.. This is the type of AfD where in the past we sometimes had difficulties in reaching a general consensus. League Octopus (League Octopus 17:03, 10 October 2012 (UTC))

I would like to express my appreciation to the feedback from Stalwart111 and detailing the "next step" to take the essay to WP:VPR for discussion and consideration. I have created shortcuts to WP:NCLUB and WP:NFOOTYCLUB. League Octopus (League Octopus 10:46, 15 October 2012 (UTC))

Mehdi Lacen / Medhi Lacen

The original article (now at Mehdi Lacen) was created as Medhi Lacen but moved by a user to "correct the spelling of his name." However, most sources spell his name as Medhi not Mehdi. Another user, who probably tried to move the article back but couldn't since there was an article there, blanked it and cut and paste the contents of the first one. So we now have two articles with same content but different spelling. I'm not certain which spelling is correct but I'm leaning more towards to Medhi given the number of references. Would an admin please be kind enough to sort this out. For starters, at least get rid of the duplicate article (Medhi Lacen) without history, and then we can move the first article if necessary. Thanks in advance. TonyStarks (talk) 07:35, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I have done a HISTMERGE; the article is now at Medhi Lacen. Giant Snowman 12:30, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the help! TonyStarks (talk) 21:37, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Category:2012 national football team results

Just came across Category:2012 national football team results. Is there a standard for the articles contained in this cat? Hack (talk) 12:27, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that the article in this category is quite useless because they can be marge with the article 2012-13 in <county> football as I did for 2012–13 in Italian football. Stigni (talk) 12:40, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

nat fs template colours

see Template talk:National football squad start#colour. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 15:28, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Famous/notable players or international players?

After a run-in with a user in some clubs (Albacete Balompié, UD Las Palmas and CD Tenerife for example - he kept removing the FAMOUS PLAYERS title and replacing it with INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS), i have to say it stopped shortly after it began, did not want (another) unnecessary edit war, but now i ask the "commission":

Which is more accurate, the former or the latter? This question is pertinent because of this article which i have created, Alexis Trujillo: for Las Palmas and Real Betis he played in more than 200 (TWO-HUNDRED) league games (so he appeared in even more official ones). However, under the current titling i cannot insert him in Las Palmas, because he was not a Spanish international at any level.

Attentively - --AL (talk) 17:28, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Unless there's a good reason (and a good source) why they are 'Notable' for the club, such lists shouldn't be included at all IMO. Giant Snowman 17:41, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Choose criteria, and then add all players that meet them, whatever those criteria might be. Players should follow criteria, not the other way around. If there is a really good reason to mention an individual, then he should be important enough to merit mention in the text (eg George Best at Tobermore United F.C.). Kevin McE (talk) 18:01, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Ola Alabi - notability

This player has just signed for Margate NonLeagueDaily article and I've added a reference to this effect. The article was a mess, so tidied up and removed some of the unsourced and wild claims. One of which was that he was signed on a 2 year contract with [[Gretna F.C.[[ - the reference which was at the bottom showed he played for successor club Gretna 2008. Also claims of having played in Cyprus and Malta, but I cannot find any decent references to support this. Given some of the wild, unsupported claims I have deleted, can anyone actually provide any evidence that he has played anywhere that would make him notable? Zanoni (talk) 12:35, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

What's for sure is that he didn't play for Alki Larnaca in 2010–11: [28] – Kosm1 fent 12:43, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I have PRODded the article. Giant Snowman 12:46, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Oddities

Browsing through the site, found out that Paul Abasolo's article, in Spanish, is titled "THE PAUL ABASOLO SEXUAL ASSAULT CASE" after the page was moved (see here http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caso_de_abuso_sexual_de_Pa%C3%BAl_Abasolo). Don't know if we can do anything here considering it's another wiki, but i just thought i'd drop a line to see if there are any similar cases in "our" wiki.

