Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive 67

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Archive 60

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Archive 65

Football reliable sourcing question

PitchInvasion.Net? Is it considered reliable by those in this WikiProject? Just curious because it is linked in several articles as sources. --LauraHale (talk) 13:13, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd say no. It appears to be a blog which fails WP:SPS: [1] – Kosm1 fent 13:26, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

How about Football Italia and Sportsbook24? I was recently told they weren't in a GA review, but I just thought I'd check because the reviewer seemed unsure. mg SH 00:04, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Not easy to say. The latter one definitely appears to be the most unreliable of the two, as there is no indication that its editorial team consists of journalists or experts on the field or anything other than football fans. Football Italia on the other hand seems to be owned from JDT Sports Productions, which shows no indication of notability, thus making it a grey area; further checks for fact-checking and accuracy will be needed. Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 06:35, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Dozens of footballers pictures are available to use from Flickr

Thanks to the UN HAAH we can upload dozens of footballers pictures to wikipedia to use, the link Flickr, the pictures are from few european countries top league which can be used, especilly in articles we have no pictures of the players.
– HonorTheKing (talk) 15:34, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Mesut Özil's nationality issue again

The subject of the lack of Özil's nationality in the lede has reared its head again at Talk:Mesut Özil#Horse-trading. Since WP:MOSBIO reads

"Ethnicity or sexuality should not generally be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability. Similarly, previous nationalities or the country of birth should not be mentioned in the opening sentence unless they are relevant to the subject's notability."

I think we should just remove the nationality from all football player articles since the players are not notable for being an English, German, Spanish, Lithuanian or Uzbekistani footballers, they're notable for being footballers. Period. Full stop. However I understand the convention and the flag waving (even if it's against WP:MOSFLAG, but I digress yet again). Feel free to weigh-in at the discussion if you care to enter the fray. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:21, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

the paragraph you are referencing refers to ethnicity or previous nationalities. My edit neither refers to Özil's ethnicity nor previous nationality. There is nothing to discuss, really. WP policy WP:MOSBIO is very clear on this one.--IIIraute (talk) 04:18, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

"I think we should just remove the nationality from all football player articles" -> I completely disagree. Just because certain people make things difficult does not mean we should take this drastic step of completely removing nationality. Nationality is a very important aspect of footballers, even if they do not play for their national team. Ozil's case is very straightforward, he is a German international of Turksih descent. WP:MOSBIO says not to emphasize ethnicity if it is not relevant to the persons notability. In Ozil's case, his Turkish ethnicity is not notable and therefore should not be mentioned in the lead, plain and simple. It can be mentioned in the opening of the body, "Ozil was born in Germany to Turkish parents .. " Some people just insist on playing by their own rules when the guidelines are very clear about what to include. TonyStarks (talk) 04:40, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree - but the editor above (Walter Görlitz) doesn't want him to be called a "German" international. see talk: [2]--IIIraute (talk) 04:50, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I really can't be bothered to read all that, all I know is that Ozil is a German international that is playing for Real Madrid. He is German and that should be mentioned in the lead, plain and simple. His Turkish ethnicity should be mentioned in the body of the article not the leader, whether or not he has Turkish citizenship. Messi has Spanish citizenship (and probably Italian as well), but at the end of the day he will always be referred to as an Argentine footballer. TonyStarks (talk) 05:33, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Completely agreed, Tony. He was born in Germany and has only ever played for Germany at any level – he is German, no ifs, buts or maybes about it. To bury our head in the sand and ignore that because of some Turkish nationalists is ridiculous. Jenks24 (talk) 05:40, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Sporting nationality is all that matters. Ozil is a Germany international, German citizen and German sportsperson. As the MOS:BIO guideline says the lead should not include past nationalities. A clear cut case of he plays for Germany he is German. Murry1975 (talk) 07:13, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, also disagree with the complete removal of nationality from the ledes of all articles - but agree it is needed on some. I'll give you some examples:

A player (like Ozil) born in Germany and has played at int'l level for Germany - he is German. No ifs, no buts, no coconuts.

A player born in Germany but has played at int'l lvel for Turkey - in the lede I would say he is Turkish. Not "German-born Turkish", just Turkish. If that results in edit wars, then it should be removed, and a line should be added instead saying something like "Born in Germany, he representes Turkey at international level."

However, petty nationalistic editing - which is wrong to boot - is no need to make wholesale changes to tens of thousands of player articles. Giant Snowman 08:06, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I understand your solution of taking an approach to satisfy everyone's POV in an edit-war situation, however I still disagree. Edit-wars should not dictate the approach we take. A German-born Turkish international is still a Turkish player. The fact that he is born in Germany should not be mentioned in the lead unless it is relevant to their notability, as per WP:MOSBIO. In 99% of cases, it's not. The body of the article is there to explain that he is born in Germany and went on to represent Turkey. In short, if he plays for Germany, he's German. If he holds both nationalities and a reference can be provided to back that claim, he is German-Turkish. If he is born in Germany and represents Turkey, he is Turkish. The rest can go in the body of the article, there's no restriction to how much detail you can add there. I deal with plenty of these types of articles on a daily basis due to the large number of French-born North Africans and I've never a had problem taking this approach. TonyStarks (talk) 08:39, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Pretty sad we should be having this argument over a German, born in German, who plays for Germany, and whose official club profile describes as "Nationality: German... his entire life has been committed to Germany". I suppose nest Berlin won't be considered German, probably have people saying it should be described as Prussian.--Echetus Xe 13:59, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree Echetus. I contributed to the discussion above the horse-trading one and tried to have his nationality re-instated. However, Walter didn't seem to want to listen. While his opinion about not wanting nationalities in player's leads is fine, if he wants that to happen he should bring it up here rather than try to make the change to one article. Its certainly ridiculous that vandals were appeased in this way. Adam4267 (talk) 14:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, in Ozil's case it is quite clear he is German - that is supported by both reliable sources and common sense. But other cases are not so clear - what about players who have played at full senior international level for 2 nations, such as Jermaine Jones? Giant Snowman 15:10, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

His current lead (German-born) is useless because it doesn't mention him having played for Germany. I'd say he's a United States football player. And then later on you can elaborate on whatever other factors there may be. (i.e. Jones played four times for Germany U20 and three times for Germany. In October 2009 he switched to the United States...) I would say always use their current team in the lead and you can elaborate on other stuff later. The only time where I think that doesn't work is for older players who played a few games for another country at the end of their career. But that's few and far between and not important for now. Adam4267 (talk) 15:20, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

For Jones, maybe his lede should say something like '...is a United States international footballer, who formerly played for Germany'? Eldumpo (talk) 21:34, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

For Jones, his intro should be expanded and an extra line/paragraph should be added about his international career. Something along the lines of "Jones is a former German international with caps at the Under-20 and senior level. However, in 2010 he switched his allegiance to represent the United States, etc." In short, a quick summary of the fact that he represented Germany in the past but represents the US now. TonyStarks (talk) 23:15, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

While Jones is notable for playing for both Germany and the US, I would argue he is more notable for playing for the US. Therefore more prominence should be given to the US. This is similar to Ferenc Puskas and Alfredo Di Stefano. Hack (talk) 01:56, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Does that mean we have consensus (regarding Özil)? --IIIraute (talk) 06:29, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd say so, I haven't seen anyone here disagree, just the one user on Ozil's talk page. TonyStarks (talk) 08:35, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I tried to expand Jermaine Jones lead, any thougths. And I'd also agree about the consensus on Ozil. Adam4267 (talk) 11:32, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Yep, i support adding the german nationality to Özil's page. Kante4 (talk) 16:17, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

What do you think about this?--Oleola (talk) 17:47, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Solved Oleola. The player is Brazilian, he even represented Brazil at U-20 level. The fact that he also has Serbian passport doesn´t change that fact. I usually confront them with the comparison that by that logic Sinisa Mihajlovic is Italian footballer, as he also has Italian passport. Should we then add the other passport nationality to every Serbian player who has them (which are many by the way)? They would certainly prefer not...

Anyway, the most interesting case related to this discussion is Vladimir Disljenkovic. The goalkeeper is Serbian, represented Serbia until 2008, and then when he retired from the national team, he accepted Ukrainian citizenship so he wouldn´t count as foreigner in the club he played in Ukraine. The thing is that Ukraine doesn´t permit double-citizenship, so Disljenkovic when becoming Ukrainian had to renounce to his Serbian passport thus becoming only Ukrainian. The issue was debated extensivelly at some point in the talk page, as Ukrainian editors insisted that the fact that he had only Ukrainian passport now, meant he is only Ukrainian footballer, despite the fact that he was born in Serbia and played for Serbia, even a year before all this happened. Ukrainian editors insisted only passport at present time counted, while I insisted that the fact that he was Serbian international was not to be ignored, however even now I am not sure where we stand in that particular case, and the lede nationality is still often changed. Any thoughts? FkpCascais (talk) 18:14, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

That's certainly an interesting example. To think about this, we are presenting the players sporting nationality which is technically Serbian, although he would be unable to play for them. It could be possible that he can reclaim his passport, but that's not relevant now. I think a very important question is whether he has declared to play for Ukraine or not. If so then we can easily put Ukraine but without a source saying that I'd say go with Serbian. Adam4267 (talk) 22:28, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I beleave the question of him playing internationally for Ukraine was never an issue, as that would be impossible given the fact that he already played for Serbia (7 matches between 2004 and 2009) and FIFA only allows players to swich NT´s on special conditions, which was not the case. He only took Ukrainian passport after actually the coach Antic told him that he would not be part of Serbian team at South Africa WC in 2010. Tired of being a 3rd or 4th option with Serbia, and seing his chances becoming even slimmer because of new young goalkeepers have been favoured over him, he decided to dedicate himself entirely to the club which was having problems with the number of foreigners in the squad, so he decided to make them a favour and become domestic player by taking their nationality. But, it is interesting as in this particular case the player had to renounce his previous nationality, thus not being longer Serbian citizen, despite the fact that his sporting nationality will remain Serbian despite evrything, as it was the NT he represented and it is not expected that he represents any other. Now, some argued that what counted was the nationality at this precise moment and the fact that technically he was no longer a Serbian footballer as he did not had anymore Serbian citizenship, but they were unaware that at FOOTY we followed sporting nationality, and not the citizenship one, thus making some ambiguities. PS: the discussion did not took place at article´s talk page, but at one editor´s talk page which I am not able to find now. FkpCascais (talk) 02:02, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Is it time to think seriously about changing the way we do this?

In my opinion this situation is clear-cut: Özil was born in and has played for Germany. But with Turkish roots it's easy to see how some IPs won't be willing to accept him being listed as anything other than Turkish. Such is life.

A bigger problem is players in a situation like Özil's who have not played international football. I've had that problem with Adrian Mariappa; he was born in England, and definitely has Fijian heritage. Once or twice this has resulted in his flag being changed to Fiji, particularly 18 months ago when it was suggested that he might play for them. But on top of that I've had an anonymous editor claim that he has Congolese heritage, and have come across at least one site which follows another national team (the site isn't an RS) and suggests he is eligible to play for them.

While our current convention is very clear – we go by birthplace – I wonder if it's worth looking again at what we display and in what circumstances? The Watford lists that I have taken through FLC go by national team(s) the player has played for, a black-and-white system which is not open to interpretation by any good faith editor that chances upon the page. Of particular relevance is List of Watford F.C. players, which was promoted less than a year ago using that convention. —WFC— 05:26, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

But simple place of birth is not an adequate determinant of nationality in every case. Would Cruz Beckham be considered Spanish? I use the passport of my parents' place of birth, not my own country of birth, raising and residence: which is my nationality? My nephew was born in his father's native land, but is now a citizen of his mother's. Not all countries necessarily allow citizenship simply by virtue of fact of birth. What of those born in a country that no longer exists, or in a region that is no longer part of the nation that it was in at that time; or in territory from which their ethnic group has been forcibly removed? Place of birth is far too simplistic. Of course, for many of those for whom we have articles, the issue of their nationality is very simple, but we cannot assume that that is always the case, not legislate as though it were. Where nationality is not clear-cut, we should first consider, before referring to it at all, whether it is of any relevance to the article (and in most cases it is not: in terms of the career of a lower division player, there are several factors more relevant than what country he will never be invited to play for). If, and only if, it is still considered pertinent, we should refrain from trying to explain in a few words in the opening sentence that which is not straightforward, and give adequate treatment to it in an appropriate section (family and early life would be a typical header for such a section.). Kevin McE (talk) 09:40, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I think we should stick to the known facts. If they have played international football they can be described as a 'Fooian international footballer', and if they haven't played for a country they can be described as being 'born in Foo'. Neither of these scenarios necessarily make their nationality Foo (or does FIFA require proof of 'nationality' before playing international football), and they should not automatically be described as such. Where it becomes difficult is where apparently reliable sources (e.g. Soccerway) might ascribe a nationality/flag to a person based on their country of birth. Do we consider ignoring this if there is no further evidence? Eldumpo (talk) 10:19, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I think so. And it's not just because of difficult cases such as Mariappa. The main problem is that the sources we use are not in the slightest bit reliable as far as nationality is concerned.

Watford aren't the biggest team in the world, but we're nonetheless playing in a league that any reputable football website would be taking seriously. Even putting aside the likes of Mariappa or Britt Assombalonga, errors on Soccerbase include Republic of Ireland U17 international Jack Bonham, Wales under-19 international Jonathan Bond, and Northern Ireland full international Lee Hodson, all listed as English. The Hodson one is nothing short of scandalous: Soccerbase calls him English despite listing the games he has played for Northern Ireland! [3] —WFC— 14:05, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I looked up your example of Assombalonga and discover him described as an English footballer, on no apparent grounds. Even if he has achieved UK citizenship through residency, asylum or some other grounds, as a UK passport holder born outside the UK he is, as I understand it, equally eligible for any of the four home countries, and so not describable as specifically English in football terms, even of his contact with the UK has been exclusively with England. Kevin McE (talk) 21:37, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree that he's German and agree with consensus. However, the argument that was not put forward here was that he held a Turkish passport when he became a professional. However the fact that he represents Germany makes him a German. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:59, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Özil is "German footballer" definitelly. The issue is to find a correct rationale for players without national team appereances. I agree fully with Kevin McE that place of birth may not be the best solution for a number of cases. I understand this well as my mother was diplomat and I had numerous friends that were born up in countries unrelated to them, only because the parents were working there for the time of their birth. There are more and more cases of these nowadays. Some of them were even born in a foreign country with mixed families... This cases are obviously exceptions but we would better include some sort of mention and guideline for them. The problem is how to compose it. Also, I fully agree football websites are not at all reliable for nationality issues as Eldumpo and WFC mentioned (I could give an enormous list of less known players with "wrong" nationalities in them, and some cases even having different nationalities in different websites). So going only by sources may also be tricky. So needs something more. FkpCascais (talk) 22:15, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I think the problem is that you can't have one rule for some players and one for others. Because then nobody would know if someone had a flag because they were born there or because they played for them or whatever. There are some tricky examples, i.e Thiago Alcântara (before his Spain debut) or Tom Hateley, and maybe in the cases of players who were born in a certain country but were raised as a national of another country and their parents were from there, could be reasonable exceptions. However, I think it is a bad route to go down when we have exceptions everywhere because then the whole system is pointless and uninformative. The cases of both those Watford players are clear-cut IMO, Assombalonga is DR Congolese (or whatever) and Bond is Welsh. IMO there are only two options, our current system or no flags. I personally favour flags but I don't think having flags for only players with international representation is an option because to me it looks like a shambles.

I think another problem is that many people just don't write leads properly. i.e Assombalonga's should be something like, Britt Assombalonga (born 6 December 1992) is a DR Congolese footballer who plays for Watford. He mainly plays as a winger but can also play as a striker. There should then be a paragraph on his club career, Assombalonga started his career at Watford and has had spells on loan at Braintree and Wealdstone. Then paragraphs on his international career or personal life or anything else. Assombalonga was born in DR Congo but moved to England at a young age. To me one of the problems is that people systematically want to cram the entire lead into one paragraph so in cases with ambiguity we get English-born Scottish or nothing at all. This is instead of an appropriate explanation in the third paragraph of the lead with something more concise in the first sentence. Even in Mariappa's there is nothing about his international career and its all in one paragraph. Plus there is lots of information which isn't that important. Sorry, rant over. Adam4267 (talk) 23:18, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I find it interesting that someone whose last edit to an article was to revert an accurate edit on the grounds that it was unsourced – when a good faith check for a source would have instantly produced one – feels so strongly that on the very first line of a BLP we should state a player's nationality. Particularly when in the particular instance he cites, most sources state that Assombalonga is of a different nationality to the one he thinks we should add. If we're absolutely sure, which in most cases goes hand-in-hand with having played internationally, fine. Otherwise, what on earth is wrong with "Britt Assombalonga (born 6 December 1992) is a [professional] footballer who plays for Watford." ? —WFC— 01:24, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Template:Dts

User Jimp has been rewriting the code for this template and has changed the month name to abbreviate version by default with explanation: "This template is used in tables where space is often tight and alignment is preferable. It is now possible to force the template to abbreviate the month & I've often done so but it means a little extra typing. It seems to me we'd be better off reversing this; let those who want the month name spelt out in full do the extra work." Now to generate 11 September 2007 we need to write {{dts|format=dmy|2007|September|11}} instead former {{dts|format=dmy|2007|9|11}} which now results in 11 Sep 2007. Does this needs some consensus before change because it affects a great number of lists relating to football? Dr. Vicodine (talk) 19:54, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes you must get agreement to change the functionality of a template that is used on over 10,000 articles. Keith D (talk) 21:22, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, to get back to the previous version might require a lot of editing to both the main Dts template and its subtemplates. See Template talk:Dts#New version if anyone feels like adding some comments. Canuck^{89 (have words with me)} 06:43, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

It can always be reverted out if people feel that the change should not be implemented. Keith D (talk) 15:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Serbian football clubs

User:Zippobg has been creating stub articles for several Serbian football clubs - see his contributions. Are these clubs sufficiently noteworthy to merit an article? -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:55, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Hard to tell without beeing an expert in Serbian football. They are currently mostly 4th level clubs. May have played higher in the past. -Koppapa (talk) 13:32, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I noteced it as well and I wasn´t very happy with it, as he is making just the simpliest possible stubs without even proper categories and with the minimal information. Most of those clubs had their articles before and were deleted. Many of them were simple stubs with little information available on them. When that mass deletion happend, I noteced that in between some better clubs were also deleted, however I left the issue go as I wasn´t sure what the limit is regarding notability for Serbian Cup, and I still don´t know it. None of them played at top league level, so the only way to solve it is if someone can tell me which level in the Cup a club needs to reach to pass notability. Then, I can check individually their Cup performances and tell which pass notability and which don´t. FkpCascais (talk) 16:00, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

According to WP:FOOTYN, all levels of a national cup warrant notability. Whether they should is a whole different topic... – Kosm1 fent 10:23, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I suggest to prod most of them. Regarding the cup notability, reaching a round in which top level clubs enter the competition should warrant notability, not all levels of a national cup. Dr. Vicodine (talk) 20:18, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, if I recall well there was some cutting point from where clubs in Cup gain notability, but I don´t know for Serbian Cup case if it was 1/16 finals, 1/32 finals, or some other stage. I am not sure where to find that info, if anyone knows can he please idicate it to me? FkpCascais (talk) 21:51, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

League changes by IPs. Help needed.

Hi, after reading through the archives of this talk page, it appears there is a clear consensus that when teams are promoted they do not officially join their new league until the end of the season in June. I'm currently fighting a losing battle against a swarm of anon IPs at the Southampton F.C. article after they secured promotion yesterday. I've requested semi-protection, but could really do with some help in the meantime as I'm in danger of violating WP:3RR. Thanks Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 15:40, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Just added to my watchlist. Will keep checking around every 15-30 minutes. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 21:08, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:RPP. Adam4267 (talk) 21:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Already logged a request at RPP before posting here, but no one seems to want to deal with it there. Chronic lack of active admins strikes again. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 22:47, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Career statistics tables

I've mentioned this before, but now we need a proper consensus. What do people prefer - a standard Wikitable (or which there are a number of styles in use, but which could be easily standardised) or {{Football player statistics 1}}? Personally the Wikitable is my choice, much easier to both edit and read, while the template is complicated and unwiedly. Thoughts? Giant Snowman 14:05, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The previous discussion made me learn how to use wikitables. :P I used to support the template over the tables, but now I have no strong feelings one way or the other. – Kosm1 fent 14:14, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikitable all the way for me, it is so much easier to convert, maintain, etc than templates. Adam4267 (talk) 16:35, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I have always used the template. I don't fancy converting hundreds of templates into tables.--Echetus Xe 17:38, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I prefer the wikitable, although why can't both be used? Eldumpo (talk) 17:41, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Personally I prefer the wikitable, but don't have a particular problem with the templates, SO LONG AS the player's career lends itself to league and optional FA Cup, League Cup and continental competitions. But if, as in many cases, the player has appearances in other competitions, it can't cope, and they're either lumped in with the totals or left out entirely. On another note, if we're going to standardise stats tables, please can we impose a requirement for a) explicit sourcing and b) the use of a "correct as of match played on" date? cheers, Struway2 (talk) 18:13, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikitables. A good example of what Struway mentions can be seen here. Leaving out statistics because there is no scope in the template for adding extra columns is asinine. Wikitables are easy to creative, maintain and expand. I'm seeing tables like this popping up as well. Awful. Argyle 4 Life^talk 18:28, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I have no preference one way or another, I just wonder what will happen to the hundreds of articles that already use the football stats template. Other than that, either template is fine by me, as long as we find a consensus and make an effort to use it exclusively. TonyStarks (talk) 19:54, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikitable all the way. Mattythewhite (talk) 20:27, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems consensus is for the Wikitable. Obviously the conversion is a lot of work and a bot couldn't do it. I've done one before and it took a while (although I didn't understand wikitables at that point) it shouldn't be to difficult for people who understand wikitables to convert them. However, it's relatively time consuming especially considering we don't know how many need converted and how many people would be willing to do it. I think we could either have a slow phase out, whereby there's no active attempt to change them and people do it at their own leisure. Once a template is completely phased out it can be deleted. Or we can just blitz it and try and get them done as soon as possible. Adam4267 (talk) 21:45, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Not sure how accurate it is (or if it does what I think it does), but this says that the {{Football player statistics 1}} is used on 3,673 articles. It also says that the {{Football player statistics 2}} is used some 3,500 times as well. That's over 7,000 articles that need to be changed, so it will definitely take a long time to complete. TonyStarks (talk) 22:37, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't mind {{football player statistics 1}}, because I don't consider a neat, semi-standard header as being a problem. Most implementations of 2-5 that I've seen add complexity, so if given the choice I'd get rid of those. —WFC— 02:36, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I for one am in favor of wikitable. Football player statistics 1 is just to complicated for me and I can't deal with that with the short time I have on every article. It also makes it hard when a foreigner joins the India league and they have the Football player statistics table and there heading is J.League or A-League and I have to try and add I-League somewhere and usually that takes 10 minutes to figure out whereas a wikitable is less than 3 minutes long to make. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 04:26, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

This seems to have gone stale over the weekend; I think there is consensus that Wikitables are preferred to the template, but before I TfD it, how do we go about converting the templates? Is it possible to do it automated? Giant Snowman 18:45, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if its possible for it to be done automatically. If it is I'd say go ahead, but if not as Tony said above there is over 7,000 templates to convert. Adam4267 (talk) 19:02, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Debut year in infobox

What year should I use in the following example? A youth team player makes his senior debut in April 2012 in a league game in the 2011-12 season. He started the season training with the youth team but moved up to the seniors at some point (I don't know when). Should the year in his senior career be 2012 (the year he made his debut) or 2011 (since it's the 2011-12 season)? I had a look at the player article MOS and the player infobox but couldn't find an answer to my question in either one. I know for national team appearances we use the year he made his first appearance but club is different since there's seasons involved. TonyStarks (talk) 08:33, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I would put 2012. It should be for when a player signs a senior contract with the club, but obviously if a senior debut precedes that then the year in which they made their debut should be used.--Echetus Xe 10:48, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Some players spend a number of years as a pro before becoming a senior. It should be year of debut IMO. Giant Snowman 12:55, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with 2012. But GS, surely it should be the years that he was a professional, rather than debut year. Otherwise, a player who is pro but doesn't make an appearance for a club for any reason (say Besart Berisha for us, spent two seasons at the club but did not play a first-team game) would not appear in the infobox at all. We can't just have one rule for youth players and one for everyone else. Big Dom 14:07, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

No because remember he'll still be in the youth career infobox part, so I think the question is when does one end and the other begin. IMO that example should be 2011. Because, to me, 2012 suggests the 2012-13 season. Adam4267 (talk)

Agree with BigDom; I would go with the year the player signed a contract with his club. It's the way I've always seen it done anyway. Mattythewhite (talk) 14:45, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

In general, the year the player signs a pro contract. But re the original question, if their debut comes before they turn pro, then the year they make their debut. As TonyStarks says, the infobox documentation doesn't address that question, but it does say we use years for both club and national team appearances. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:56, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

What if a player becomes pro at 17 but doesn't make his debut for 4 years? If a player has made his debut at another club but doesn't play for you, then of course he should be listed with years contracted to club. Giant Snowman 15:03, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what you're asking. In the past, players made a decent living in a club's reserves, and frequently didn't make their first-team debut until well into their 20s. We couldn't list such players as only having a "youth" career. The infobox documentation defines the years parameter as "years that the player has been contracted at each professional club", which I understand as just that: years when the player had a professional contract. The exception is when a player makes their debut while still a youth, and conventionally we've counted that as having begun their adult career. Perhaps I've misunderstood what you're saying. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I fully agree and edit as BigDom said, however I beleave that I do understand what´s behind Tony´s doubt. I asked a similar question a few years back when I asked if we should focus more on season or calendar years, and most of you here responded me that for infobox use we should focus on calendar years. The doubt had to do with the fact that if a player made his debut in April 2012 he actually activelly played in the 2011-12 season, thus there is a possibility of putting 2011 as first year, as 2012 is kind of ambiguos as it may easily be understood as if he begin his career in the 2012-13 season. To solve that ambiguity, I made a rationale in the List of foreign players in Serbia where I say that "years correspond to seasons, not calendar years", but for infobox purposes I think it was made clear here that most agree on calendar years being used. FkpCascais (talk) 17:38, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Struway - they may not hav had a youth career but they certainly haven't had a senior career, have they? Giant Snowman 16:27, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Different approach: sometimes, a player makes his pro debut whilst still a junior, then proceeds to play for the youths some more months/years. Example Martí Riverola, i think his box is correct 100%: youthyears 1997-2010, senioryears 2009- (first senior game in November 2009). Cheerio as well! --Vasco Amaral (talk) 17:36, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies, even though the discussion got a bit derailed. Looks like most agree to use 2012 (year of debut as opposed to season) as his debut year with the seniors. If this is consensus (using calender year for youth player debuts instead of season year), maybe we can add it somewhere for reference? TonyStarks (talk) 01:18, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Undeletion

I made a request to undelete Henrik Breimyr at WP:UNDELETE, but the request was turned down because the article was deleted through an AfD. He became notable after playing for Viking FK in Tippeligaen on saturday, but as a general question: where would the right place to request such an article undeleted, here or by talking to the closing admin? Cheers, Mentoz86 (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I think it has to go through WP:DELREV. Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 09:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Ask here; there are several still active round here, and a football-editing admin is more likely to believe the validity of your request :-) Best to include a link to verify the player's notability. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:12, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Now restored for you. Giant Snowman 12:32, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Giant! Mentoz86 (talk) 14:29, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Sergio Ramos' shot and "shots at" Ramos

Why did i come here (first question should be why did i return to WP if the wise guys will only cease to exist after the Sun collapses with a massive heart attack) risking being scolded when i only want to help? I don't know, but here's this,

regarding the player's action in the last CL game, there is a ref which seems unencyclopedical and bordering on the mockery (late club career, INSIDEWORLDSOCCER.com), i think it should go but i left it, first brought it to the "commission"'s attention. In a related "move", i tried to tone down the language and added the pertinent UEFA.com reference.

In the article, i also had to cleanup some vandalism (some one wrote his name was "Jude" midway through club career), this is getting soooooooo beyond idiotic...

Attentively, keep it up - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 16:06, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

If you believe a source is not reliable, raise it with the editor in question, either on the article talk page or user talk page; if no agreement can be reached, take it to WP:RSN. Giant Snowman 16:12, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes it isn't particularly encyclopaedic. Zinedine Zidane's headbutt is a much more long lasting and famous meme, but no mention of it is made in his article. Probably best to remove the reference to jokes about Ramos, it made it onto knowyourmeme.com but no 'high brow' source has mentioned the meme. I am not bothered either way really.--Echetus Xe 16:16, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Multiple articles about one footballer

I have never seen that before, there are three articles about the same footballer: Evangelos economou, Evangelos Oikonomou and Evangelos Ikonomou. What should be done? Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 20:42, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The interwikilink to the Portuguise article and the sources in the two articles that I have checked both point to Evangelos Ikonomou as the spelling used (one source is by UKs Guardian). Apart from that the articles are very similar and a merge can easily be done. In total it will increase the number of sources. Agathoclea (talk) 21:25, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The articles should be merged to the name that satisfies WP:COMMONNAME - in my limited experience, I would expect to see "ΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΟΥ" transliterated as Economou, but it seems like various sources also use Ikonomou. Jogurney (talk) 22:05, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I think his last name should be "Oikonomou" per Romanization of Greek and his first name "Vangelis" per WP:COMMONNAME, but since most English sources use "Evangelos Ikonomou", who am I to judge? Anyway, I will update the Ikonomou article and the rest can be deleted or merged or something. Thanks. – Kosm1 fent 07:21, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

National team naming conventions: Under-23 vs. Olympic

Hey guys, not sure if this topic has been explored before but I thought it was worthy of discussion. Essentially the issue is some teams use either "Country national under-23 football team" or "Country Olympic football team", so I was wondering if maybe we should set some guidelines over how this is done. Since there is no real under-23 tournament in Europe or South America, largely due to the use of other age group tournaments as qualification for the Olympics, then maybe it would be more appropriate that teams from these confederations are the ones that get Olympic team articles. Hence we can avoid having a Belarus Olympic football team and a Spain national under-23 football team in Europe and an Uruguay Olympic football team and a Brazil national under-23 football team in South America. The rest of the world actually does hold under-23 age group competitions so it makes sense that they would have only under-23 national football teams. Let me know what you think. --Spartan008 (talk) 22:22, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Considering that the Olympic tournament is for players under the age of 23 (with 3 over-aged players), I think it makes more sense to name the teams Countryname national under-23 football team like other age-restricted national teams (U16, U17, U18, etc.) as opposed to Countryname Olympic football team. Also, since half the world does have U23 competitions, it would provide us with a standard name for U23/Olympic teams. In short, I'm definitely in favor of "under-23". TonyStarks (talk) 23:56, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd also agree with under-23. Firstly because historially the 'Olympic' teams were the senior squad (before the advent of professionalism in the game), and secondly because some nations send their under-23s to senior competitions, such as Brazil with the Gold Cup I believe. Giant Snowman 08:10, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I think, where relevant, there may be scope to have two articles - "under-23" and "Olympic". This reflects the fact that the teams are different, and particularly that the eligibility rules for the Olympic teams have changed over time. I don't see a problem with having (say) Senegal national under-23 football team and Senegal national Olympic football team as separate articles. IMO, for European nations where there is only an Olympic side, ...Olympic football team is the only appropriate name. Spain's article is misnamed and I propose to move it. --Pretty Green (talk) 09:48, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

The Senegal team that qualified for the Olympics is the Under-23 team that had to qualify through the 2011 CAF U-23 Championship. They then played an inter-continental play-off against Oman's under-23 team. How can you justify having a separate article for the "Olympic" team when it is just the U23 team that did all the qualifying and will be re-inforced with 3 over-aged players for the final competition? Football at the Olympics is an under-23 events. Even the European teams, in theory, are Under-23 teams since it is the U21 team from 2 years ago, meaning players in final year of the U23's. So, I strongly agree with using the "Olympic" naming convention for any team in the world, it really should be the U-23's. TonyStarks (talk) 10:51, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

To not have 'Olympic' is an anachronism. For every Olympics before 1992, the teams were not Under-23 teams. Furthermore, the senegeal under-23s will not be playing at the London Olympics. They qualified, but a different team will be playing at the tournament. Pretty Green (talk) 18:21, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

For 95% of national teams all youth team articles are just a bunch of stats and how they achieved in their continental cup and world cup. Those articles are all weak, splitting U23 and Olympic would be just a joke. I'd rather see all youth team articles combined like England natinal youth teams. -Koppapa (talk) 10:56, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, to have my say since I brought up the topic, I'm just looking for consistency more than anything. I just think it's rather silly for some countries to have Olympic team articles while others will have under-23 ones. Europe is its own animal because they more than anyone else simply do not have an under-23 team because it only comes into being for the Olympics and is thus not really one after the addition of overage players. Can't really say I agree with the argument that Europe's teams are the old under-21s so they're really under-23. If I were to have it my way, which I don't think will happen, I would have all of Europe's teams take the Olympic name while everyone else would be under-23. Otherwise, if we can get a greater consensus that under-23 is the way to go then we start making some page moves with the exception of Great Britain Olympic football team which I think should remain as it is. --Spartan008 (talk) 14:45, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

While admittedly the article is a redirect, England had an under-23 team, and there is a corresponding category. From the players in the category it's clear that the team existed before the 1992 change in the Olympic rules, which would surely mean that there were other true under-23 teams, playing for reasons other than the Olympics. Regrettably, for that reason, I don't think consistency will be possible here. For some countries "Olympic" will be more appropriate as this is the only reason they've ever had an under-23 team, for others "under-23" will be more appropriate because they've had an under-23 team for a long time, the three overage players should they ever reach the Olympic games proper being a special exception. —WFC— 05:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

FBK Kaunas to Hearts

What are people's thoughts on this article? My first thought is that it needs a name change (though to what I don't know), since "FBK Kaunas to Hearts" is not very descriptive at all. Secondly, should the article even exist? The relationship between the two clubs is well-documented, that's for sure, but so what? – Pee Jay 19:22, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Have to agree its an odd article, is there a similar on for other "feeder" clubs and thier parent clubs? The title needs work, if it stays. Murry1975 (talk) 19:28, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Was the type of loans not controversial or something, if i remember correctly from the time. Kaunas purchased the players with little or no intention of playing them to be immediately loaned out. Its relevant information to Hearts history but I'm not sure it could really be merged to the parent article, possibly to Vladimir Romanov's ownership of Heart of Midlothian F.C. which actually needs updated anyway.Edinburgh Wanderer 19:36, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Good call Edinburgh Wanderer. Thats seems a better option. Murry1975 (talk) 19:39, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd merge the information into both club articles since essentially it is just a part of their history. I can't see any reason to justify having a stand alone article. TonyStarks (talk) 20:19, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

EW's call is definitely the right one here. The article mentioned in the section heading is a personal essay and should be dismantled ASAP. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:58, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Edward Critchley

Can anyone find out the day this chap died? Thanks.--Echetus Xe 22:36, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

League notability

Is there any consensus of League notability?, where?. I found an article Jepara League, which I think clearly non notable. This league is for youth and amateur club (all player is amateur)) for reserve team of Indonesian Premier League club ,Persijap Jepara. So I think all club in this league is also non notable, isn't right? This happen also in Semarang League. *Annas* (talk) 07:49, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

According to WP:FOOTYN, leagues whose members are eligible for national cups are considered notable, which is not the case here. Also, unless they meet WP:GNG, clubs in those leagues are not notable as well. – Kosm1 fent 09:13, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Just read the article, it seems to be a internet translation, porbably of Indonesian wiki. Not notable and not well written. If it was deemed notable it would need a re-write. Murry1975 (talk) 09:32, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Additional information, all of the club is in lower level than 5th level Indonesia league system or even not a member of Football Association of Indonesia. Persijap Jepara is notable, but all club play in their reserve league? Clearly non notable. So all the club dont play in nation Cup, even never covered by national media. So Delete all??? Please help me to delete them all:-). SO many strange article in Indonesian football. *Annas* (talk) 09:39, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Player of the Year/Season awards

We have 44 templates here, and I intend to do templates for Wolves, Sheffield Wednesday, Everton, Fulham, Arsenal, Leeds and Man City later today. Some clubs perhaps make less of a deal of it than others. Some seem to have either started the awards in the mid-2000s whereas most have started around 1970, so whether that is because Bristol City actual first gave out their award in 2005 or whether that is simply as far back as sources on the matter go I'm not sure. So just please keep at eye out on clubs not already with templates, and update the rest for 2012 if you can. Perhaps you will get lucky and the club will publish a full list of winners, like Wigan very kindly did 7 years ago. If you don't fancy starting a template yourself but you find good sources then please post them here, thanks.--Echetus Xe 14:03, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Are those needed? -Koppapa (talk) 14:13, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes.--Echetus Xe 15:11, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Speaking of this kind of thing, whereabouts in the template hierarchy do they go? In other words, how should they be sorted when compared with current squads, tournament squads, team of the year boxes, player of the year award from other clubs etc.? Malpass⁹₃! (what I've been ^up to/_drop me a ^___) 15:38, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Where would the reader find the source(s) for the content of these templates? Struway2 (talk) 15:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

@Koppapa yes - they are a big deal, especially here in the UK.

@Malpass - should be chronological ideally.