I mean it's utterly and totally wrong that approach, it's like having an article here titled "THE ANTICS OF JOEY BARTON" instead of the real thing. To have a separate article with mention to the sportsperson it's debatable, to ERASE the article on the sportsperson and replace it with another on stuff they did off the pitch is a "no-brainer" (as in it "should NOT BE DONE").

Attentively - --AL (talk) 14:59, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

We can't dictate the contents of another language Wiki, I'm afraid. Until it affects us at en.wiki, there's nothing we can do - though you could always post at es.wiki to see if it violates their BLP policy. Giant Snowman 15:03, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it violates any policies man, since it's factual and referenced. I just feel it's a very poor choice of titling an article, it should be as we have it in this wiki, Paul Abasolo, with the due sections FOOTBALL CAREER and CONVICTION (or another title of our choice for the #2) --AL (talk) 15:07, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Article titles can still violate WP:BLP. Giant Snowman 15:08, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Lionel Messi

Query over the career statistics section at Lionel Messi, which simply is: this is OTT, right? We've got a Career totals table, a Senior team table that lists assists (which are of course against consensus), goals per game and assists per game percentages, "Goals Against ..." tables which aggregate all of Messi's goals against Spanish and Continental opposition, tables listing his every goal at U20 and U23 level and Hat-tricks tables. Complete overkill IMO, not to mention most of it is poorly formatted and largely unsourced. I've tried removing most of this content but was immediately reverted by Ftj1357 (talk · contribs); judging by his contribution history, this seems to be a case of WP:OWN. Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 20:01, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Direct them to consensus for tables at #Proposed template. Giant Snowman 20:24, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Just look at the sources as well. Most of them are in languages I dont even know and read. Most of them (thanks to google translate) show that the reference is not a real reference for a stat it was put to. I recommend getting rid of a few section. Merge the Barcelona youth stats and Barcelona first team stats. Get rid of the total statistics as I dont think it is right to have a combine stats table for domestic and international and of course go with the Proposed template discussion. Cheers. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 20:32, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Goals against oposition surely is non-notable. Think of that for every player. -Koppapa (talk) 20:52, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Career totals - no, Youth team - no, Senior team - merge Supercup, UEFA Super Cup & Club World Cup into 'Other', Goals Against Clubs - no, international stats need trimming down. The hat-tricks is a new one though I wouldn't be too opposed to the list.--Echetus Xe 21:21, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

We should have that table referenced though with match-reports, specially a page like Messi's. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 21:56, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Reply to EchetusXe: I'd certainly keep the content from the Youth team table, preferably merging it into the Senior team table, since it includes apps/goals in senior divisions (Tercera División and Segunda División B). Mattythewhite (talk) 22:56, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah yeah good point.--Echetus Xe 23:42, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Have gone ahead and removed a truck-load of content; what do people think? Mattythewhite (talk) 16:15, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Looks much better, though I'd still like to see the 'Youth team' and 'Senior' merging (as Youth Team was still senior league football, wasn't it?) and merging of the Champion's League, Super Cup etc. into a single 'Contintental' column. Giant Snowman 16:20, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

2nd Discussion

Arsenalkid700, you keep saying the sources aren't real just because you cant speak arabic? I don't think it should be a problem if you cant speak it. First sources : as example For goals against Spanish teams... there is every single season in la liga with every match (not just Barcelona matches)but they are sorted as years like la liga 2011-12 then 2010-11 and so on... and then other infos inside eachone for every match like who scored, yellow cards etc... so i really think u cant doubt something just because u cant read it. The same goes for cup matches and for Europe its all in English. And then again im 100% of all of them because i spent over two days collecting them from all over! So you cant just remove it as that because you can't read it. What I really can't get its not even showing up until u extend it! So its not even long annoying for regular users but yeah its interesting for anyone who is a soccer fan... it might be not notable for you so u dont need to extend it but for some soccer fans its because we are not talking about regular player here we are talking about a player breaking records every little while. And merging all continental or cups together aren't helpful either! I think Expedia is about facts and numbers not about merging them or what we like, so yeah the more you have of facts the better as a source . Adnan 23:00, 15 October 2012 (UTC).