@Struway - there should be a section on the club article which is explicitly referenced and which the template links directly to. Have a look at {{Bradford City A.F.C. Player of the Year}} which links to Bradford City A.F.C.#Player of the Year. Giant Snowman 16:01, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I would imagine they would go in some sort of chronological order with team of the year/player of the year boxes. Whatever seems best for the article though. For sources the templates link to articles like this where available. Besides which the award should be mentioned and referenced within the main body of the player's article, just like they would for any award or honour.--Echetus Xe 16:07, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

ok Snowman seems to have answered the questions in the same way to me but six minutes faster!--Echetus Xe 16:08, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

What GiantSnowman said, or a sourced column/annotation on the main List of Template F.C. players, or a specific list as per what EchetusXe said. I know there should, but in many cases, there isn't. For example, the newly created and added {{Sheffield Wednesday F.C. Player of the Year}} links to the club article which doesn't contain any mention of the player of the year (as far as I could find, anyway), and the first player I checked from that template, John Sissons, doesn't mention being SWFC PotY. Hence the question. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:13, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I got most of the data from the club's article pages, or sometimes the 'List of players' articles. The Wednesday one is different, I got that from here. They have a list of lists here that I thought they got from Wikipedia, but perhaps someone copied the lists onto various club article pages from that website.--Echetus Xe 16:23, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

{{Nottingham Forest F.C. Player of the Year}} links to a section of the NFFC article, which is sourced to a matchday programme; perhaps other clubs will do/have done a similar sort of thing in theirs. Possibly something to watch for... Malpass⁹₃! (what I've been ^up to/_drop me a ^___) 16:30, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes indeed, many of them are. But I don't think we ought to be going round adding PotY templates to player articles unless they are reliably sourced, either through linking to somewhere on Wikipedia that is sourced, as per Forest, Ipswich, York City etc, or by including a link to a reliable source on the template. We wouldn't add a PotY award to the prose of a player's article without adding a source to verify, and that's what we're doing if we add unsourced templates. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The corresponding list is well sourced, but to be on the safe side I use the excellent {{squad maintenance}} on the Watford template for verification purposes. I'm glad for the reminder to ensure that the sourcing there was 100%, as the one I was using didn't cover this season. —WFC— 01:36, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

And thanks for reminding me about that maintenance template. I'll add it to BCFC squad forthwith, don't know why I hadn't already. Though the "source" won't be accurate, as for some reason the club website seems to have removed all the kids from the first-team profiles list, even ones who've played... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:54, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think I'm ever going to be able to produce one of these for the Gills, due to the somewhat tortuous history of our PotY award(s). I believe an award was first presented in the late 60s/early 70s (before my time) and for decades it was organised/presented by the supporters' club, but was regarded as the de facto official club PotY (it was presented on the pitch before the last home game, written up in the local press, etc). When Paul Scally had his big falling-out with the supporters' club, he decided to create his own PotY award and the club does not acknowledge the history of the supporters' club one, which nonetheless has continued independently. So we effectively have two competing awards, one of which is "official" and the other of which has the lineage of the award which was always regarded as "official".....if that makes sense..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:48, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

That is interesting. If you had the sources you could write the article, and then list both lists and state the reason for the split. It would be interesting for people to read about. Perhaps when Scally goes the issue will be resolved but it does make creating a template at the moment tricky. I suppose the technically correct thing to do would be to have the official club given awards only and ignore the ones before the split, but that would be a shame to forget about the previous winners.--Echetus Xe 17:46, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

User: Dj Ran

See Special:Contributions/Dj Ran contributions, and if you are Indonesian football expert, you will see that most of his created or edit article is unnecessary and unimportant or at least disruptive. He mostly Persijap Jepara fans and use wikipedia to attack other clubs and supporter in Indonesia. He make series of unimportant Jepara League, all the amateur clubs in that league, with random name of player, disruptive edit in Indonesia Super League and create redirect from Viking Persib which is Persib Bandung fans club to his fans club. And many other redirect from rival club. I think its bad faith, what should we do? Give him a warning? Block?

Block?? We have to assume good faith Annas, and at that explain where the editor has went wrong and try to get them going in the right direction. Explain guidelines and try to get the project moving in the right direction with good faith. If he is using wiki to attack others please raise your concern with relevant diffs at WP:AN/I, but understand that if he has not been doing this or has not been aware that he has been doing this raising it at AN/I would not be good and could affect yourself. Have you tried to discuss this with the editor in question first ? Murry1975 (talk) 09:58, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Have left a note on thier talkpage with links, hopefully this will help. Murry1975 (talk) 10:30, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I came across the the speedy deletion notice you put up on one of the redirects earlier and declined it as obviously not cross-namespace. But if the target is a problem then feel free to retarget - if need be to the league should a relevant club not be notable enaugh. Agathoclea (talk) 14:23, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Is there an official Wikipedia policy on clubs which have reformed?

I'm writing an article for soccer lens on the status and soul of clubs which have gone bust and then reformed in some way, and comparing how different sources approach the issue. Just from looking through Wikipedia articles on clubs such as Accrington Stanley and Aldershot, it appears pretty unambiguous that Wikipedia views reformed clubs as separate from the original club, however in other cases such as Middlesbrough the distinction seems a bit fuzzier.

I was hoping to find out whether Wikipedia or the Football Project had issued any formal policy on these situations which I could quote in my article.

Regards,

Will (81.147.163.247 (talk)) 27/04/12

Fairly sure that Middlesborough did not follow the same fate as AS or Aldersot. Were they not saved by Gibson at the last minute? Leaky Caldron 11:56, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

This happens a great deal more with Italian clubs than it does with English ones and articles are almost always unified e.g. Parma F.C. and ACF Fiorentina. There is the difference that the 'new' club tends to apply for the licence to the old, often bankrupted club's colours, trophies etc. in Italy though, I suppose. mg SH 12:56, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

The situation we have is a little unclear, both here and in real life! We need to distinguish between the club - which, broadly, is the licence, registration, symbols and history - and the company. Sometimes the company running the club can go bust (eg Leicester City) but the club does not get reformed. Where the collapse of the company also brings down the club, that is, there is a lapse in the registration to a league/FA, or a new organisation has to buy the rights to the old club's history (rather than owning them as a result of buying the club), then we'd want a new article (I think!) Pretty Green (talk) 13:14, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Generally I would expect that a new article is generally needed, but we would need to dist not needed if the new club takes over the registration/stadium/facilities of an old one directly and immediately - where this happens it is closer to a take-over than a reformation, even if it's a new company and the team is relegated. Other than that, a new articl

Generally we follow the sources. Burslem Port Vale F.C. were liquidated in 1907, resigned from the Football League, and a completely unrelated (very) minor league church team immediately changed their name to Port Vale (without the Burslem) and bought the club's ground. They returned to the league 12 years later. All sources say the club were founded in 1876 (actually the year was 1879 but there was a mistake in sources there as well) and have existed as one entity up until the present day. In fact, sometimes the media reports that with soon to be five seasons of fourth tier football Vale are in their worst ever period (worse than finishing 5th in the North Staffordshire Federation League a year after resigning from the Second Division?). So yeah, the sources are key. They state that Wimbledon F.C. are dead and that MK Dons and AFC Wimbledon are new clubs, so do we.--Echetus Xe 12:49, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't mean to stir the hornet's nest but aren't MK Dons the same entity as Wimbledon FC despite no longer claiming the pre-2004 history? Hack (talk) 05:44, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Stirring up hornets' nests is generally my domain.

This is one of those rare occasions where "verifiability not truth" is truly relevant. We know for a fact that the legal entity which operated a football team in London in 2001 is the same entity that now does so in Milton Keynes, but the overwhelming verdict of first, second and third party sources is that they are completely different clubs. —WFC— 15:08, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Not strictly true. We have an abundance of reliable secondary sources which describe in detail exactly what transpired and how: the reason we have different articles is because that is our prerogative, and we have no rule which states that so long as a company technically remains the same legal entity that we have to cover it in one article, nor the inverse (as I very much imagine that Rangers F.C. will be one article even though all signs suggest that the club using its name next season will legally be completely independent of the present one). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:10, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Arabic club names

I've been doing more and more work on articles of clubs in the Arab world of late and have been running into an issue that I'm seeing quite often. Mostly in the Gulf region, clubs have a name in Arabic and a separate name in English and the logo will usually have both of them. For example, Al Ahli SC (Doha)'s name in Arabic translates to "Al Ahli Sports Club", hence the title of the article being Al Ahli SC. However, in the club logo, the name of the club is also written in English and is listed as Al Ahli Club. Which title should be used for the article? I'm thinking it should be the English version in the logo since the club chose it as their "official" English title, which does not necessarily have to reflect the Arabic title. Also, another related question, since no other club is called Al Ahli SC, but there are others clubs called Al-Ahli, Al-Ahli or Al-Ahly, do we really need the city name in the title? TonyStarks (talk) 05:20, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

In answer to your last question, yes. Leaving an Al-Ahli club without a city name will create confusion. – Kosm1 fent 05:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Kosm1fent. Regarding policies, all I find related to this within WP:TITLE is WP:PRECISE (which sugests precise title and supports proper disambiguation if necessary, as can city names within bracketts be) and not much anything helpfull at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(article_titles)#Article_titles. At WP:DAB all I found remotely related is WP:NCDAB which, again, supports the use of the disambiguating factor, the city in this case, within bracketts. But, do you have Tony any sugestions which you were thinking of? FkpCascais (talk) 06:01, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

The logo on the Doha Al Ahli website has it as Al Ahli S.C. [4] Hack (talk) 06:18, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

@Hack: Thanks for the link, I guess the SC is right. @FkpCascais: I just wanted to get an idea, I wasn't really leaning one way or another. There's plenty of clubs named Ahli/Ahly, see Al-Ahly (disambiguation), but not all are spelled the same way, that is why I was asking the question and wondering if the city names in the titles were necessary in those cases. Also, a certain user, which shall remain nameless, has been on a rampage renaming club names without any sort of WP policy justification, just his own "take" on what the name should be (for lack of a better word). TonyStarks (talk) 09:23, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

They are spelled similar, which is equally confusing. What would be the difference for a non-expert in Arabic football between Al-Ahly SC (Tripoli) and Al Ahli SC (Doha), if it weren't for the city names? – Kosm1 fent 18:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

True, never really thought about it that way (being an aid to help find a club). I guess things are OK as is. TonyStarks (talk) 04:26, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

UEFA Euro 2012

Two editors are grinding their WP:AXE on UEFA Euro 2012 and are censoring any material that puts Ukraine in a bad light. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't see why the discussion on talk can't continue. FWIW my opinion is that much of the incidental material added of late is junk (especially the political grandstanding here) and unless it is remarked upon by newspapers outside of the normal cycle then it should be discounted as trivia. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:56, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Yep, no worries, discussion under way. Only I was wondering if a similar case has been discussed on a football talk page where controversies/politic begin to overshadow. I am a bit of an outsider in football articles and was wondering if there is a useful blueprint for the way to proceed. Any clear guidelines? Yours ever, Czar Brodie (talk) 10:41, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Update. Several of the editors have pointed out to me that the article is about sport, not as a presumed Euro 2012. Given that I know very little about football it is the right thing to do to withdraw from editing the football articles. You should however make this clear to editors like myself with clear guidelines, somewhere. Yours ever, Czar Brodie (talk) 15:26, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Notability of Greek pre-1983 Gamma Ethniki clubs – Falaniakos

I understand that football clubs which play in the Gamma Ethniki should be considered notable nowdays, since the league is fully professional. However, until 1983, the Greek Third Division was an amateur competition. I'm bringing this up because Falaniakos played at the Third Division for one season (1977–78) and were relegated immediately (after finishing 15th [5]). Should the club be considered notable, as this is their only notability claim? Thanks. – Kosm1 fent 09:59, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

The WP:FPL guidance relates to players not clubs. Eldumpo (talk) 11:00, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, but nowdays only professional clubs are eligible to enter the Greek Cup so to pass WP:FOOTYN. What are the criteria for clubs if we cannot verify that they have appered at a national cup? – Kosm1 fent 11:13, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't regard FootyN as a hard rule. It is a project-specific guide, which probably needs a refresh. It may be best to follow GNG, although I am inclined to think that 3rd level clubs from that period would be notable. Eldumpo (talk) 11:52, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Alright. For the record, the team seems to pass GNG. However, it will be useful to define some clearer boundaries on FOOTYN. Cheers and thanks. – Kosm1 fent 12:52, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Filip Kostić and sourcing problems

Today GiantSnowman PRODed this article. However, we are talking about one of the best Serbian SuperLiga players who already will be moving to Dutch top flight this summer. Now, the problem is that I noteced that one editor (re)created this article today, why? There was an article about this player before, may I ask who deleted it and why? GS alleged that he fails notability because Transfermarkt is not a realible source. But isn´t that disturbing Wikipedia to make a point? It was quite easy to add a better source if that was what was in question here, and it was very easy to confirm what GS needed here by any other general football website of his preference.

I will ask everyone here please not to delete articles just because they want to make a point about one specific website. I already called the attention of GiantSnowman in several discussions here about his missinformation about the way that website works. GS allways talks about Transfermarkt as if it was a website that works as Wikipedia does, mening, everyone can come and edit whetever they wan´t, which is phalse. There are errors, but recent seasons, at least for Serbia SuperLiga, have been impecable regarding match and league statistics, so no reason to have major doubts about present day league stats for a league which they include and follow.

I absolutely love GS as editor and has been doing a great job here on our project, but this discovery left me with a doubt if more articles have been deleted just because they were sourced with Transfermarkt? I don´t find it correct, and insted, a good wikipedian should improve the article by finding better sources instead of proding the articles which clearly pass notability but are just sourced by a non-preferential source. A clear no-no in my view. FkpCascais (talk) 21:54, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Transfermarkt is not a reliable source in any way. Useful maybe but not reliable. You were speaking to GS on his talk page there was no need to bring this here.Edinburgh Wanderer 21:58, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Without commenting on any editor's actions, I would hope that we would try to improve a BLP which has a verifiable but unreliable source as a reference by looking for a reliable source to replace it rather than proposing it for deletion (see WP:BEFORE). Jogurney (talk) 01:41, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, no need saying that I absolutely agree with Jogurney and that I do my best to make my way of editing as the one he described. And, yes EW, but all this caught me a bit as a surprise as this player is a candidate for being the best young player of the season (not some obscure guy certainly), and I come to find out that his article has been deleted more than once, with the last PROD proposal being on the basis of not considering one generalistic football website a good source enough? I mean, come on... I know I posted on GS talk page but then I realised that, rather than solving that one case, the point was more of bringing it to the project atention and hope that this hasn´t happend many more often. Yes, I may have overeacted but the issue is worth discussing in my view.

Before going any further, may I ask what is the reliability difference between Transfermarkt vs Soccerway, National-Football-teams, Playerhistory, Footballdatabase or any other of the worldwide generalistic football websites which are used as source for a great ammount of our BLP´s? FkpCascais (talk) 03:50, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Ongoing discussion about the reliability of our major statistics sources is always useful. If Transfermarkt is partly reliant on user input, then that is a verifiability concern. I believe Soccerway is a reliable source which checks its sources. I've never been convinced by NFT in terms of their league apps/years, especially for older players. I've found footballdatabase to generally be good, but sometimes their start/end years are generic (i.e. assumed to correspond to regular seasons). Eldumpo (talk) 06:41, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

In terms of reliability of sources in the Wikipedia sense: Soccerway would be considered reliable. It's published by Global Sports Media, which according to their about page is "the Sports Information Division of the PERFORM Group" (their about page) and supplies digital content to governing bodies, clubs, etc. As such would be presumed to have the "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" required at WP:RS.

Transfermarkt and playerhistory are user-generated; they may have the sort of editorial oversight required to be RS, but there's no evidence for it. National-football-teams is someone's personal website; again, that person may have the sort of credibility to qualify as an established expert in the field, but again, there's no visible evidence for it. I don't know anything about how Footballdatabase generates or checks its content, but their about page "they trust us" section includes Wikipedia and a long list of blogs and forums, and several of the "example" links to media organisations are either dead or don't mention footballdatabase at all. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:07, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

May I point out that Soccerway is not error-free, and it would be good to know how to report errors. Other than that, I trust it a lot. Wouldn't be a good idea to list every statistics source this Wikiproject considers reliable in WP:WPFLINKS? Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 07:40, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, which is why I clarified "reliability of sources in the Wikipedia sense", as opposed to accurate... Try the email addy on their contact page. If you do report errors to them, please let us know whether they act on your report or not. I've given up trying to get Soccerbase to correct their many mistakes, they just don't respond. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I can confirm Soccerway do reply. You email them and add proof they are wrong but they have mailed me back on several occasions. Soccerbase never do. I've also found they tend to be more complete. Edinburgh Wanderer 17:14, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Firstly no reason to bring this here when you started a conversation at my talk page without allowing me to respond, as I was asleep. Secondly, I am fully aware of WP:BEFORE and did perform a (admittedly perhaps too brief) Google search, all that came up was Transfermarkt and similar sites, which are not reliable, especially Transfermarkt which is user-generated. At the same time as I PORDded this article I found sources for two other BLPs - Vasilis Botinos and Jude Winchester. Fkp - all you had to do was remove the PROD, add some reliable sources that you can find, improve the article - no need to create so much drama. Finally, regarding other PRODs - I list all articles I have PRODded at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football#Nominations for deletion and page moves. They remain there for 7 days until the PROD is removed or the article is deleted, plenty of time for someone to improve an article they feel is notable. Giant Snowman 08:51, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

GS, I didn't intend to criticize you, but I would suggest that for BLPs on people playing football in leagues where there are limited English-language sources (e.g., Serbia), a Google search may not be enough. I know when I'm looking for reliable sources on Greek footballers (e.g., Vasilis Botinos), it is nearly impossible to find anything on Google unless I use the Greek characters (e.g., Βασίλης Μποτίνος). I suspect the same is true with Serbian footballers. I appreciate what you are doing, and was just hoping to help. Jogurney (talk) 15:55, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

First of all, I want to thank you all for the inputs regading the different websites.

Second, GS, Google search gives me for Filip Kostić nothing less then 355.000 results and, for exemple, on the first page only 1 of the results is Transfermarkt. There are plenty of reports of interess on behalve of major clubs (FC Porto and Udinese jump right on the first page. Second page of Google search, Tottenham showing interess, oh, and btw zero results for Transfermarkt on that page (1 Transfermarkt result in 2 google pages). So how can you say that you had hard time in finding reliable sources for him and that all that Google gave you was "Transfermarkt and similar sites". Come on GS, you are not playing fair by continuing to insist on that. You focused yourself on the Transfermarkt issue and you precipitated yourself a bit. You have already been doing this petit crusade against the site lately (here an exemple which I agreed with as it was a nationality subject), but by starting proding you went a bit too far and I needed to bring up the discussion here.

Third, what Jogurney said is kind of what happends with Serbian League because the League official website is not practical to be used, as it only lists individual match reports and has no player database beside the club players list which does not include league or any other stats beside the registration number. Srbijafudbal.net is more of a historical database and it is updated every half-season. Other Serbian websites are personal websites and are as reliable as the generalistic ones. So that is why for sourcing purposes of present league appereances we need some of the generalistic sites that follow the league, and Transfermarkt, probably because of the presence of Serbian community in Germany where the website is based, is the one with the most complete SuperLiga database and it followed it since its begining in 2006. For Serbian league the site is so precise and well regarded that even the local sports press uses it and cites it. I even dare to say that the league official website has gave up because of Transfermarkt´s preference and acceptance by the public.

Regarding how Transfermarkt works, I can tell you that I registered myself there and the process of editing is done in a way that you point out in the edit request all you want to add or change, and then you have a field where a source for those changes is asked. The edit request goes to an admin who will insert them to the page after a day ot two if everything comes to be o´right. The edit never appears right away, and I made a series of tests regarding sourcing. The first one that I made was to add info and leave the source field empty. The edit was obviously not accepted. My second test consisted in me doing several changes in one same edit using a source which sources only part of what I was editing (more precisely in between other changes I inserted an invented height to a player which a source didn´t mentioned). What happend is that when the changes appeared in the page on next day, the phalse height information I pretended to add was not there. Now, if anyone has doubts, he can try it by himself.

Attention, I am not saying that the site is a reliable source, but what I am saying is that the website is not as unreliable as some beleave, and that it can be used just as most of the other generalistic football websites. There are errors but most are found at the historical database, and once they have a match-by-match data for the leagues, the errors become practically inexistent. For exemple, we can doubt about one alleged appereance of a certain player in some top league during the 1990s if that is all that makes that player notable and its only backed by Transfermarkt, but thinking that a player with 23 present season match-by-match reports is a hoax is unbeleavable. So, can we at least agree not to disregard the site just because and to use some common sense in order to distinguish between logical data found there and the one which may be doubtfull? Also, can we agree not to remove the site and the info but rather improve/complete/replace by bringing better sources if needed? And most important, can we agree not to PROD articles just because of it? FkpCascais (talk) 08:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I'll be brief because I'm at work - I don't have a "petit crusade" against Transfermarkt, recently I've removed it from one article that you've linked to and questioned it as a valid source on the Kostić article. That's it. I've also not "started proding" - I tagged one article! You're over-reacting and creating far too much drama here. As stated earlier, yes my Google search was admittedly too brief, but the first two hits were both Transfermarkt, the third was the Wikipedia page, the next was a stat site of even more questionable unreliability, the next a Wikipedia mirror, the next few I can't remember. You use Portuguese Google, I use English Google - the results are going to be different. Perhaps it's time we consider raising the site at WP:RSN for wider discussion? Giant Snowman 11:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Why raising the question at WP:RSN when we have no one claiming that the site is RS? I think we can easily agree to use generalistic websites for sourcing with some commun sense, just as we have been doing until now. I beleave tagging with ref-improve would be adequate, proding and removing the site and the information when there are no contradictory sources seems inadquate. Can we agree on this and the previous questions I asked on my previous comment? FkpCascais (talk) 17:51, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Also, Kosm proposal of citing which websites are reliable at WP:WPFLINKS makes sense then, because otherwise non-established users will find it rather confusing to understand why when using sites from the list, some are considered reliable, some are not. For instance, I bet the user who recreated the Filip Kostić article using several of the sources used in most of similar pages did not understood at all why GS proded the article. FkpCascais (talk) 18:22, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Because Transfermarkt shouldn't be used anywhere on Wikipedia; I'm taking it to RSN momentarily. I've already said - three times now - I should have spent longer finding sources before PRODding that article, what more do you want? Giant Snowman 18:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with myself (lol). Making such a list will be no pain at all, as existing consensus over various profile/statistics sites can be easily found, and it is going to benefit everybody. – Kosm1 fent 18:27, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I have to disagree slightly with FKP's analysis of transfermarkt. While there is clearly some editorial oversight, it has some rather gaping holes and inconsistencies. There have been of a number incedents over tha passed three years or so, in which people have added false information to transfermarkt, which was accepted by the website, for the express purpose of subsequently adding it to Wikipedia. That alone should be reason enough to consider it unreliable. Sir Sputnik (talk) 18:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Now at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Transfermarkt. Giant Snowman 18:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I very rarely disagree with GS however i do slightly here. Transfermarkt is useful if not reliable i see no reason why as GS says it should not be used at all when the article is backed up by other reliable sources. For instance an article i created recently was missing a large part of a players career, only through this site was i able to go on and find other sources to back up his career so if the article has other reliable sources why cant this be included as an additional one. Also regarding Sputnik you have to add a source when submitting something so would that not be dificult. Only tried it once so dont have much experience re them with how easy that would be.Edinburgh Wanderer 19:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)r

If other sources, with a better reputation, verify the information just as well - why not use them? Transfermarkt is just too dodgy I'm afraid. It was a favourite of Zombie433, nuff said... Giant Snowman 19:13, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh, so it all has to do with our Zombie trauma... Well, Zombiw didn´t messed any of former Yugoslav Leagues, so I have no reason to disregard completelly the entire website only because some disruptive user added fake stats to some African players... Seriously. FkpCascais (talk) 19:20, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with EW. As I wrote on RSN, I would much rather see valid notability claims by established reliable sources than Transfermarkt links. But sometimes (cannot stress that enough), they are useful in contributing to an article's content. – Kosm1 fent 19:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

You are loosing your time GS, I am not going to participate there because I never claimed it was a RS. Why you took it there if I told you clearly (twice) that I don´t pretend to turn Transfermarkt a RS? And you ask me "what more do I want", wasn t I clear? Didn´t I made specific questions I asked you and everyone to answer? Did you answer them? No. So here it is your "what do I want"... Please answer them.
Sir Sputnik, I am not sure if you noteced the root of the problem here. I am not claiming that Transfermarkt is a RS, but I am opposing GS PRODing articles on the basis that being sourced by that site turns them to fail notability just by itself. We have been using generalistic websites with caution for long time now, and in these situations it is enough to add a refimprove tag, and not to PROD articles as GS did. GS basically broke WP:POINT by proding Filip Kostić.
Also, if we are going to discuss Transfermarkt and continue this absurd crusade againt it, should we then include to this crusade all the other websites wich are not considered reliable, namelly Footballdatabsase, Worldfootball, Playerhistory, and doozens more? Lets be reasonable, OK? FkpCascais (talk) 19:18, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Fkp, you've contradited yourself - you've admitted Transfermarkt is not a reliable source, but then said it should still be used to verify notability. That makes no sense whatsoever. And if you want to have a wider input on other sites, I welcome it. Too many databases of questionable reliability are used solely to make the claim that a player is notable. Giant Snowman 19:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Don´t make word games with me. I said that adding a refimprove tag is OK, proding and removing the site just because you want it, is not. There is nothing contradictory there. My questions are clear, and I am being reasonable, you are the one that for some strange reasons want´s it to be all or nothing... FkpCascais (talk) 19:54, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Did I remove the site when I added the PROD? No, I did not, so please stop saying I did. I'm not going to refimprove an article whose claim to notability isn't verified by a reliable source. If Transfermarkt isn't reliable - as even you've said - then we have no need for it here. Giant Snowman 20:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, now this is becoming ridiculous, and that is why we needed to discuss this. One thing is to beleave that some info on the website is unreliable but to belave that someone hoaxed 25 match reports (click on i on the right side of the column) is just uneal. FkpCascais (talk) 05:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

This is indeed ridiculous. PRODing the article is one thing, but BLPPRODing an article with three references, one of which reliable and warranting notability (Soccerway), is so over-the-top. – Kosm1 fent 06:17, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree this particular Blp prod seems uneccesary given the Soccerway link, but it confirms why cited references should be added rather than a list of external links at the end. Eldumpo (talk) 10:55, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I fully agree with that Eldumpo, but lets not be too hard on new editors, the fact that they numbered 3 sources in a new article is already OK. But, regarding Soccerway, technically it is not a RS, despite the fact that some editors prefer it over other non-RS sources. I mean, just to be clear. FkpCascais (talk) 11:47, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

To be fair, there doesn't appear to be move coverage in reliable sources on Milosavljevic - I found a few match reports that list him as being in the squad or as a substitute, but little else. For a person who has played almost two seasons in the SuperLiga, I was surprised there wasn't more coverage. Jogurney (talk) 14:25, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

But, as you already refered, that is because the Google search excluded the Cyrillic sources. All, well most, of Serbian press where the reports can be found are in Cyrillic. Now, that is why we have to rely on these generic websites. But here is the root of this discussion: Playerhistory.com only updates data seasonaly; Footballdatabase is not known for following match-by-match reports of many medium and small size leagues; so we are left with Soccerway vs Transfermarkt. Now, Soccerway has been following the SuperLiga, but they have incomplete squads, wrong nationalities, even some confusion between players with same surname, and most important, they take days, if not an entire week, to insert the data from the last round. And Transfermarkt has been following the league since 2006 with match-by-match reports in which I haven´t found one single mistake in years of experience. It may be because they have editors who regularly and promtly follow most of Central and East European leagues such as the Serbian one. What is in question here is that the reliability of transfermarkt is questioned because of errors they have in their historical database. Wrong years for some retired players careers, data for national team appereances without match reports to confirm (like Zombie included), aleged clubs some less known players represented but again without match reports... however, once they follow a league on a round basis with match reports hard to phalsefy (like each one of the ones here are), there is no reason why should we disregard the website and replace it with another, basically also not considered RS. Also, lets not forget that Transfermarkt in the vast majority of cases is used as complementary source for current season stats, while, for exemple, Srbijafudbal.net or Playerhistory.com are used for past season ones, so that is why in fact what we are discusing is the reliability of those match reports, which provide current seasons stats for each individual player, as the stats for players are not added directly to the player, but are added automatically when a match report is added and the player name linked. That is how those match reports work on Transfermarkt and that is how we get the stats at this page for exemple. Basically, each league appereance for one player means the player is present in one match report, and that is why the reliability of the stats once they have a match-by-match report is much higher then the rest of the historical database.

I already agreed with Sir Sputnik that articles which rely exclusively on Transfermarkt for their notablity should be proded if no other website is found to confirm it, but I will like to add that editors should make that effort of finding the sources before proding them, not just proding and leaving the work of searching for sources to another one. Also, I don´t agree at all with the idea of proding articles as a way to discentivate the usage of Transfermarkt. I agree and support the addition of more sources, but I don´t agree that the website is removed unecessarily. What I don´t agree at all is to endevour now to a complete unecessary and painful work of replacing houndreds or thousands of links with another often equaly or less reliable sites only because there were some problems in the past (which were never related to match reports neither to central&eastern European leagues), while we still have so much priorities such as completely unsourced articles. We have been using this generalistic football sites as complementary sources, and often we use them in a combined way along with other ones. I think the more experienced of us already know which sites are more reliable on which specific issues, which leagues, and which geographical regions, and I don´t understand how did an excellent editor such as GS let himself be so involved in a incident with Zombie which is affecting the entire treatment of one large website. FkpCascais (talk) 01:52, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood me. I searched using Cyrillic characters at sites like rts.rs and found one mention of Milosavljevic (he hit the bar with a shot once), blic.rs, rtv.rs, dnevnik.rs, kurir-info.rs, glas-javnosti.rs, etc. I might be searching inaccurately, but these sources are not covering him except in a very trivial manner. Jogurney (talk) 03:47, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I see, I did missundertood you. Making such searches is not easy. Don´t forget that we are talking about a player who is playing in a minor club in the SuperLiga currently placed on 12 place out of 16 and it is not their star neither a prospect, but just a regular guy. Often reports don´t use fullname but rather only surname, all this makes it more complicate to find on engine searches. The best way I could do is to go to zurnal.rs and go to each date a match was played and digg individual match reports (which again, use only surnames)... If you make Google searches better add the club name as well, something like this. Also, you better write yourself allways the Cyrillic version because if you copy/paste the Cyrillic version from our WP articles lede you risk having editors who included visualy equal letters from Latin alphabet (exemple, instad of Cyrillic а its written a Latin a in between Cyrillic letters and that is enough to make search engines to not achnollegde the word, something I only found out about a year ago). But Jogurney, this specific player is quite unknown even for a league follower such as myself, but he has appereances which give him notability, and that is what metters, right?

Anyway, what about the issue of transfermarkt? All this you say basicaly supports my view that we need some generalistic football website which follows regularely the league to replace the Serbian language ones. FkpCascais (talk) 06:23, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

FkpCascais, I do not support an effort to propose articles which are sourced only by Transfermarkt for deletion. However, as you agreed, it appears that young players with limited experience in the SuperLiga (e.g., Milosavljevic) may not have enough coverage in reliable sources (newspapers, magazines, etc.) to produce a useful article. Perhaps someone has access to Serbian newspaper or magazine sources that would cover young players like Milosavljevic and those editors could add more information, but there is a problem with simply using databases like Transfermarkt for the article. I agree that most SuperLiga players ought to have significant coverage in reliable sources, but as we've seen with other fully-pro leagues, players with less than one season of play may not guarantee much coverage. Jogurney (talk) 16:53, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

They do have coverage, with effort I could get all match reports for him if necessary (and Milosavljevic is not young, he´s 29 with 2 seasons in top league) it is just that I don´t understand why did this got to be a priority now? Serbian SuperLiga has been, I dare to say, among the better organised and non-problematic ones and among a few editors we have been working out quite fine, and beside a few new editors (basicaly one) unfamiliarised with WP:N when making new articles, which are promtly spoted, we have not been having any problems. I have made an effort to "coach" new editors to use sources, to understand that WP:N requires at least one appereance so an article could be made, and it was already an archivement to acomplish this, now moving the barrier to some random uncertain level will just create enormous confusion: how can we know if 5 appereances are enough? 10? 15? Sometimes one match can have more impact than 20 "borring" ones... I see what you mean Jogurney, but in practice I can´t see how it could be implemented and it will only create much confusion and random proding, which will not be benefitial in any way in my view. Serbian SuperLiga grants notability with one appereance, when new articles are created, having only one appereance is rare and players often have more, now numerous leagues and articles are left OK simply with appereances sourced by generalistic football websites, I see no reason whatsoever to make a different rule for the Serbian SuperLiga now, specialy not only for making a point about one specific website, who´s match reports are quite reliable. FkpCascais (talk) 17:41, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Also, don´t forget that Serbian SuperLiga official website has all individual match reports of each one of his matches, it is just that it doesn´t have one page whare all that data is togheter, so it makes it uncovenient for using it on WP as we should then use 27 separate links for sourcing 27 appereances... But, Jogurney, even one of this match reports is enough for him passing notability, and they are there, it is just silly to have to choose a random individual one just because someone doesn´t beleave in one generalistic website. It is making much more work when it is not a problem neither a priority. FkpCascais (talk) 17:51, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

For exemple, you can see that the match reports at transfermarkt (seen here down at the i icon of "current match day", exemple this one, are appearing right after they start being published at the league´s official website). Right now it is 21:30 and transfermarkt has already 5 of the 6 which were already publishedhe official website releases them later today. No need saying that they are just identical. In the meantime, Soccerway has only started adding the results and goalscorers.

The part of Transfermarkt which is usefull and reliable are the match reports (at least for the leagues they are known to follow consistently) and while the website is user-generated, you don´t have the possibility as a user to add player stats. Editors can only add name, surname, place of birth, height, past transfers... But this part called "Performance data" they can´t mess because it is automaticaly added to players profiles troughout match reports. Does anyone understands this? Maybe I am not being clear from the begining, however I do beleave that most, if not all, of you don´t know this and most of you are passing judgment on the website based on some wrong height or year of transfer info which is very different from this one I am talking about. Also, the match reports are the one we use for notability, so this is important to stress out. FkpCascais (talk) 20:42, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Hodgson newspaper cover

Is this save-able or is it likely to be removed ? (File:Roy_Hodgson_-_bwing_on_the_euros.jpg) TheBigJagielka (talk) 00:40, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

The link is here. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 04:47, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Personally I agree with the user who disputed the FUR, reproducing the front page doesn't convey anything that simply having "The Sun used the headline "Bwing on the Euwos"" within the article text doesn't already convey....... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:13, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree. If that picture was allowed then there is a case for many other past deleted pictures that were tabloid covers. Although the picture did get me interested in the Simon Cowell news. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 00:41, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of IFFHS continental Clubs of the 20th Century

Due it has not opened a box to discuss this proposal, I present here. This user suggested removal of the article for: "1) No Evidence of notability. 2) Listcruft. 3) Copyright."

IMHO, it should not be deleted because it does not violate any copyright because it is written—more or less—in the way of this article. The quotations at the beginning of each paragraph are not total transcriptions but partial, has not been explicitly "according IFFHS..." due a matter of redundancy from the title since it was pointed out. If this is called "copyright violation" can be changed. Second, this award (although in reality it is a study since it was exposed as football outside of South America-Europe duopoly in the twentieth century) conferred by he only independent statistical agency related to football recognised by FIFA to six clubs considered by that organization as the best in their continent during a century based on clubs' performance in international competitions can not be "less relevant" than this, this or a list made by a former footballer, especially, if the clubs were the first winners announce (see a.e. Real Madrid and Peñarol's cases). Finally, the user who proposed the cancellation of the page has been defined as IFFHS "unreliable and overly promotional source", it not therefore an arbitrary proposal?--Dantetheperuvian (talk) 04:23, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

P.S. If the problem is the uniqueness of the subject of the article—and all the articles related with the IFFHS—would have to merge both in an article called "IFFHS awards" due the body has many awards for clubs, leagues, footballers, managers/head coaches and referees or something...