I don't think you get where I am coming from. I don't care if they are in a different language. I use non-English sources all the time for when I edit Indian football articles and also google translate helped and can help. What my complaint was that I could not see the said stats. I forgot which stat but when I clicked on the reference and source it took me to some other website which from google translate I can't see what it is about. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 00:15, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

ok im sorry but im really ready to go on it with u one by one to prove u they are all good & correct & sorry for all cofusing earlier also Adnan 00:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Never forget WP:NOTSTATS. Giant Snowman 07:57, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

1st -I just saw u also removed assists section from career total...but assists arent extra loaded data for any soccer player especially who plays upfront its about goals + assists It'd be sensible to remove it if it was for player like pique as example (barca defender) but for player playing upfront assists is a major part from it...so I think we need to leave it at career table .because if its not important then goals also not important they are both fit in the same package ... even when they judge the player they take into account how number of goals they assisted (the ronalod and messi debate was part of that when they argued ronaldo doesnt assist his team ) , especially when u find player much less important than messi as Andrei Arshavin have it and most notable soccer player. I agree we dont need ratio as that for every season (maybe after he retires we can make it but just not yet ) but i think its really important .
2nd - you removed his youth and under 23 years old goals again its equal for senior team goals and no you cant merge them together because then you are putting false information since FIFA it self separates them as two different things & they dont count any international appearance for youth teams with senior teams so i agree going into too much details about it isnt correct but not mentioning it making it incomplete article .

3rd -about goals against clubs : he is a soccer player & the sections is about career statistics its not like going into statistics as -scored as example in min 53 , yellow carded in min 71 - its about teams who scored against them and since they dont show up until you extend it so it doesnt make the article long and ugly but it makes this section for anyone who needs data base (as commentator) a good way to get information all what he needs to or some soccer fans as me can find information they look over it usually .especially we are talking about guy breaking records every year so when he is gonna hang up his boots its gonna be all more important than now .so easier to have it collected than working on it later as that . Thank you Adnan 11.43 am 16 October 2012 (UTC)

was wondering about it earlier,I totally agree with assists and youth point & while the the goals section isnt harmful might not be super interested in it like checking it everytime but yeah it can be interested sometime. messi — Preceding unsigned comment added by Basselmessi (talk • contribs) 12:55, 16 October 2012 (UTC) — Basselmessi (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

thats what I'm trying to explain :) Adnan talk 12:49, 16 october 2012 (UTC)

There is no universal definition of assist. Every site has its own rules about crediting them. Some include penalties won, deflections from goal post or keeper to other player who scores. It's dubious. There is a difference between full international cap and youth cap. Just because it's an article about Messi, that doesn't mean we should include every possible statistics out there. Reminds me of that guy who made a list of every goal scored by Pele. Ridiculous. Dr. Vicodine (talk) 13:12, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. Adnan - your proposed edits are against consensus, both long-standing and recent. You also appear to have been canvassing. Giant Snowman 14:24, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

No I didnt & im not proposing against consensus you cant make it as its your own idea (check my talk page and see what Ftj1357 said ... so im not the only one who is talking about it so SAYING im against consensus isnt true at all because its have been only 2 people talked about it ! you and now dr.vicodine so im not against consensus actually you are against consensus :) because dr.vicodine accepted its different from international senior i mean the youth and dont accuse me from something i didnt do just to end the discussion because the discussion is still wide open and neither me or you or even dr.vicodine can decide it its not your website neither mine or his ! so its not ur own idea or mine its a collective work .. so wikipedia is a collective work of resources ! so anything has resources in it as data base i dont think you can judge it upon ur own idea anyway it appears about the youth you are against the consensus not me .... Adnan talk 13:33, 16 october 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I sad there's a difference between senior and youth appearances. And the difference is that we don't list goals scored for youth categories. Dr. Vicodine (talk) 14:49, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Read the discussion above - #Proposed template - which we agree what format a stats table should come in. That is the current consensus. Oh, and you have been canvassing - you've posted on over a dozen user pages, and you're still doing it. Please don't deny it, and please don't do it anymore. Giant Snowman 14:41, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

so inviting other people to make a decision other than you isnt acceptable ? how would they know about this discussion if u dont invite them into it "? whats wrong with that !! and how come only 5 people with you decide what should be the table look like ! Adnan talk 14:53, 16 october 2012 (UTC)