I personnally don't like any of that lists. But that aside, are there some secondary sources talking about that list beside any subpage of IFFHS? That should determine notability i guess. I notice some of those others are missing some of these too. -Koppapa (talk) 10:37, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

How exactly is IFFHS recognised by FIFA? Hack (talk) 04:14, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Standardize Won/Loss Colors

Please see Template_talk:Table_cell_templates#Standardize_Won.2FLoss_Colors. --ben_b (talk) 19:40, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

2012 Major League Soccer season

Major League Soccer has changed its format. For those not familiar with the MLS format, like most other North American sports, they have a play-off to determine one of the champions. They also have a trophy known as the Supporters Shield for the team that finishes first during the regular season. For the past few seasons entry to the play-offs was made to the top eight teams. This year, they have determined that it would only be the top four teams from each of the two conferences. When that was made known, it was decided to exclude the single table from the season article since the only piece of information it provides is the Supporters Shield winner. See Talk:2012 Major League Soccer season#Single Table Obsolete. An editor recently decided that it was missing (without checking if there was consensus to remove it). The editor insists that the recent comments have forced a change in consensus. So this is a notice of the discussion at Talk:2012 Major League Soccer season#Revival of discussion in May. Apologies if I have misrepresented issues or have glossed others over. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:22, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Simon Charlton and Sealand national football team

Four different users have now tried to add the fact that Simon Charlton played for the Sealand national football team to the infobox on his article, citing this article from the BBC. The text does not mention Charlton but I have not watched or listened to the video, so I don't know if he's mentioned. Be that as it may, IMO this was not a serious fixture and should not be added to the infobox. Any thoughts? -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 11:34, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Derek Stillie has had this info added too -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:52, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Should be treated like any other "nation" not recognized by FIFA. If those are included, this should be too, as the NF-Board, who seems to be the next official thing, recognized this match. -Koppapa (talk) 12:06, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Apparently Mr Charlton captained the side..... In my opinion, any "governing body" that accepts membership from an attention-seeker representing a fort in the sea with a resident population of 3 whose football association advertises for members of the public worldwide to write in and apply to be a second-half substitute in a supposed "international" match under said governing body's control, loses any possible credibility. I hope the ground where the match was played made a few quid behind the bar, but DK has it correct, it's not a serious fixture and shouldn't be in the infobox. A sentence in the prose is fine, but that's all. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:16, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

It was an official NF-Board recognised match. I don't know what that means in terms of notability but looking at players of other NFB "national" teams, there's about a 50-50 split to whether their caps are mentioned in the infobox. Big Dom 14:28, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of what we normally do with NF-Board countries, I don't have a problem in removing Sealand from the infobox as a special case. We are after all talking about a country with no grass or artificial turf, and a population of fewer than 11 people. —WFC— 16:50, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Disagreement on top goal scorer in a single season

Hi everyone. Me and Nicolas have reached an impasse on the matter of top goal scorer in single season. This led to a small edit war together with the exchange of arguments. I argue that since friendly matches for national teams are counted, so should friendly matches for clubs. My understanding is that our current view of friendly club matches as some kind of unimportant and rare occasion makes us forget that once they were quite a big thing, and has lead us to dismiss them with no good reason. Nicolas argues that i`m biased towards pele, and I understand why he (wrongly) accuses me of that. He has failed, though, to point out to the flaw on my argument. Would someone be interested in helping on that matter and join the discussion?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Top_association_football_goal_scorers_in_a_single_season — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marco.natalino (talk • contribs) 06:50, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I had a look at the discussion provided and I won't lie, it's way too long for me to read. All I will say is that I find it hard to justify including goals against amateur 10th division clubs in July, while friendlies at the international level still involve the best 11 players from each country. TonyStarks (talk) 18:41, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I also have not read through the discussion, but the simple fact is that per WP:OR it is not up to us to invent new ways to interpret stats. The simple fact is that reliable published sources (at least all the ones I've seen) do include goals from friendly internationals but don't include goals from club friendlies, therefore that is what we go with -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 19:33, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

^ That. You won't find a reliable source counting friendly goals as official. – Kosm1 fent 20:00, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that`s all reasonable. But what if friendlies were not against amateur teams, but were often against the best teams in the country and around the world? In fact, it was not uncommon for friendlies to be between clubs and national teams also. That is my argument in a nutshell, we`re thinking friendlies through today`s eyes, but we shouldn`t. I find it hard to justify including matches among two national teams made up of amateur players, but not a Santos x Real Madrid match with a full stadium with good media coverage. Still, that is what we`re doing. The reliable sources policy should of course be followed, but then that is a matter of finding reliable sources or not, not a matter of principle. The case of pele is a simple one I guess, as his stats are already on his page at wikipedia, but I`m sure that with so much interest for footy stats nowadays sources for many others are available. Anyway, Nicolas and I agree the best way to do this is to separate columns for friendly matches, so that there`s no confusion and the user can use his own discretion. What do you guys think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marco.natalino (talk • contribs) 01:34, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

What qualifies as a friendly at the club level? Something like a Santos-Real Madrid at the time would have obviously been a huge thing, with tons of press coverage and thousands in attendance. However, what about Santos' pre-season games against a neighborhood teams that they beat 17-0 in games that are played with 3 30-minute periods with unlimited subs? Will Pele's 10 goals in those ones be counted? That aside, there just isn't information available for every single friendly played to justify including them. TonyStarks (talk) 03:49, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

In the odd case (yes, Pele basically), friendlies and other exhibition matches at non-international level may be notable. But these are specific exceptions and should always be fully qualified with prose which explains why they are exceptions whenever they are cited. In general friendly matches should be discarded. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:56, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

"Scenarios" in league season articles

Sorry to bother you all with a new stanza of the same old tune, but... very neutrally asked, what is the current consensus for edits like this or [6]? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 19:49, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd say delete on sight. -Koppapa (talk) 21:20, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:OR overload. Of course delete. – Kosm1 fent 21:25, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

If there's a source, I think this sort of thing should be less discouraged than it currently is. It's exactly the sort of complete information you'd expect Wikipedia to have. Why has the consensus always seemed to be 'delete on sight'? Purely an OR issue? On a related note, I've also never understood why that sort of article doesn't have any sort of outline of how the season unfolded. mg SH 21:44, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Is there a source? I don't think so. If there are reliable sources covering all these up, then of course they can be added. In any other case, no. Classic original research. – Kosm1 fent 21:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

One could argue that the source is the article itself. We know what the tie-breaking rules are for each league and we also have the current standings. Do we honestly need an outside source to tell us that if Team A is two points ahead of Team B and owns the tie-breaker, and there is one game left, all Team A needs to do is tie or have Team B not win? I see this scenario thing being listed all the time during the Champions League and Europa League group stage.Juve2000 (talk) 22:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

That's because editing Wikipedia is easier than starting a blog. It isn't because this content befits an encyclopedia. It is personal interpretation of very current statistical data in order to make predictions. At best it is banal, as readers should be expected to be able to interpret most league data by themselves: at worst it is the most awful fanboy drivel. We should aim for our articles not to contain awful fanbox drivel where possible, especially where it is derived purely from primary sources, and so "delete on sight" is a good general rule. I know that we need to encourage editors to contribute, and try to not bite the heads off people adding poor content in good faith, but if we simply allow anyone to write about any part of the sport they wish then we'd end up in the deeply unpleasant situation that WikiProject Ultimate Fighting finds itself in now, as it appears that editors have been allowed to add so much awful fanboy drivel on any old thing in UFC to Wikipedia for so long that the wider Internet community now somehow considers it their right to retain it forever more. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 22:22, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

You should make that argument during next season's Champions League Group stage and see how far that will get you. The all-knowing editors who can quote Wikipedia rules and regulations at the drop of a hat are being inconsistent at best.Juve2000 (talk) 23:09, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Kosm1fent, apparently there isn't a source. On a second read-through, you'll notice I wrote "if". Thumperward, I agree to some extent about interpreting data, but I think you go a little too far in discrediting all such information as "fanboy drivel". Obviously, when a scenario comes down to something as simple as goal difference, it'll often not be hugely helpful to clarify with a note, but in the (increasingly common) cases where head-to-head records are used (sometimes between three or more teams), it is useful, as outcomes aren't so immediately apparent. It's only really worth adding this note for positions that merit discussion though. One example would be Champions League qualification. Additionally, it's utterly bizarre to talk about people who "write about any part of the sport they wish" because no-one here has argued this. mg SH 01:36, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

It is not our place to speculate on the future with limited exceptions. While we cannot really prevent people from updating scores in games as they are played, we can certainly discourage them writing mini-essays on exactly what it will take for team X to get third place in the league some Saturday tea-time, because that material is going to be deleted at tea-time on Saturday anyway and so they are wasting their time. What "merits discussion" very much depends on the medium: an online encyclopedia does not need to discuss a great many interesting topics which would be a great line of debate down the pub or on a fan blog. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 06:48, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Where would this possibly end. One could create these scenarios for the last 5 matchdays and they would be awfully long. -Koppapa (talk) 08:02, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Quickly, Koppapa, you end it where it is rational to end it. Suitably, respected websites, newspapers or any other sources won't discuss these scenarios until before a couple of matchdays before the season's end at the latest. Thumperwad, I don't know what you're trying to prove with a list of future events. There are hundreds of articles on Wikipedia that discuss future events not on that list e.g. UEFA Euro 2016. Again, you take things to the extreme where there is no need: "mini-essays" are not needed and "some Saturday tea-time" is simply a string of words put together in order to dismiss an argument. The BBC (not a fan blog or a pub!) explains the permutations because the information is of sufficient note and I'm just surprised Wikipedia takes a different view, when it's clearly information that someone interested in the topic would expect to find on the league's current season page at this stage of the season. mg SH 09:55, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

BBC Sport is a news service. Covering current events, with in-house analysis, is its primary remit, and it doesn't matter that the page in question will only be of importance for the next eleven days or so. Wikipedia's purpose is not to act as a superset for every bit of football coverage available on any other medium at a given time. There is factual material which it is within the remit of BBC Football to cover but not within that of an encyclopedia, and speculation over the run-in is precisely that. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:56, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

While it may be interesting to some point, it is the kind of thing that is not easily menagable in an encyclopedia. It raises more editorial questions than real benefits, and those kind of edits end up making a content with a short time limit as they become outdated in a too short period of time (days a week for most). WP:RECENT, WP:NOT and Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a newspaper kind of disencorage such edits. FkpCascais (talk) 04:21, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

James Whitaker

The list of Portsmouth Players of the Season includes a James Whitaker, who apparently won the award three times in the 1970s. (source [7]) There is no player of this name listed on the Neil Brown site, nor is he mentioned in Rothmans. This blog also asks the same question. Does anyone have any idea who he was? -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

There's no such person in their squad list for 1977/78, either. This Facebook post has "not awarded" for the years Mr Whitaker supposedly won it. Presumably James Whitaker is a person who inserted his own name in the list for amusement value and supplied it to MyFootball"Facts" where nobody bothered checking. "Nicely formatted website" doesn't equal "reliable and accurate source", unfortunately. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 07:38, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Struway - reliable as ever. I've now deleted his name from the list and template. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 08:07, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

"read an item in the programme which clearly stated James Whitaker was Pompey player of the season 3 times, 73,77 and 78." Seems a bit harsh to blame the website when the club programme originally printed the list?--Echetus Xe 08:38, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Even so, there is still no evidence that Whitaker ever existed. On a slight tangent, can you confirm that Ricardo Rocha won the 2012 award. His article includes the unsourced statement "On the final home game of the 2011/12 season against Derby Rocha was presented with Players Player of the Season award", but this newspaper article says that Jason Pearce won the award – this is also included in Pearce's article. The club website says that he won "seven of the nine player-of-the-season awards."[8] -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 08:53, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

For the record the table was originally added onto Portsmouth F.C. on 26 December 2006 by an IP. James Whitaker's name was added 16 June 2011 (replacing 'no award') by a different IP (presumably named James Whitaker). There also appears to be seven different awarding bodies as stated here and here. So apparently the actual winner is the one with a plurality of the votes of the seven different bodies. Nothings ever simple is it? Wish we had a Portsmouth specialist, someone with access to some of the many books which would probably explain everything. And yes, every reason to believe Pearce won and not Rocha.--Echetus Xe 09:14, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Most clubs have multiple PotY awards (supporters', players', away travel club's, etc etc). What would need to be confirmed is which of these awards the list in the article purports to relate to and is it consistently relating to the same one all the way through.......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Been trying to add this for about 25 mins but my internet connection keeps dropping out :-( The post says they're in Coventry (and is dated the day after Cov v PFC), so it's not the Portsmouth programme, and there's no implication that the whole list is there, just the "fact" that someone won the PotS 3 times. Programme contributors do tend to source their bits of trivia about visiting clubs from random internet sources (or Wikipedia). And from what Echetus has said since, it rather looks like MyFootballFacts sourced the table from Wikipedia, I'd assumed it to be the other way round. Either way, it doesn't say much for their fact-checking. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree 100% about the away programme issue. Almost every Gills away programme I have from the last couple of seasons has the "about our visitors" section lifted word-for-word from the club's WP article (without any sort of attribution, naturally.....) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:56, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Chris: the sources seem to indicate that seven separate Portsmouth supporter groups each vote for their own individual Player of the Year. Most clubs have different awards and one 'big prize' poty winner, but Portsmouth winners seem to need to win 4 out of 7 of the votes in order to win the main award. Perhaps Rocha won the vote off the other 2 supporter group and that confused the IP who added him to the winners list?--Echetus Xe 09:32, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Manuel Sanchis Martínez

I tried to change the page's name to "Manuel SANCHÍS (note the accent) Martínez", was not allowed. Can someone lend a hand please (after checking several sources available, and comparing to his son, the middle name does carry an accent)?

Attentively, thank you very much in advance - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 10:26, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

The page was actually originally created at Manuel Sanchís Martínez: Nokeer (talk · contribs) did a copy-paste page move to the unaccented title in 2011. (The same happened to Manuel Sanchís Hontiyuelo but was caught quickly.) I've undone that and flagged the page to be history merged. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:47, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Without removing the tag of course, i already "transferred" the proper storyline to the correct article (the one with the accent in "I"), so no need for any further technicalities Chris. Thanks again! --Vasco Amaral (talk) 17:16, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Falcao

I was having a look at his article after the game today and noticed this in his intro: "So far in only three seasons counting both spells at Porto and currently at Atlético Madrid, Falcao has managed to score more than 100 goals in European competitions since arriving in Europe." Is it just me or did anyone else understand 100 goals in European competitions to mean 100 goals in CL/Europa League (which would make the statement incorrect)? I figure that whoever wrote that means 100 goals since arriving in Europe but not sure a reader would understand it that way. TonyStarks (talk) 03:58, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, anyone who wrote that certainly thought that he scored the 100 goals since coming to Europe. It should definitely be rephrased to make it more specific. FkpCascais (talk) 04:03, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Thought so, just wanted to make sure that I wasn't the only one that understood it that way. I've changed it, thanks. TonyStarks (talk) 05:04, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Candoris

This website, candoris-server.com, had an extremely usefull page in Adobe reader format where all major European clubs from the pre-1945 period had their champioship winning squads. From Latvia to England, Portugal to Romania, Greece to Sweden... often from early 1900s to 1940s. The exact page was this one: http://candoris-server.com/wiebec/XI.pdf

The website went down a month ago, and all I see is this at their main page. Does anyone knows if it will be avaliable soon? Does anyone know the page I am refering to? Did anyone by any chance saved the page and the squads in their cp as I really need those teams? :) FkpCascais (talk) 03:56, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Here you go, hope it's the file you're looking for. Probably a good idea to save it! TonyStarks (talk) 05:22, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Its not opening to me... It keeps on saying "loading", but I left it loading for more then an hour and didn´t opened any page. Did you get to see the page with squads? FkpCascais (talk) 20:39, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes it opens for me and gives a giant PDF file with lots of squads and other information (I don't really understand it). If you want I can save it and upload it for you somewhere, that way you can save the PDF file to your hard drive. TonyStarks (talk) 00:35, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and uploaded it to SpeedyShare: you can find the file here. Just click on the XI.pdf and the download should start. TonyStarks (talk) 00:37, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, got it, many, many thanks Tony. It has the squads for all major clubs of most European countries from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. It includes also nt data, but the clubs are really what is interesting for. I owe you one :) FkpCascais (talk) 03:21, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Any time, always a pleasure to help out a fellow editor. TonyStarks (talk) 03:37, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

José Antonio Camacho

Can someone please fix (parts of) the templates below? It contains a doubled reference to his Real Madrid captaincy, the one below being in poorer shape. I tried to remove it twice, screwed up the display completely :(

Lend a hand teammates will ya? Thanks in advance --Vasco Amaral (talk) 00:33, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Looks ok to me now, hopefully you feel the same? Cloudz 679 10:46, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Marvellous, thanks man! So it was the one above i should have removed...Only thing i did now was improve the display of the one below, thanks again. --Vasco Amaral (talk) 12:04, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Color of the template

Have just somewhat started a dispute with 198.102.153.2 regarding the color of Halmstads BK season and squad list templates. The clubs colors are blue and black, which color scheme i support on the basis that the template should be in the clubs color, however 198.102.153.2 consider it unreadable and changes the texting to gold [9], wonder if there are any direct guideline regarding this that might settle it or other uses viewpoint regarding the matter. --> Halmstad, Charla to moi 19:40, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Try asking at WT:Accessibility. There are tools for determining if there is sufficient colour contrast. 198.102.153.2 (talk) 19:49, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Halmstad, you miss the fact that the template header is unreadable, don't you? Take a look at WP:COLOR for relevant guidelines. – Kosm1 fent 19:56, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Contrast issues aside (which definitely may be of interest with the given color combination of blue and black), there are indeed cases where the home jersey colors are not equal to the club colors. Take a look at Hamburger SV and the respective club and season templates, for example. Despite the club's home jersey colors being white and red, the crest colors are blue and white and thus used as color combination on the templates. So, naively spoken, I would not have that much of a problem with blue and gold or even blue and white, especially if it improves text readability. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 20:04, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not bothered what the colours are - as long as they are governed by community consensus and are the same across all the club's templates. Giant Snowman 20:34, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

White on blue would work for me. I was using gold to match File:Halmstads BK.png. 198.102.153.2 (talk) 20:49, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

White on blue would work, considering they used the color earlier and the club uses white away kit.--> Halmstad, Charla to moi 23:06, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

What is the point of those colors anyway? Why not go with the default colors? -Koppapa (talk) 07:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I cannot think of a single club that uses the default colours for those templates. —WFC— 09:34, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

That's a failing of the project as a whole, but not one that will ever fixed while {{navbox}} still supports changing them. Regardless, it should be made very, very clear that accessibility and readability take absolute precedence over "accuracy" or whatever when it comes to picking colours for templates. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:02, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I fully acknowledge the wikilawyer-ness of this response, but I have to take you up on your choice of words there. A "failing" is something that causes a problem. Colour schemes only cause problems when accessibility is not taken into account. —WFC— 08:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I fully acknowledge that I'm deeply in the Swedish Minimalism camp re: template colours, but there are a good many arguments against the arbitrary (or even not so arbitrary) deployment of colour on navboxes even when done with accessibility in mind: distraction, garishness, unprofessional appearance, bikeshedding over the particular colours used et cetera. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:00, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree that badly used colouring has the potential to be all of those things. But is the use of bright yellow intrinsically unprofessional, or does the level of professionalism depend on the context in which it is used? Bearing the previous answer in mind, is strategic use of a club's colours an objective distraction, or a matter or personal preference? —WFC— 09:34, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, it can be observed that it is only sports articles which have this fascination with colour here. We don't daub national colours over country articles, for instance. As for professionalism, I would suggest that most prominent news websites (BBC, Sky Sports etc) prefer their own livery to team colours in most cases when reporting on games or clubs. It's a matter of personal preference, and I acknowledge that I am at the stricter end of the scale here than most editors, but we're not going to get a resolution today. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:55, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

User:TinyMark

After seeing just one page of contributions from this user, operating mostly in German football, i have seen an "interesting" pattern: he has been removing several external links on the ground of them "being in a foreign language". Last time i checked, foreign refs/links were 100% OK, has it changed? Fussballdaten.de is EXTREMELY reliable and accurate for German players.

I have already messaged him, tipping him about this discussion (hopefully there will be one). Cheers! --Vasco Amaral (talk) 00:53, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Non-English language content should be avoided in the "External links" section of an article when possible, as per WP:ELNO. I'll leave it your discretion to decide if the links he is removing are truly necessary or redundant (ie. the information can be found in the other external links provided). Also, keep in mind that this just applies to external links not in-line citations/references. TonyStarks (talk) 03:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

So a source in German/Italian/Korean (for me refs and links are THE SAME, a source that can be read) is OK as a reference but not as a link? Mind-blowing! --Vasco Amaral (talk) 07:18, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Mind-blowing, no .. this is the English-language Wikipedia, and the External Links section is supposed to provide background on the topic. References, on the other hand, can still be in any language, since they support specific facts within the article and those facts might not always be available in English. TonyStarks (talk) 09:00, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Understood. But please, before you folks go "berserk" on the FORADEJOGO.net links i have inserted on several Portuguese players (or foreigns who have played some seasons in the country), please bear in mind it has an ENGLISH option, located near the top-right corner.

Thanks Tony, keep it up - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 14:12, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I also find it strange that foreign language external links are being removed. At a minimum, if someone plans on removing links like the many official foreign league and FA statistics databases, hopefully they will find an English-language equivalent statistics database to replace it. Jogurney (talk) 14:22, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

If the foreign external links are really sources (perhaps for sourcing the infobox stats) but placed in the wrong section, consider reinstating them in the references section where they belong, ideally with a note as to what they're being used to source. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:31, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

It's worth considering whether it's finally time to have a "general statistics references" parameter in the infobox and to have a drive to move any pure-stats external links there. That would seem to be the best ultimate solution. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:42, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with Vasco that removing foreign sources without making an effort to replace them to English ones is a no-no (either find an equivalent source in English, or otherwise leave the foreign source), and I support Chris´s proposal. FkpCascais (talk) 20:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

2011–12 La Liga - Brain-teaser

After Lionel Messi's bombastic record (50 and counting, one more round), does anyone know if any player has ever reached that scoring mark in any major senior league? Héctor Yazalde or Mário Jardel came close (i can't remember anyone else), but only that...