Inviting people to a discussion should certainly be encouraged; what you should never do is try and sway them as you have been doing. There have been numerous discussions with a number of editors here about the table; as stated, consensus has been established. Giant Snowman 15:01, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

i wasnt doing it i was saying exactly what u were doing and isnt wikipedia for all to say what they think ?? how many editors did u discuss it with ? less than ten ?? and you never invited anyone into that discussion other than who think would accept your idea you cant make a decision with less than 1o people agreed about it Adnan talk 15:04, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Consensus-building doesn't require a minimum amount of participants to a discussion – it can even be formed by two people if no-one objects. If you do, you can start a discussion to build new consensus (like you did here) and of course you are free to notify interested editors, but leave personal opinions and urges to support one's point of view out of them, or else you are canvassing. Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 15:34, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

My opinions on what's there at the moment (cut down version):

Club stats: the "youth team" appearances should be in the same table as the "senior team" apps, because they're apps made in senior leagues; in terms of columns, I'd have League, Cup, Champs Lge and Other (with footnotes saying what competition the apps refer to);

International: the international goals list must not be hidden, according to MOS:COLLAPSE, which says "Scrolling lists, and boxes that toggle text display between hide and show, should not conceal article content".

and on what was removed:

Career totals upsum: available elsewhere in the article, either in infobox or other tables in the stats section;

Assists: unfortunately, although a player's assists are relevant to their career, there are no consistent sources for what constitutes an assist, so including them runs counter to the verifiability and reliable sources policies;

Goals against (...) clubs: OTT: WP:NOTSTATS says that "articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader": the general reader can perfectly well understand the progression of a player's career without seeing an itemised list of how many goals he's scored against any given club: if any of it's significant, mention it in the text;

International by year: wouldn't have a problem with the under-age stats going back into that table;

Under-age goals lists: OTT;

Senior team goals/comp/year: if that's desirable, it could be incorporated in the International by year table;

Hat-tricks: totally OTT; mention the season record one in the text, if it isn't already.

In general, it must be made clear exactly which stats are covered by which sources: the reader shouldn't have to trawl through a list of references to find out exactly where any piece of statistical info comes from. And for full disclosure, I joined this discussion because I saw it developing in my watchlist, and have not been invited to comment ;-) cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:40, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Struway2. Oldelpaso (talk) 16:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I second that. Now then, I think this discussion is over. No exceptions, we remain with the new edits based on concensuss. Cheeres. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 19:36, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Steady on, the whole thread was only started 48 hrs ago, and this part of the discussion less than 24 hrs since. It'll do no harm to give people a bit more chance to contribute. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 19:47, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

To broaden the consensus I wanted to add that also agree with Struway, all those stats in Messi's article are entirely too much. --Jaellee (talk) 19:59, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

yeah give it more time its less than 24 hours and we are not in run to prove personal point of view i guess... and as what i understand the assists part should be included ...

all agreed its important but variable so assist counts should follow UEFA method they only credit to person who passed final pass without deflection , and winning a penalty isnt an assist also. what do u think ? --Adnan (talk) 20:36, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that no reliable source discloses their method of counting assists. Therefore these figures should be added only if they do and if they are consistent throughout. – Kosm1 fent 08:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Post-international match vandalism

Several editors have taken to updating national team articles over the past few hours. None so poorly as with the England national football team. I believe that the recent edits should be reviewed and increased vigilance applied to other national team articles. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:43, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Tuvalu Footballers and other Tuvaluan articles at AfD

I have put forward for deletion a number of articles about seemingly non-notable players, officials and leagues that have all been created by one person. Essentially the player articles all relate to futsal players who played for Tuvalu in the OFC Championships. It was felt in previous discussions here that WP:FOOTYN was not relevant to Futsal and that WP:GNG would take precedant. Needless to say I can find nothing beyond the odd teamsheet from OFC to say they played and none of them seem to have done anything remarkable (like play in a fully professional league) to fulfill FOOTYN or GNG.