Attentively, happy weekend - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 06:33, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Dixie Dean scored no less than 60 goals in one season in the Football League First Division -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:07, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Cosmina Duşa. 103 goals in 24 matches. Romanian women's top level national league. ;) Although you wouldn't count it as "major"... -Koppapa (talk) 09:57, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

According to this article, there are 12 male footballers who have scored more than 50 league goals in top flight football in one season. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 10:02, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

That list is a tad short - http://rsssf.com/tablese/engtops.html#bestseason --Egghead06 (talk) 16:09, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed - but the RSSSF list includes all four divisions of English football. Thus, for example, Ted Harston scored his 55 goals in the Third Division North. -- Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 17:56, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Suspected Sockpuppet

I'm pretty sure Zombie433 is back. I recently came across 79.215.69.47 (talk · contribs). His/her edits have been benign so far, but are stylistically consistent with Zombie's edits (09 May instead of 9 May for example), and the IP address fits in the same block as other's Zombie previously used. Just thought I'd give everyone a heads up. Sir Sputnik (talk) 05:01, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

87.160.190.122 (talk · contribs)? Berlin-based. FkpCascais (talk) 15:27, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Paddy Kenny

I've protected Paddy Kenny for 24 hours after a spate of vandalism to the article. I think all the vandalism has been caught but perhaps someone could look it over? Thanks, Malcolmxl5 (talk) 15:19, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Fußball-Oberliga seasons

I was struck when editing the Top association football goal scorers in a single season that we don't have any articles on the Fußball-Oberliga seasons from 1946 to the formation of the Bundesliga in 1963. This seems like a glaring omission on effectively the top flight of West Germany in a period in which it won the World Cup. The German Wikipedia does have these articles. I might have a go myself if I have the time, but it seems like a really good project for someone interested in German football. --Kafuffle (talk) 18:47, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

"fb" template system

Can someone fill me in on exactly how this unholy mess ever got started, and why nobody has been screaming about how insane it is? Several thousand templates with completely opaque names for the sake of a pretty results table. This is an absolute train wreck: I was about to take it to TfD, but the scope of it is simply too enormous. Has this ever been discussed? Can we get a moratorium on anyone adding any further to it until a less insane way is found to code these things? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:23, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

The mind boggles. What purpose do they actually serve? Giant Snowman 13:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I think a lot of them are unused. Those that are being transcluded obviously do serve their use, but why the templates aren't just replaced by text is a good question. Probably a lot easier to edit that way anyway... Jared Preston (talk) 13:28, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

System is much to compliceted. The tables look nice, but i would never have used fb cl team that encourages the creation of thousands of unnecessary templates and you can't just link a team the old fashioned way like fb cl2 team. I'd go for cleaning this up. Maybe fist prodding all unused templates. Is there a way to filter the category for ununsed templates, to see how many there are? -Koppapa (talk) 14:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to assume that all of the number ones are used, because I can only assume the process by which they are created is:

A well-meaning editor wants a pretty results box on an article, so runs off to an article which already has one, copies all the code, and changes "La Liga" to "Premier League" or "Malaga" to "Arsenal" or whatever (examples pulled from this air: most assuredly not picking on any particular editor)
It doesn't work, and the page now has loads of redlinks in it
Said well-meaning editor somehow figures out how to fix it by manually creating all of the redlinked templates, filling in the necessary content

There are examples of unused ones (mostly ones with a club name in them): presumably the syntax changed at some point and these bit of trash were forgotten about.

I can't see where any of this is documented, but evidently we have quite a few of these tables now and more than one editor is adding them, so word is getting out somehow. Regardless, we need to nip this in the bud before these templates begin to black out the Sun. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:35, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I have just invited two creators of some templates I randomly picked from that lengthy list - Pelotas (talk · contribs) and Boddefan2009 (talk · contribs) - to this discussion. Giant Snowman 14:40, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

{{Fb cl team}} urges the creation for all the club templates when {{Fb cl2 team}} suffices. Jared Preston (talk) 15:50, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Is that strictly so? If so, is {{fb cl2 team}} backwards-compatible with {{fb cl team}}? If the answer to both is "yes", that theoretically means that I could move the 2 template over the original, which would automatically orphen every one of these without breaking anything. That would make for much easier cleanup. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 16:18, 14 March 2012 (UTC)f

{{fb cl2 team}} and {{fb cl team}} are indeed interchangable. However, before you start to clean up things – is it the team templates or the whole fb template system that draws the ire in this discussion? I'm asking because there is much more required than a simple template write-over in order to clean things up. The team templates are also used in tables other than the cl series, so only a few team templates would be "orphaned". Additionally, although fb cl2 has the capability to work with plain wikitext, the wikilinks to the club articles – which are currently provided by the team templates – would have to be manually re-inserted into the converted tables, which is a very tedious and non-delegable (i.e., to a bot) task. In other words, if we really want to dispose the whole fb system, we need a well-thought plan. user:Soccer-holic 16:39, 14 March 2012‎ (UTC)

It's primarily the numbers stuff like {{Fb14 5}} (most of which is uncategorised) that caught my eye here, though the entirety of team templates could also be eliminated. Once that's done, we need to think about expanding these templates to use a proper name by default, leaving redirects for convenience, so that it's actually possible to tell what they do simply by reading their names. But that's a long way off, as we have a huge amount of work to do simply removing all the cruft first. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 16:47, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

That's a good example. It's used on a single season article. That's total bogus. An easy way would be removing the colors from psoitions by round table, right? I dont think they are needed. Also here at the unused templates listed. 2049 fb templates, many of them teams, are currently unused. -Koppapa (talk) 09:42, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the colors and why these popped up in said tables, please see my comment further below. :-) As for the unused templates – take them to TfD. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 10:00, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

TfD seems like a lot of work. -Koppapa (talk) 16:33, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Wikipedia:Speedy deletions#Templates could probably be applied for most of the unused team templates (and also for all teamm abb templates) as these are duplicates from other team templates. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 08:11, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I'd tag 20, 30 every odd hour, but haven't done this before. Using twinkle, tagging CSD ant then reason "T3: Templates that are not employed in any useful fashion" would be the right way? -Koppapa (talk) 08:29, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I just tagged three unused ones for speedy deletion. Let's see what happens. Template:Fb Captain Template:Fb L1 no schedule Template:Fb Madrid Championship-Koppapa (talk) 22:14, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

So when i heard about fb cl2 team it was great because it didn't need additional templates. Anyone found an alternative for crosstables like 2011–12_Fußball-Bundesliga_(women)#Results, so that you are able to enter any text and link as team without an additional template? -Koppapa (talk) 15:10, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

The tagging of unused went pretty good. They are gone now. I'll tag many more unused the next hours and days. That's a start. -Koppapa (talk) 22:04, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it is a farce, and creates more problems because amongst other things (a) articles require so much coding that it takes them well beyond the recommended page size in terms of kilobytes, and (b) because of the way the template function works, you end up with non-grammatical lines on league tables like "Promotion to the Serie A" (because it always inserts a "the", regardless of whether it's needed or not). It was discussed fairly recently but the discussion just dropped off. All we need for results or league tables is a simple wikitable (as I used on articles like this) with an agreed set of guidelines on how to mark promotion/relegation/play-off places using colours and notations. This has massive advantages because you can insert any text necessary without creating a bunch of useless templates. Number 5 7 16:43, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

If nobody minds me inserting an example here on the discussion page, here's one I made earlier...

2012 Premier Foo table
Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Points
1	Foo F.C. (C)	99	33	33	33	100	50	50	132

It's easy to use, copy, and paste. In-season use would require a little bit more work when calculating goal difference etc, but it includes the tooltips too, which I like. Jared Preston (talk) 17:01, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

@Chris: Well, that should faciliate things a little bit since "the numbers stuff" should exclusivel::y belong to the "positions by round" tables. These first popped up in some La Liga season articles before eventually spreading to league season articles throughout this project. The reason why there are so many of the number templates dates back to an earlier discussion on some La Liga page, where the marking of important positions in terms of color, similar to the league table, was brought up. Eventually, a separate set of templates was coded for La Liga, and since other league articles wanted color coding as well, more and more sets were coded.

To cut a long story short, a deletion of these would not affect too many articles (perhaps an estimated four to five dozen at most – unless these are more widespread than I thought). If the numbers could just be reinserted as plain-text, everything would be fine (for now).

However, whether the positions-by-round tables make sense or not is an additional question as it is very hard to find a source for these kind of tables. For the sake of keeping this discussion clean, we should discuss that question separately, if desired.

@Jared: That's exactly the kind of output Template:Fb cl header and Template:Fb cl2 team would generate. Sorry to play devil's advocate here, but I would rather keep the current cl2 series as these indeed faciliate editing and are easier to use than a plain wikitable. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 17:20, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit: Forgot that Fb cl2 header and Fb cl header were merged quite some time ago... anyway, you get the pattern^^ --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 17:22, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Bump. Jared Preston (talk) 11:37, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Can we also have {{Fb cl team 2pts}} adapted so we can use simple text instead of the Fb team templates too? Jared Preston (talk) 17:35, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

While we're on the subject...

What do people think about {{Football player statistics 1}} and related? Personally I feel they're awful - complicated, unwiedly, confusing. Nothing wrong with a simple Wikitable. Giant Snowman 17:08, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I think you are right. I understand wikitables code, but not that template. :-) -Koppapa (talk) 21:48, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, primarily because they're limiting. For English players there's no column for competitions other than League, FA Cup, League Cup and Europe, so there's no space for stats for play-offs, FL Trophy, FA Trophy etc. Wikitables allow us to make room for these competitions, which obviously a large number of notable players compete in. Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 21:58, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree completely. Wikitable is not only the best in general. But it is the easiest to edit and change. Adam4267 (talk) 23:39, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

A week on...

Many thanks to Koppapa for getting through some of these fb templates. I've also been marking some for deletion. Would anyone else care to lend a helping hand in mopping up this intricate mess? Jared Preston (talk) 23:11, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Using this list i'll start with tagging 3000 to 3200. I'll paste the following line above the templates without looking further if they are used now. That's pretty improbable if there is not an 2012 in the name.

<noinclude>{{db-g6|rationale=as per discussion at [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football#.22fb.22 template system]], it is unused and unnecessary}}</noinclude>

Paste your range here and those nearly 3000 ununses templates should be gone in days. Then we can discuss how we attack the used ones further. -Koppapa (talk) 08:28, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

done upto 3200. Will tag 3200-3400. -Koppapa (talk) 10:48, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Just so you know that you're not alone, I'm also tagging any unused examples I come across in category:fb templates; now Category:Candidates for speedy deletion is becoming overflowed and heavily backlogged – any admins reading this are more than welcome to chip in! Jared Preston (talk) 11:11, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

We're gradually getting through this backlog now. Jared Preston (talk) 07:18, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

People, you rock. Were I the barnstar-giving type you'd be drowning in them. I'll try and demolish some of that speedy backlog tonight. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:21, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

User:Explicit has batch-deleted most of the templates and I batch-deleted the corresponding talk pages. You've got to love Twinkle! :) The Helpful One 22:14, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I think we all deserve a pat on the back for that one. However, the next step will be trickier. How on earth are we going to replace all of the instances of {{fb cl team}} with {{fb cl2 team}}, adding the correct (and when necessary, piped) links within the square brackets? A bot could possibly do most of the work, but certainly not all of it. League and seasons articles face a mammoth overhaul on their formatting to stop this kind of fb template mess from happening again. Up until now, with the templates as they were, it was just an invitation for any involved editor to create dozens of new template links to the teams and seasons, competitions and rounds. This is a bit much for me to get my head around at this late hour. I'd really appreciate some feedback peeps. Jared Preston (talk) 23:21, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

It seems like there were a lot more pages that needed to be deleted, if you dare to look at my deletion log you'll see all of them, there might even be more - I'm waiting on database query tomorrow. There are some bots that are able to migrate parameters when changing from one template to another, is this what you mean? The Helpful One 23:27, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes and no. The tricky bit, which a bot won't know, is, for example, when replacing already used templates with the team names in text, is how that team name should be displayed. For English clubs, this wouldn't be a problem as such. Changing {{fb cl team|p=10|t=Arsenal|w=20|d=30|l=40|gf=50|ga=60|bc=#FFCCCC|relegated=yes}} to {{fb cl2 team|p=10|t=[[Arsenal F.C.|Arsenal]]|w=20|d=30|l=40|gf=50|ga=60|bc=#FFCCCC|relegated=yes}} is quite straightforward when all teams have an "F.C." suffix. But even here there are exceptions. Then when it comes to foreign leagues, oh dear! Would it suffice to replace the text in the fb cl team template to the fb cl2 team template as is? Even then, when I think of the German leagues, we would encounter problems with the fb club templates which aren't all conform with User:ArtVandelay13/Germanclubnames (formerly WP:KARLSRUHER). And that is just one example... Jared Preston (talk) 23:51, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok, lets think. The cl team templates in use are still on wikipedia, can't a bot figure out where the link leads to and take the club's name from there? Secondly these Fb overall competition templates like in [[10]] lead to a whole bunch of fb rounds templates (some needed was deleted in process but still easy to figure out hovering over). The table structure is really easy and that template should go as well. Guess it's about the same difficulty for a bot, right? -Koppapa (talk) 06:43, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Are you trying to replace {{fb cl team}} with {{fb cl2 team}} to have plain wikilinks so you can delete all of the {{fb team}} templates? If so, then what with results tables {{fb r team}} which use fb team template? Dr. Vicodine (talk) 08:23, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Good point. That should be dealt with too. The main goal is to not have 1000s of team and competition templates lying around. -Koppapa (talk) 08:39, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Soccer-holic (talk · contribs) had brought up this point on my talk page too. I have never edited these results by round tables before, but I think this isn't the biggest fb template problem. I'd have thought that team names can still be linked with wikitext. {{fb r team}} would just need a tweak to allow addition of text instead of further templating with {{fb team}}s. The only issue here is that it's more work to program a bot for. Jared Preston (talk) 08:58, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, it would be theoretically possible for a bot to replace the links in both the {{fb cl team}} and {{fb r team}} templates, as well in {{fb r header}}, by simply taking the needed values from the respective team templates and build a properly formatted wikilink out of them. It's as simple as that.

However, we would first need to decide what structure is going to replace the current fb r-style results boxes before we start doing any refactorings. And that is not all; some other templates like the match templates contained in season articles for the Scottish Cup (example) and, as far as I remember, quite a few tables normally used for transfers (and probably even more stuff) on club season articles exist as well. What would happen with them?

In other words, we first need to identify all template groups using fb team templates and think about a proper replacement for these before going to work. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 09:14, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Category:Fb templates should provide an overview on the groups of structures and which of them uses team templates. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 09:24, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

With fb r-style results boxes you mean the cross tables like 2011–12_Premier_League#Results. It should be as easy/difficult to change Template:Fb_r_team to accept a normal wikilink instead of a template. -Koppapa (talk) 10:32, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I have little intention of wading through this to discover why some templates must be deleted but when they are...... please leave an edit summary to show what change has taken place and please explain why it is better to now show fb:Undisclosed instead of Undisclosed as a transfer fee and why some Slavic style surnames (eg Bilic, Stech) have been screwed-up in the process leaving behind redlinks. - Thanks.--Egghead06 (talk) 15:24, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Have repaired that now, my programm messed up some unicode i guess. I replaced an image questionmark with text with those edits. -Koppapa (talk) 15:55, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Any clue as to why you have replaced Undisclosed with undisclosed?--Egghead06 (talk) 16:00, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

No. -Koppapa (talk) 16:09, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very helpful. No don't bother I'll just change it myself. --Egghead06 (talk) 16:16, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Anyone here able to write such a bot? -Koppapa (talk) 14:32, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:BOTREQUEST. Giant Snowman 14:37, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Any latest news or updates on the front? Jared Preston (talk) 16:59, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

No. Where to start tackling this beast? Botting Fb cl team to Fb cl2 team? There the question of the results boxes arose. Should we start by getting rid of Template:Fb overall2 competition and Template:Fb overall competition that require creating hundreds of competition templates? There doens't seem to be other consequences when they are gone. -Koppapa (talk) 18:01, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

That sounds like a good start. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:53, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Save current format somehow, or go for a direct wikitable? I'd go for the latter. Replacing

{{fb overall competition |bg=  |s=2007-08 |c=UCL    |sr=GS       |cr= |fr=Rof16 |fp=         |dfm=18 September 2007 |dlm=5 March 2008}}

by

|-
| [[2007–08 UEFA Champions League]] || [[2007–08 UEFA Champions League#Group Stage|Group Stage]] || — || [[2007–08 UEFA Champions League knockout stage#First knockout round|Round of 16]] || 18 September 2007 || 5 March 2008

Go for it. As for any bot request, I could try and give the respective coding a shot if the people over at WP:BOTREQUEST do not have any spare time. However, this would not happen immediately, as I still have to finish my thesis on information extraction... --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 11:48, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I started a request at Wikipedia:BOTREQUEST#Replacing_a_template_by_a_wikitable. Please keep an eye there. -Koppapa (talk) 15:16, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Still no reply there, but this is a big job and it will take a while until the whole problem is finally fixed. Jared Preston (talk) 15:43, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Should we start tackling the fb competition in psyeudocode? So the botter only needs to translate to PHP(?). -Koppapa (talk) 12:13, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean with pseudocode? The parsing of these templates should be a very straight-forward thing, thanks to their parametrization, so no pseudocode whatsoever should be needed. However... since the people at BOTREQUEST still have not responded (as far as I can see it), we should better take matters into our own hands and try to code something by ourselves. I might give it a try if the fact that the likely result will rather be some Java script (please do not mix that up with Javascript, by the way) than a complete bot is okay. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 08:29, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Short update from me: I am currently busy coding something for the {{Fb overall competition}} series. However, I cannot give any definitive finishing date yet since I am still pretty busy with real life stuff. Probably by the end of the week, but no guarantees. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 21:59, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Use of fb cl and r templates in future league seasons

Since most European 2011–12 seasons will end in the next four weeks, it is increasingly likely that people will create the respective 2012–13 seasons sooner or later (in fact, the "big leagues" and some of the middleweights already have an article). These articles should eventually have league and results tables as well, of course.

Up to now, I have removed any league (and some results) tables which popped up in new 2012–13 articles, pointing to this discussion in the process. However, as time progresses, continually keeping them off the pages would not be a good idea as they need to be added sooner or later. Since quite some of these tables are created by c&p'ing old code, it is likely that new fb team templates might be introduced for the new round of articles, even if that is not desired any more.