The remaining articles relate to a couple of administrators which I AfD'd for the same reasons and the Tuvalu B-Division and its Season articles. The divsion and season articles I afd'd due to the manner in which football appears to be set up in Tuvalu. There is essentially no pyramid, just an A-Division that the first teams play in and a B-Division in which the reserves take part in. Each cup (and god knows which one is the national cup because there are about four which seem to be open to all) has two tiers, A and B, first team play in the A tier and reserves in the B and never the twain shall meet. As such I make the assumption that the B tier is essentially just a reserve cup and that only the A tier could be considered the national cup (there is no play off between them either).

These have all been created by either User:Klant01 or User talk:Vincentvanderput16 both of whom seem to be directly involved with a Dutch Foudation established specifically to promote football in Tuvalu. I do not claim there is any COI here and personally I find all their articles interesting. However, I am concerned that there is becoming an increasing number of articles on fundamentally unnotable amateur footballers who have only played in the opening stages of a couple of OFC futsal tournaments. Discussions at the various AfDs with the initial editors are not fruitful, their justifications seem to rest almost entirely on WP:VALINFO, WP:ATA#CRYSTALBALL, WP:OTHERSTUFF and WP:LONGTIME amongst other fallacious arguments. Most articles are unsourced or contain links to the FAs homepage or that of the editors' foudation and so are not primary sources.

I am not trying to canvass opinion here in support of my AfDs, but I would appreciate it if people here could have a look and pass comment, particulary with regards to Futsal / WP:FOOTYN argument that seems to be going on. If people say that FOOTYN can be used and thus futsal caps make an individual inherently notable I will gladly withdraw the vast majority of the nominations and if people can offer comment on the notability of the B-Division as well I would be grateful. The articles i am referring to are:

Thanks. Fenix down (talk) 18:26, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

If you had merged the AfDs of all futsal players, things would have been so much sweeter... – Kosm1 fent 19:36, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Voted keep for Football at the Tuvalu games, also would keep youth national sides as notable tournament is only 3 months away. Those could be easily recreated though as they don't have mucgh info anyway. Won't work through all the players. Regarding the B-League. I don't know. Is there much difference to Liga Nacional de Fútbol de Honduras Reserves, or Ukrainian Premier Reserve League to go a level higher, or even the Premier Reserve League? -Koppapa (talk) 19:56, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

It would have been better to merge them all, but I didn't know how many there would be when I started going through them, seemed so obvious they were not notable that I assumed there would only be a couple at most. It's just as bad for me having to reply to every comment multiple times. I suppose it is too late to merge now? I don't know how to do that.

I would say there was no difference between the Tuvalu B-Division and the Honduras and Ukrainian reserve leagues, but only because there is only one reference between them both and at no point does either article make even the vaguest attempt to indicate its notability. I would argue that they are both AfD candidates too, but that is for another day. Premier reserve league is obviously not in the same bracket from a GNG point of view at least. I think the important thing to note about the B-Division is that the article shows that the games are only 60 minutes long. they don't even play full length matches. Fenix down (talk) 20:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I was going to leave a message for you on your talk-page regarding these AfD's, but as you've started this discussion I'd rather leave the comment here: Of the ~ 20 AfD's you started the other day, most of them were eligible to be PRODed. Nominating articles for deletion through WP:PROD is preferred as the first step, and if anyone objects you can start an AfD instead. I'll try to leave a comment on all of those AfD's when I have time. Cheers, --Mentoz86 (talk) 22:50, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Extended statistics tables

England
Season	Club	Division	League		FA Cup		League Cup		FL Trophy		Play-Offs		Total		Discipline
Season	Club	Division	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals
2012–13	Portsmouth	League One	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total			0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