So... how should we handle any future league and results tables until the conversion has fully been executed? Create them as before and include them into the eventual bot run(s)? Create them by using the non-team template-versions? And, in a related question, what should we do about the results boxes in general – convert them to plain wikitables or keep them templated until a certain degree (which is the better option, I think, due to the color coding applied to mark wins, draws, losses, etc.)? --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 08:29, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd go for Create them as before and include them into the eventual bot run(s) as that saves much time and nerves reverting until this bot-process has fully started. -Koppapa (talk) 15:11, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

We fought so many battles to get here and we are go through another migration. If this is in the name of standardization - I can see frustration lining up. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 23:48, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Can somebody briefly summarise the above discussion (I don't even understand some of it) and explain what it will mean for an editor who updates 10-15 current season tables for every round of games, i.e. editors like me? Thanks. Bretonbanquet (talk) 16:11, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

As a regular updater of football season tables, I would also like to know the answer to this. Would the new system still be able to calculate Pld, Pts and GD? If not, the updating of tables for each round of games would become an even more thankless task. It would mean three data entries per team would increase to six data entries per team, thus doubling the amount of time it takes to update the tables. I would be fine with streamlining and getting rid of the excess of templates, but please make sure it is replaced with an easy-to-update alternative. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 23:30, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

There is absolutely no change on how standings will get updated. It's only background stuff that will change. -Koppapa (talk) 10:24, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

OK, good. Thanks for the reply :) Bretonbanquet (talk) 19:07, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

More redundant templates

While there is a discussion on unnecessary templates, I thought I'd bring to your attention that there are individual templates created for every game of the upcoming Olympic tournament [11]. Is there any need to use those instead of simple Football box? -BlameRuiner (talk) 14:24, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

There really doesn't seem to be much need for these templates. These results will likely only ever appear in one article anyway. Del_♉sion23 (talk) 01:54, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Women's football teams notability

After removing a PROD on Northop Hall Girls F.C. i searched for notability criteria, but could find any for women's teams. What would you say is required to warrant a club article on a women's football team, for instance Europe only:

Club must meet GNG.
Playing one season UEFA Women's Cup/Champions League.
Club must have won national cup or the national league.
Club must have played a season in the nations top level league (note: those will be almost exclusively amateurish)

From my perspective surely 2 would suffice and i'd say 3 too. I'd include 4 but am unsure how majority feels. Note: Even for champions there might be very few info for an article in minor (football wise) countries, see for example BIIK Kazygurt. -Koppapa (talk) 09:20, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Why are we having separate guidelines for men and women? We should apply the same rules. Obviously, WP:GNG trumps all so any club article that can show that will obviously be notable. As for the rest, we should apply the same standards as we do for men. TonyStarks (talk) 09:54, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

"Must meet GNG" isn't something that belongs on lists like this. The whole point of lists like this is that they use heuristics to substitute for hard evidence that the club meets the GNG. In the end, we should have articles on everything that passes the GNG and nothing which doesn't. In this particular case, I think the sport is sufficiently small that we don't need extra heuristics and should evaluate every article on its own basis. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:23, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd say the notability guidelines this project has dreamt up for itself are already biased against women players/clubs (there is an injustice in treating unequals equally). Although it would be worse to hold females to seperate rules which were even more ill-thought-out and discriminatory. Clavdia chauchat (talk) 17:06, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Welllllll, I'm just guessing but given that Koppapa was removing a prod on a ladies' football team article, this was intended as a good faith discussion on how best to deal with the predominantly amateur women's game with sensibility and sensitivity. Might be best to just stick to the idea on how best to avoid these kind of prods rather than swing at the overall project, particularly when they're keen to help and constructively discuss the way ahead. In other words, what would your suggestion be? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:10, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I think women clubs in a country's top level should all be notable. The real problem is with women footballers who play in amateur leagues and most certainly don't meet current WP:NFOOTY requirements. – Kosm1 fent 17:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, stricly speaking about clubs here. Using the men's notability criteria here seems reasonable. With players, they of course aren't generally notable playing just top level. Even Romania e.g. has only 1 level in their pyramid where all 20 clubs play. That'd make any women's player in the country notable. -Koppapa (talk) 17:37, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I see no reason to have different notability guidelines for men then for women, so in my opinion all teams that have played in the national cup (per WP:FOOTYN, which is only an essay) are assumed notable. But when it comes to the players, we have a job to do, as there are a huge amount of articles on women's footballers that fails WP:NFOOTY. But maybe there should probably be a different guideline for female players then male players? Mentoz86 (talk) 19:43, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

The reason to have separate guidelines is because women's football receives vastly less coverage overall than men's football. Kosm1fent's suggestion would result in serious inconsistencies as concerns the GNG. In this sense Clavdia chauchat is very much correct in suggesting that our GNG-dodging guidelines cause serious consistency problems when applied equally to women's football. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 22:21, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Colour for "Europa League Group Stage" spot in League Table

I've changed the colour for Atlético de Madrid position table in 2011–12 La Liga from the blue to the violet like 2009–10 La Liga and I think this is the accepted colour because anyone change this colour for this position. User Soccer-Holic is rolling back to the same colour for the Play-off round when it is indicated that Atlético Madrid will entry for Group stage not Play-off round, this is incompatible. We must standardize colors for European competitions spots and never mix colors for different entries. I'm tired of the behavior of Soccer-Holic, he dialogues but he never recognizes that he says is wrong, I am very tired of this kind of users. It is possible that all users collaborating in football of Wikipedia have always used a color to the play-off round of the Europa League in all leagues and seasons and now suddenly for the Group is used the same color? I think I'm right, not a matter of pride, when I see I don't have reason I accept it. He tells me last week that it depends on Atlético Madrid's position ends, the positions for Spain of the Europa League could change, for this reason I gave up the table and I remained the table inconsistent, as he wants. It is no excuse that the sixth position entry must change depending on if Athletic Bilbao wins or not Copa del Rey, there is no relation. Atletico Madrid will enter into the group stage yes or yes, there is no place for the incoherence that he wants to keep. Thanks and excuse me sincerely for my bad english attemps. Greetings from Spain - tot-futbol (talk) 17:34, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't know why this has been brought up here, especially since I repeatedly tried to explain why we use certain colors on his/her talk page (see here). The same three shades of blue (#97DEFF, #BEBBFF and #CCF3FF) are used to mark up the different Europa League starting rounds in every UEFA domestic league season article, and they are used regardless of the absolute round (compare 2011–12 Premier League or 2011–12 Fußball-Bundesliga to 2011–12 Danish Superliga or 2011–12 Russian Premier League, for example). This was done for practicability and WP:ACCESS purposes a long time ago. If there is consensus to mark every of the five possibile starting rounds with a different shade of blue, so be it, but I think it is unnecessary and simply not doable because of the lack of contrast between a medium to dark blue background and link color (which is usually dark blue as well). --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 17:50, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

It cannot share the same color in the group stage and the play-off round, is inconsistent and confusing, didn't you you see? Do not insist further, there is no problem in understanding, the colors should be for each phase, simply, you don't like to put colors for each phase, but please accept that there are more users and this is a global project, not inidividual. So what is the color for the group stage and what for play-off round? Can you reply this question? - tot-futbol (talk) 17:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

The answer is simple – there is no fixed color at all. La Liga would use #BBEBFF for the play-off round, because it is their "middle" available entry spot, while the Russian Premier League uses #97DEFF, because it is their best available entry spot. And there really is no need for a definite color shade-to-starting round allocation. The maximum number of different Europa League entry rounds a league usually has is three (there are rare exceptions, but these are usually related to the outcome of the Fair Play competition), not five. Therefore, the current three shades are more than sufficient. --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 18:22, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit: After two rounds of back-and-forth, it would be nice to get input from other, uninvolved parties, as the current stalemate may not be broken otherwise, I fear... --Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 18:24, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I think that keeping only three shades of one colour is too confusing if for the the same round is coloured different from the next or past season and other leagues, it confuses people and editors which associate a colour for the phase entry for a competition. The current situation is very confusing and inconsistent, as 2012-12 Eredivisie and other exceptions can take more than 3 colours. Currently, if people see 1st of Scottish league in a colour and 1st La Liga in the same, people think that both teams are qualified for the same phase for UCL. I purpose to define a fixed colours for: 5 entries for UCL, 5 entries for UEL, and second tier or lower leagues, in order to standardize and coherent colours between country League articles and seasons. Greetings from Spain - tot-futbol (talk) 18:32, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

The current situation is unsustainable, confusing and not uniform among articles of the same type, in addition to this resolution is to resolve problems like Eiredivise.

My purposes::

	UEFA Champions League Group Stage, and direct promotion in lower divisions
	UEFA Champions League Play-Off Round, and direct qualifying play-off in lower divisions
	UEFA Champions League Third Qualifying Round, and first qualifying play-off in lower divisions
	UEFA Champions League Second Qualifying Round
	UEFA Champions League First Qualifying Round
	UEFA Europa League Group Stage
	UEFA Europa League Play-Off Round
	UEFA Europa League Third Qualifying Round
	UEFA Europa League Second Qualifying Round
	UEFA Europa League First Qualifying Round
	Play-Out for relegation
	Relegation

- tot-futbol (talk) 18:58, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Please add the bgcolor hexadecimal representation in the table as well. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 00:32, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Just for some added excitement, please consider WP:ACCESS which says you shouldn't use colour alone to denote a particular property, i.e. you should use gold and and asterisk for denoting winners so that those who find it challenging to see our encyclopaedia get the best out of it. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:08, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

The round is stated in text anyway. -Koppapa (talk) 19:29, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

The correct answer here is to remove the colour entirely. Those parties whose lives apparently depend on league table positions being shaed by colour would be well advised to stop poking this particular bear lest it eats them. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 22:25, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

For those who continue to go the "no colour" way - you know you are beating a dead horse. Similar to the situation of updating live matches that are in progress this debate continues to come up because there continues to exist a "us" vs. "them" mentality. Colour exists, and the use of "bgcolor" is available. More in the lines that this WP group has developed some sort of color schema but just like the OP has posted there is room for debate there needs to be a continual progress of working to improve... 2 pennies worth! (Since all of this volunteered anyway) Brudder Andrusha (talk) 00:31, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Squad template change

This past January we had a discussion to change the squad template format. The consensus would be to start with the major North American clubs first, before the season started, and then at the end of the major European seasons move to those leagues as well. Are we still going ahead with that plan? Are there any reservations? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 23:59, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's true to say a consensus was agreed to roll out the change at all. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 07:59, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry if I am restarting the discussion again but as a frequent editor on the New York Red Bulls article I can confidently say that I am not in favor of this table. I don't know, it is just confusing for me. I might just be too used to the older two-column format. I would actually be more confident in this if we can wait till around mid-July when the MLS transfer window would be well open and the European clubs are in pre-season, thus we would know how easy/hard it is to take a player out or add a player to the table when the transfer window is open. Also as the main editor on the Indian Football articles it does make me wonder about what the table length would be because the squads in India (and probably other countries) are so huge that a table would be way to long. Either way, I am definitely not adding it to the Indian football club articles till I am done with my Revamp Project on all 14 club articles. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 00:38, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

No complaints from me. Adding and removing players is very straightforward. Argyle 4 Life^talk 00:46, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Not sure if I see exactly the situation to which Arsenalkid700 refers, but from what I see, adding or removing players from the new template is similar as in the former template; basically adding/removing lines or replacing fields. I only want to ask if it is not possible to simplify the name part to one as we have in the former template? FkpCascais (talk) 01:11, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Some pretty serious overlinking and repeat wikilinks in that New York Red Bulls table. Are the country names next to the flags simply to satisfy that hopeless MOSFLAG? MOSFLAG was thrown together with almost no consensus, and it's only a guideline, not a policy. It should be disregarded per WP:UCS if conforming to it means this level of chronic repetition. Most teams only have three or four different nationalities in their squads, so we could have the same country name up to 10 or 15 times, linked every time. In a League Two club table, it's going to be "England England England England England" ad infinitum, which is daft. Put a key in those acres of whitespace next to the table if there's a suggestion that people need the flags to be explained. It's not a pretty table either. Bretonbanquet (talk) 01:17, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I re-read REPEATLINK about two weeks ago and it seems to have changed to state that it doesn't apply to tables. In particular, since these tables can be sorted, one never knows when the country will be first or a subsequent entry. That was my biggest concern too. However, accessibility requires that alt text be present and I'm not sure how a screen reader handles the icon and country name. I suppose I could always try it at work where I test web sites using one. The overlinking is a huge concern. Nations aren't supposed to be linked at all. Is this really going to be a show-stopper in rolling it out to European club articles?

As for the naming issue, there are now two templates. One template requires that you use a nested sort template. The other incorporates it. The former is displayed at the Vancouver Whitecaps FC article and latter, which is more common, is displayed at the Red Bulls article. Name entry in the second is easier. Indicating players with no link is easier in the former. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:50, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

The current table provides alt tags for the flag icons so is perfectly accessible from that perspective. The addition of a linked country name is, although not inaccessible, a poorer experience for a screen reader as it then excessively repeats the country name for each row.Bladeboy1889 (talk) 08:05, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I would just like to add that I oppose the switch to the new current squad template. It conveys no new information while being much much larger than the old squad template. For clubs with large squads such as QPR it would be well over one screen for most users. I think it is uglier and more difficult to read. Overlinking is also a problem when you are naming the country as well. --Kafuffle (talk) 07:47, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I have to say I would oppose this for now. Although I have grown to like the new table I feel without the proposed trial which never took off because of opposition it would be best to get further comment before moving forward with this. Edinburgh Wanderer 19:04, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't like the new template either. The fact that its a wikitable is good (I like the fact it can be coloured) although it shouldn't be sortable. However, I feel the old design is better and I would support a change to a wikitable format which kept the old design. Adam4267 (talk) 19:14, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I prefer the new template, mainly because it deals with flags/nationality better. I think it would be better if the last column is renamed 'Country', as it reads easier than Nation. Also, will there be a documentation page that will go with it? Eldumpo (talk) 19:59, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I didn't participate in the past discussion, so I didn't express my hate towards the new template, which is ugly like ****. Furthermore, as Kafuffle said, the table will be much, MUCH too big for clubs with large squads... I fail to see one good point to it. – Kosm1 fent 20:07, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Completely agree, I didn't discuss in the first discussion either and I completely agree, the new one is hideous. TonyStarks (talk) 20:26, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorting by name and position is a nice addition. -Koppapa (talk) 20:33, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

It goes without saying that the new template is better in most ways. The main defences of the existing template are "screw the blind", "screw mobile readers", "screw the manual of style" (ok, I sympathise with that view most of the time) and "screw anyone who doesn't know every flag we use". Crucially, any legitimate concerns do not outweigh the positives of the new template, and therefore common sense suggests that the onus is on the moaners to either propose improvements/an alternative way of delivering the improvements that #2 does, or to do something more productive. Untwisting their undergarments perhaps. —WFC— 22:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, that would be your opinion. What really does go without saying is that any new template will need a consensus, not just the word of someone who has decided that the new template is better. Funny how people who don't like the new template are just somehow screwy or should just go away. Really constructive. Bretonbanquet (talk) 22:33, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

The issues I describe above are not matters of opinion, they are matters of fact (expressed in a forthright way because it is the only language that at least one of the contributors above will read). If you would care to read up on the reasons for the changes, and either refute the basis for them, or propose a better way of dealing with them, we're all ears. But if your sole intention is to wikilaywer and outright ignore the issues in front of you, then my previous comments stand. —WFC— 22:57, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

So requiring a consensus is wikilawyering? No, it isn't. If you'd read my comment above, you'd see my problems with the new table, and you wouldn't waste your (assuredly most valuable) metaphorical breath suggesting that I'm ignoring any "issues". Why there's an apparent need to repeat extremely common terms over and over and over again, and moreover, wikilink each and every instance of them - I have no idea. Maybe you can provide a good reason for it. How about having a section for defenders, and one for midfielders etc, rather than repeating (and wikilinking) "defender" and "midfielder" half a dozen times (or more) each? Sure your comments stand, but they carry no more weight than mine, or anyone else's, regardless of what you might think. Bretonbanquet (talk) 23:07, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I may have misread your comment. I interpreted it as meaning that the template should be being used on any article? If it was merely your intention to say that we can't presume that it's okay to roll it out to every club without consensus, you are of course right, and I apologise. If I was right, I continue to stand by the "wikilawyer" comment. Nonetheless, if you're willing to focus on the issues, I'm happy to reciprocate.

The things that you raise – spelling out positions and countries – are the knock-on effects of how the template came about. The initial aims included improving accessibility, complying with the manual of style (certainly not the main issue, but it comes up periodically and tends to result in discussions with a similar tone to this one), whether the casual reader would recognise all the flags (there is definitely a correlation between the hit count of a club's article and the number of nationalities in the squad), and improving the experience on handheld devices. Once it was determined that a one-column format was a straightforward way of doing these things, expanding seemed a logical thing to do, to improve the look at higher resolutions. As for the rest of the whitespace, I've always found that a narrow tables generally are a good place to insert images as a way of hedging bets. At high resolutions they go side-by-side with minimal whitespace, whereas on portable devides the table will take most of the screen's width, and you'll have an image immediately above the table. —WFC— 23:49, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I was basically saying - that there'll have to be at least a general consensus if this idea is to be used across the board. Otherwise it won't be enforceable, regardless of the good intentions. Bretonbanquet (talk) 18:01, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Most club pages do not have relevant images to try and cover up the large amounts of white space created by the proposed format. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 08:20, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd suggest that most clubs with a good number of nationalities in their squads probably do. Regardless, for an article with zero images outside of the infobox, the width of the table probably isn't the main aesthetic concern. —WFC— 09:55, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd say it is one of the main aesthetic concerns - introduction of acres of white space and excessive scrolling is a poor aesthetic choice. Personally I feel that the proposed format is also ugly compared to the existing one and this is exacerbated by over repetition and overlinking. Judging by responses to all the various discussions about this topic there are plenty of people that feel the same.

I'm not against changing the current format - happy to be bold and do something radically different - my main objection remains that the proposed format is being presented as the only solution to the issues raised and that any objections are invalid. Some alternative suggestions:

a) alter the existing Template:Extended football squad player to work more in line with how Template:Flagathlete does (not an exact copy necessarily but something to render the country as well as the flag)

b) create a new template completely based on flatlists similar to how most club nav boxes work. Something more aesthetically relevant could be produced (the over uses of strong colours within an article would probably fall foul of numerous MOS issues) but the basis could be splitting the squad into rows of GK / DF / MF / FW and each player added using a variation on the Flagathlete template to render squad number, name, flag, other. This would allow for an extra section displaying players currently on loan, meaning that they were all included in one table rather than being split over two, an extra section for nationalities to list the various flags and full nationalities to meet MOS flag, it would remove repetition of playing positions as they would be moved to being list headers, it would wrap properly on all sizes of screens, it could have the option of adding further page specific flatlists within the main box if necessary.