I know we discussed these type of extended statistics tables (as shown above) before & that most people were agreed that they were a bad idea. I personally find them unnecessary, oversized & distracting & I think that's reflected in it's non-use in good articles. The thing is I can't find the previous discussion in the archive if someone could point me direction of that discussion so I can better advise an IP as to why they are discouraged by WP:FOOTY I would be grateful. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 23:28, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

The layout you've provided an example of should certainly be discouraged. That layout is found almost exclusively on articles of Leeds United players and when I've tried tidying them up the IP who added them often throws his toys out the tram. Here's another horrndous-looking table, for good measure. The closer to something like this the better, I say. Mattythewhite (talk) 23:40, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Nononono. There should be a column for League, FA Cup, League Cup, and 'other' (as that is what Soccerbase uses) - and certainly no discipline/assists column. As I've said before, I think the table in use on Shane Sutherland (and many more) is best. Giant Snowman 08:06, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

What about players who played in countries with and without league cup competitions in their career? Wouldn't the league cup column be quite empty? – Kosm1 fent 08:10, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

If stats or unknown or non-existent, then I'd suggest following the example of Nahki Wells. If they've exclusively played in a country/countries with no competition, then don't have a column at all. Giant Snowman 08:23, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

No, I'm taking about players who have partly played for countries with a league cup and for countries with no such competition. For example Charles Itandje; is this way the right way of presenting statistics in this case? – Kosm1 fent 08:30, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

IPs seem to think everything needs a column rather then accepting the Other column with a footnote is perfectly adequate. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 08:36, 9 October 2012 (UTC)−

Kosm1fent - we should distinguish between cup competitions when we can (i.e FA/League), but continental/play-offs/other cups are fine in 'other' with a footnote, as DUCKISJAMMMY suggests. Giant Snowman 08:45, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I think we should add a "Career statistics" table to the projects MoS, Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Players, so that we have one that can be used in every article. But as I've said before, we should include the league that the player has played in that season. --Mentoz86 (talk) 08:39, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

It wouldn't be hard to include a 'League' column in the Sutherland-style wikitable, I can draw up a template tonight when home from work? And then agree it should be added to MOS, and exclusively used. Giant Snowman 08:44, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Proposed template

Club	Season	Division	League		FA Cup		League Cup		Other		Total
Club	Season	Division	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals
Wikipedia FC	2010–11	Division 1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
	2011–12	Division 1	5	0	1	1	1	0	0	0	7	7
	Total		6	0	1	1	1	0	0	0	8	1
Wiki Town AFC (loan)	2010–11	Division 3	25	15	1	0	5	3	4	2	35	20
Footia FC	2012–13	Division 2	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	1
Career total			33	16	2	1	6	3	4	2	45	22

Thoughts? Giant Snowman 12:19, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

That's fine, as long as it offers some flexibility regarding to columns. Also from what I can see, one-year spells at clubs shouldn't bear a "club total" row? Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 12:30, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Regarding columns - I don't think any more should be added, but we should certainly remove any that are irrelevant for a player's history i.e. no League Cup in the country he played in. Regarding one-year spells - I'm not bothered either way. Some have them, some don't. Giant Snowman 12:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Looks fine, but we should still have some flexibility to add a Europe/Continental column. Mentoz86 (talk) 14:47, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I feel that they should be included in 'Other' - after all, stats website such as Soccerbase do not differentiate. Giant Snowman 14:50, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

But Soccerbase do list each appearance by season, meaning I've been able to differentiate between apps on the this table, for instance. Mattythewhite (talk) 15:08, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

True, and I've done it myself here, but thinking about it is that technically OR? Giant Snowman 15:15, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't have thought so; as long as the content is adequately referenced I don't see any problems, in relation to what is stipulated at WP:OR. Mattythewhite (talk) 15:26, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I should say that a European column would be appropriate for players who consistently play in Europe (or Asia etc).--Echetus Xe 19:18, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

The proposed table is pretty much along the lines of the sort of tables I normally add to articles (although I don't always add the division) & as EchetusXe says a Europe Column is appropriate where the player regularly plays in European competition like Mikel's table for ex.. It would be great if we had MOS on this matter which also outlines what is not to be included like columns for all competitions, assists (which we've already established is a bad idea on may occasions) here's just one example. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 01:47, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't include 'Division' column either - but I know that some people do. Same with European - that can be a variable. Other than those two issues (which aren't even that), can we agree that this format should be exclusively used? Once we have consensus/MOS then it'll be easier to deal with those who use other tables, including the awful template table. Giant Snowman 11:50, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes. – Kosm1 fent 11:56, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes. FkpCascais (talk) 17:42, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Whilst the table GS shows is pretty much the format I would use personally (maybe have an extra column for Europe/FLT), why do we need to try and be so prescriptive regarding the preferred format? If there are reliable sources showing assists, cards etc for a particular player then why not include them? Eldumpo (talk) 19:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

As has been repeated far too many times before - such reliable sources do not exist for players who didn't have a career in the past 5 years. They barely exist for current players, and 'assists' are far too subjective. Regarding the Europe column - yes that would be an accepted variable, but FLT should stay in 'Other' in my opinion. Giant Snowman 19:10, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Obviously if there are no sources then cards etc shouldn't be included, but if there are sources (appreciate this will only be for more recent players) I don't see why these should not be included. Re FLT, people will have different views, but I would not want to see MOS text saying that an FLT column (or other appropriate competition for a particular player), should be excluded. Eldumpo (talk) 21:00, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

The point of MOS is that articles follow the same style - including red cards for modern players but not older ones defeats this objective. That's why we don't include cup games in infoboxes. Giant Snowman 10:50, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

What chronological sorting are you suggesting? It is rather confused in this short sample (2010-11, followed by 2011-12, followed by 2009-10) Kevin McE (talk) 20:08, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Arranged chronologically, but by club. So first club first, second club second etc. Giant Snowman 20:20, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, in the case of a player playing a game in the Champions League in Europe and then playing in the Asian version of the cup, why doesn't the table just be a generic and read 'Continental' instead of Europe ect ect... if you get where i'm coming from. --Liamtaylor007 (talk) 21:45, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

'Continental' works well. Giant Snowman 10:50, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

i dont agree with that and other users should have the opportunity to vote at that! not just 5 or 10 or even 20 decide what is suitable or not . thank you Adnan talk 13:59; 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Couple of matters arising from the recent conversion of Joe Hart's club career stats to a format resembling the proposed template:

First, the chronology. Mr Hart has been at Man City for numerous seasons, and had a few loan spells early in his City career. Personally, I find having all his City seasons together, and then loans from 06/07 and 09/10 tacked on the bottom, a confusing way to arrange it, and would find it clearer if the table were organised in straight chronological order;

Second, the goals column. Goalkeepers are different, and goals conceded or clean sheets are more relevant to their career stats than are goals scored, which in most cases are columns full of zeroes. Thoughts? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Is there a reliable source counting conceded goals/clean sheets? I don't think so, and even if there is one about a league, not all leagues do. – Kosm1 fent 08:26, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

If I were sourcing Mr Hart's appearances for this season to his Soccerbase page for this season, I'd see 7 PL appearances, 2 Champions League appearances, and 1 clean sheet. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the chronology - I think it is more important to group appearances for a club together, rather then have it chronologically. Regarding the goals - are such stats available for all goalkeepers? Do sources conflict on number of clean sheets? Giant Snowman 08:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

We'll have to disagree on the chronology thing, then :-) As to stats not being available for all goalkeepers, why should it matter? We restrict the infobox to league games played, because stats for cup appearances aren't available for all players. We don't then omit cup appearances from stats tables as well, because they aren't available for all players? On sources conflicting, do sources conflict on numbers of appearances in various competitions? you know as well as I do that they do. Struway2 (talk) 09:09, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

So you are counting clean sheets yourself? OR much? – Kosm1 fent 08:50, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Counting small finite numbers of things off a page is research, not original research. Struway2 (talk) 09:09, 18 October 2012 (UTC)