Bladeboy1889 (talk) 10:57, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Just to confirm (after weeding out the usual excellent arguments like "better", "ugly", "we've ignored MOSFLAG for eleven years so why start now"), the constructive opposition to the new template appears from the above to consist of two points:

The new format uses up more space and leaves more whitespace on desktop browsers
Overlinking

From where I'm sitting, #1 is a necessary evil (it results in considerably better presentation on contemporary small-screen UAs along with solving some accessibility issues) and #2 is easily worked around (there are surely non-linking variants of the country name templates). Does anyone have anything else to add? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:51, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I have no real problem with the single column format, although I don't love the aesthetics of it, or the prospect of the increased scrolling - but it does have meaningful benefits. I think in most cases people can find something in the way of images to fill up the whitespace. I think a certain amount of flexibility would be a good idea with this - what works well for Barcelona may not work well for Barnet. Using the same basic single column format, different articles could employ slightly different methods to create a decent result for all. Similarly with the overlinking and flags, a club with many different nationalities may need more wikilinks, whereas a League Two club article with only two or three nationalities (mostly British) might benefit from a different tactic. I like the idea of a key for the flags, which would both help those people not familiar with the flags and also help fill up the whitespace. Wikilinks for countries could be employed in the key then, rather than repeated throughout the table itself. Certainly, reducing the repetition and overlinking may alleviate people's problems with the table's unattractiveness. Bretonbanquet (talk) 18:01, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Right. So in principle, you are not opposed to the new design except to suggest that consideration should be made to the specifics of implementation in different articles? I'm more than happy to make adjustments to the core code as and when they're required (so long as they don't violate the main principles behind the change), and we've always allowed for editorial discretion when deploying templates (it's part of the reason that we have so many, with so many options). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:59, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

That's right, speaking only for myself of course. I think football editors are pretty partisan anyway and (hopefully) sensible variations will arise where local consensus dictates, and the overall look of it can be adjusted to suit the people who deal with it on each page. As long as there's no iron-clad one-size-fits-all policy then it ought to work. Bretonbanquet (talk) 22:34, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Citing Bretonbanquet - "football editors are pretty partisan" - hey, I am the biggest Partizan here! Jokes aside, what about my question (4th comment from the top)? FkpCascais (talk) 04:27, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

"Simplify the name bit to one"? I'm not sure what you mean by that. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:38, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I assume Fkp is talking about the |name= parameter. There is a split at the moment: some implementations use {{fs player2 sort}}, which has |first= |last= |link=(for disambiguated titles), while others do it manually, using {{fs player2}}'s name parameter like this: |name={{sortname|first|last|link}}. —WFC— 11:32, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree that it leaves too much white space, but is that enough to prevent it from going forward on the European club articles? Can we ask if there's a way to reduce the vertical white space and remove the over links? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:30, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, WFC understood me right, I am affraid that in the new format new editors (and some older ones too) will have difficulties dealing with disambiguations and correct links, it was easier the old way where a link is inserted directly. name=[ [ XXX ] ]. FkpCascais (talk) 03:26, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I think we're far better off simply using freeform names and letting editors use {{sortname}} if required. That would imply the deprecation and eventual removal of {{fs player2 sort}}. Is that what you're looking for? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:15, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Hm, not sure... I was just asking if we could use instead of

- | first=Thierry | last=Henry

to use

- | name=[ [Thierry Henry] ]

I am asking this because I noteced that when disambiguation is needed, we have to use the dab, exemple

- | first=Roy | last=Miller| dab=Roy Miller (footballer)

and with the old format it looked like this:

- | name=[ [Roy Miller (footballer)|Roy Miller] ]

It is just because I doubt that many newcomers and less familiarised editors will know the need of using the dab for the disambiguation cases, while many were already familiarised with the former way. FkpCascais (talk) 02:05, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

As I've said above I think we should have the new format take the same design as the old table. Two columns same flag, name positioning etc. Then we retain the same aesthetics (so people saying I don't like it can't complain) but have the positives of the new design in that it works over several formats because it is a wikitable and chanes size to fit screen. Adam4267 (talk) 14:48, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

The arguments for a two-column format have been summarised multiple times over this discussion. There is really no excuse for participants to not have attempted to understand them by now. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:45, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Flat lists

As per my comments above: as a lot of people seem to find the proposed format a poor substitute visually, there should be space to consider other potential solutions that address some of the issues raised. As I've said before I have no real attachment to the existing squad template and I'm open to bold change, I just feel the proposal for a narrow single column is extremely ugly and a detrimental step. So - an alternative could be to take the approach used in something like MLB (eg. New York Yankees) but to use flat lists instead of columns. To that and I've built an example of what I mean here: User:Bladeboy1889/sandbox/squad.

To be clear this is a hack of the navbox template and is very rough - it needs improving visually to add a bit more spacing / separation and would need to be built as a proper template - I'm not presenting this as a completed solution, just a proof of concept - but it is an alternative solution that a) meets MOS:Flag b) would be accessible c) would work on mobile screens. I've also done a version using the flagathlete template but I think that introduces too much content and the extra link is unnecessary with a key. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 17:28, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

To make that workable we'd really need to ditch the flags, as the more compact format makes them far more prominent. Ultimately I think this would be better than any table, but it's also a far more radical solution than the one proposed. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:49, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

That may be more to do with the nature of the navbox template more than anything else as it uses a smaller font - improved formatting / layout could make the flags less prominent. Alternatively - you could ditch the flags in the player rows and replace with country short names (ENG) etc and simply maintain the nationality row with flags in as a key eg:

Steve Simonsen (ENG)

England (ENG)
Scotland (SCO)

This could also double as the club squad navbox for player pages maybe - cutting down duplication and ensuring consistency - although a template for page specific squads would still be required as the current version is used on a lot of other articles ie Club Season etc. As for being radical I don't see any issue with that if we can agree a solution that doesn't cause such heated debate. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 11:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I was going to suggest something almost identical before an edit conflict. Here's the post as it would have appeared:

In that specific design, triagrammes would be far less distracting, with flags featured in the key (partly in the interests of keeping flag wavers on board). Something like this for instance?

Defenders, midfielders and strikers would of course follow the same layout as goalkeepers. It doesn't quite look right for loan players, but I think the general idea is something worth thinking about. —WFC— 11:21, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

The loan bit is more complicated as it contains various positions so they need marking up somehow but there's probably a solution with a bit of experimentation. The benefit of this layout would be that the entire squad is included in one table rather than split over two.Bladeboy1889 (talk) 11:29, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

The format also lends itself to the two-in-one concept (one template serving as navbox and the article's squad template) far more easily than either fs player or fs player 2. —WFC— 11:38, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't see that introducing yet another nonstandard way of representing nationality (subscripts and trigrammes? Really?) helps us particularly here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:48, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT. —WFC— 16:22, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I already suggested my preferred outcome if we move to a simple list format, which is removing the flags entirely. But to be quite honest I don't see us getting consensus for doing away with the table format anyway at the moment, and would rather try to make progress with the existing proposal. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 07:52, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree I don't think it needs subscripts (I'd expect most people would think the template wasn't working) but I don't see why the use of trigrammes is an issue. I'd view something like the above table as an extension of how Template:Flagathlete deals with it. On the one hand I may be starting to come round to the view that flags/nationalities are an irrelevancy here (I've never seen them included as part of a squad list on any match programme - though someone is bound to prove me wrong) but on the other there is a lot of support for their inclusion but maybe that's just habit for many people. So in view of that I think what I've suggested is a workable solution - after some refinement to improve it, what's shown is just a very rough hack. As there's been no consensus on the other proposal I don't why we shouldn't pursue other options.Bladeboy1889 (talk) 09:06, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

For a point of clarity, there was very clear consensus to go ahead with developing the other proposal, and to use it on live articles. The thing there isn't consensus for is a sitewide rollout. That said, I agree that what Bladeboy has suggested could well be the starting point of a workable solution. —WFC— 11:23, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

As for flagathlete, I presume you mean having {{flagathlete|United States|USA}}, which displays

United States (USA) in the key? —WFC— 11:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

John Terry

Just seen this and could not remember seeing a similar article for any other players. Is this a good idea or list another list of stats?--Egghead06 (talk) 11:01, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Massive overkill, I have PRODded per WP:NOTSTATS. Giant Snowman 11:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Radamel Falcao García

Hello everybody, I want to ask a question about the name of footballer Radamel Falcao García. Now, we know he has two first names (Radamel Falcao) and two surnames (García Zarate), but in every template I see that he is shown as "Falcao". But "Falcao" is one of his two first names, not his surname. I mean, I know everbody calls him "Falcao", but it's because they think that "Falcao" is his surname (a lot of people do), mainly because a lot of TV commentators and journalists call him "Falcao" just because he has written "Falcao" on his shirt. I edited the article on it.wiki changing all the templates outputs from "Falcao" to "García", but several users said that "he is most known as Falcao": this may be true, of course, but this is incorrect. I think that calling him "Radamel Falcao" is incorrect, too: it is like calling Juan Carlos Lorenzo "Juan Carlos", with no surname. If you can show me sources which clearly state that Falcao is his pseudonym, like the ones of Brazilian footballers (ex. Arthur Antunes Coimbra -> "Zico"), I will change my mind, but I think the current situation is confusing. Can you help me? Thanks in advance. :-) --Triple 8 (talk) 13:22, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

This has to be a wind-up. Big Dom 13:26, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

"I know everbody calls him "Falcao""; so it should be written as "Falcao". The rest is blabber. – Kosm1 fent 13:46, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to disappoint you, but this was not a wind-up. Nor what I wrote is "blabber". And I think your replies were not kind at all. This was meant to be an actual question, and if you thought the answer was clear and obvious, the only thing you had to do was to answer me "if he's known as Falcao, we should call him Falcao" and that's it, without adding those unrespectful and mocking expressions. There was no reason to answer unpolitely. --Triple 8 (talk) 14:22, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Pardon me. Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 14:27, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Triple8, usualy Spanish and Portuguese names contain 2 names and 2 surnames, and often players choose to be known by either any combination of those (exemples: Cristiano Ronaldo are 2 names; Figo is paternal surname; Xavi is the diminutive of the name, Paulo Sousa is the traditional first name plus paternal surname, etc.) or a nickname. The point is that while the fullname should e entioned in the article in the lede section, the rest should be refered by the common name, which can be, depending on each individual case, some of the name options or a nickname. Best regards Triple8, please feel free to ask any more doubts you have about this as I lived troughout my life in Spanish or Portuguese speaking world. FkpCascais (talk) 01:49, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

National youth team squad navboxes

I just noticed a bunch of national youth team squad navboxes have been added to Matty James' article (among others, I'm sure). When did we decide these navboxes were now OK? I thought we only did them for current club squads and senior national team squads for the World Cup and the top continental competitions. – Pee Jay 21:10, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I think that is allowed but if possible can we group them into one navbox titled "England national youth team" just to make it look neater. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 21:29, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Last time I asked the question I was told that they are OK as long as the majority of the players have articles, this way it's not just a template with a bunch of red links. Personally, I like them and think that they are as useful as senior national team squad templates. TonyStarks (talk) 22:58, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Basically what Tony said - if a navbox sensibly links a number of articles, then it's useful and should remain. So I doubt the 2012 Guam youth squad will have any bluelinks, but the 1980 Brazil youth squad will probably be all blue. Giant Snowman 08:28, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Paulo Futre

WP does not source itself correct? Hence, i think i did the right thing by removing that stuff (by the way it also contained POV/WEASEL in the new version "An outstanding squad featuring...", then mentions his teammates, that have their separate articles; the unsourced "During his carreer time, however, hard tackling defending left him with several knee injuries which tormented his career in the 1990s"). What stuff did i remove? ALL the new refs added (ALL!) were WP articles, only, and this (please see here http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11758167-el-portugu-s), not encylopedical stuff is it?

I know i'm heading for another wiki-confrontation, hopefully the other party will be polite and understanding. Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 23:16, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Quicker than i thought, my countryman (could it be Futre himself?) as already reverted me, i have tipped him off for a discussion of contents. --Vasco Amaral (talk) 00:04, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I can see why someone might revert it, given that you have eviscerated so much content (unsourced or not). The IP has replied to you and seems quite constructive. My usual approach when faced with something like that is to try and retain the club headings and re-flesh out with historical news articles before blanking. It's easier to source statements left in pace, than have another editor come in with less knowledge to try and rebuild his career without such background knowledge. Koncorde (talk) 07:57, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

But the fact the ALL the refs used are other WP articles is OK, no? Fair enough, again i try to help and get "scolded". --Vasco Amaral (talk) 14:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Vasco - you were entirely correct in removing unreferenced information from a BLP article; and you are also correct in saying that Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Giant Snowman 14:43, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Though if it was unreferenced stuff you were removing, most of his playing career should have gone as well, not just the new additions. The "knee injuries which tormented his career in the 1990s" have been there unsourced for four years; the IP didn't add them. Assuming the new stuff is reliably sourceable, the IP version looks a decent basis for expanding the article, don't you think? They made a constructive reply to your message, and we ought to be encouraging enthusiastic newcomers. Do the articles referenced by the IP's edits have sources for the statements he added? if so, it'd be easy enough to copy them across. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:06, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Retrieved (more) what i could, the rest of the WP references are not even worth a glance because they - example - back up something to the effect of him "being awarded the most prestigious award of Atlético Madrid at the Vicente Calderón Stadium", then the ref is the stadium's WP article! --Vasco Amaral (talk) 17:30, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't scolding or trying to make you feel bad Vasco, I appreciate a lot of your efforts so don't want you to take my comments in a way they were not intended. I agree with Struway. The edits you have since made to put the article into a more wiki format is good start. It would be nice to have seen the wiki cited elements have relevant citations requested at the time (it's what citation needed tags are for). Koncorde (talk) 19:44, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

No problems Koncorde, we all want to "get er done"! --Vasco Amaral (talk) 20:37, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Two England squad UEFA Euro 2012 templates

Template:England squad England squad UEFA Euro 2012 and Template:England squad UEFA Euro 2012. But which one should be deleted? Obviously the latter has the correct title but the former was created first. So, should the latter be deleted and the former be renamed to the correct title? Any admin help would be much appreciated! Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 15:04, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Be easiest to delete the one with the wrong title. Wouldn't have thought it matters which was created first. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:11, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree. If the one with the wrong title is better, copy the content to the one with the correct title and then delete the one with the wrong title. There isn't even any need for a redirect. – Pee Jay 18:13, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

André Villas-Boas

Edit conflict brewing at André Villas-Boas, with Malarious (talk · contribs) insisting that the Barclays Asia Trophy denotes a senior honour and therefore that it should be included in the honours section. I argue that as a pre-season tournament it does not constitute a senior or competitive honour and as such it has no place in this section. Surely that's the case? Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 23:36, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Of course you are 100% correct Matty, in my opinion. --Vasco Amaral (talk) 23:44, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
- No more a 'trophy' then the Emirates Cup or Amsterdam Tournament. So should be removed, but can be noted in his Chelsea section, where appropriate. -- Lemonade51 (talk) 23:47, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
  - I see he's at it again now, this time armed with pointless sarcasm. Would someone mind reverting as I'm currently on three reverts? Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 00:19, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
    - Have done and notified on Malarious' talkpage. -- Lemonade51 (talk) 00:29, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Semi-protected for 2 weeks due to high levels of IP edits - vandalism & speculation. Giant Snowman 10:20, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

U14 National Teams

I am just wondering if the u14 national team for a country would be notable. I know we go seniors, u23, u21, u20, u19, u18, u17, u16, and u15 (sometimes) but I have never seen a u14 national team. The reason I say this is because in Asia there is a tournament which involves u14 teams so just wondering before creating the u14 page for India. Cheers. --Arsenalkid700 (talk) 13:53, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Definitely not; if anything, we should have U23, U21, U19 and the rest amalgamated to 'X national football youth teams' or something. Giant Snowman 14:10, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

(ec) If there are U14 teams that compete in FIFA-sanctioned tournaments then I'd say go ahead. I know for a fact there's no such thing as an England U14 team and don't believe there ever has been (there used to be an U15 team but that disappeared about a decade ago). Cheers, Mattythewhite (talk) 14:14, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there are FIFA-sanctioned tournaments for such young teams. – Kosm1 fent 14:25, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

In reply to GiantSnowMan, FIFA has a U17 World Cup, so no reason not to have a U17 articles. Also, if there is sufficient information from reliable sources, there's no reason not to go younger. I know most federation websites will go as low as U16. TonyStarks (talk) 23:18, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Consecutive loan spells

I'm wondering; Kostas Chalkias played in 1996–1998 for Apollon Athens on loan from Panathinaikos. In summer 1998 he returned to Panathinaikos, but failed to make a senior appearance and was loaned again to Apollon in January 1999. Should those two loan spells be merged into one in the infobox, or not? Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 14:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Two seperate spells - he wasn't registered with Apollon between June 1998 and Jan 1999. Same applies with players such as Kyle Bartley (though his time away was much shorter) and Sam Hutchinson (who retired and then re-joined Chelsea). Giant Snowman 14:38, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Snowman! I thought so too but wasn't 100% certain. – Kosm1 fent 14:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Template stuff

Why is this template called Template:Bota de Prata winners, when below we see, in the yellow strip, BOLA DE PRATA WINNERS? Completely incorrect stuff, since the correct is the latter not the former (difficult to trace the subtle difference, but there's a "T", - BOTA, meaning BOOT in English - instead of an "L" - BOLA, BALL in English). I tried clicking "edit this page", but did not see BOTA DE PRATA written anywhere so i could correct it, odd...

Cheers --Vasco Amaral (talk) 15:47, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Fixed it. Jared Preston (talk) 16:23, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

A simple PAGE MOVE, boy do i feel silly...Thanks Jared! --Vasco Amaral (talk) 18:24, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

2011–12 Prva HNL League table

Some little kid from Ukraine keeps reverting the league table, disregarding what states at the official league website. It seems he's some UEFA freak, because he thinks everything must be as it says on their website (e.g. moving FC Dynamo Kiev to FC Dynamo Kyiv). Can someone call his mom and tell her to stop him? Thank you. Dr. Vicodine (talk) 17:44, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Above everything else, be civil and don't call him "little kid". Secondly, I've requested page protection, so you can both solve your disagreement by discussing and not edit warring. You are welcome. – Kosm1 fent 18:01, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL issues aside – the conflict seems somewhat self-made as it is a result of missing information. Have you ever considered adding a well-referenced footnote why Varazdin are listed with 24 matches instead of the regular 30? It might probably keep said editor from continuosly reverting. Removing UEFA.com as a source when it seems to give an incorrect league table might help as well, especially if the other cited source is the organizer of the league season. Just my two cents, Soccer-holic^{I hear voices in my head...} 18:08, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd say not to remove the UEFA link. Don't forget that articles should (ideally) use third-party sources (WP:SOURCES). I don't think UEFA is the only third-party source reporting the final table, is it? Soccer-holic's idea for a footnote will certainly work if 24 games is the correct amount. Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 18:20, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Kosm1fent, I stated my reasons when he dropped on my talk page. He has UEFA.com and I don't think any further discussion will lead us elsewhere. Most of the tables online rely to database of results so number of games played is automatic. Soccer-holic, yes I considered adding a footnote but have been waiting until their situation is fully resolved. Currently, they are bouncing between leagues, from lowest county league to second level, now maybe third level. I'll put a note citing official website and the article I showed to Alex before. Dr. Vicodine (talk) 18:24, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Nor will edit warring lead you anywhere. However, if this source you posted is legit and you can find a second source backing this up (not a requirement, but it would help your case), I think the issue reference-wise will be solved. – Kosm1 fent 18:31, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

To Dr. Vicodine. 1)I think you should read this. 2)As for Dynamo Kyiv. Look here. If you dont know which name of the club is correct, you shouldnt write that someone is not right because of renaming article. 3)You posted this source. But here Varazdin has 30 games. 4)Can someone explain me how 15 clubs may have 30 games and one club - 24? If Varaždin has 24 games the table should look this. Alex (talk) 18:36, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I see what you did there... (point 3) I think the question (to be answered by good sources) is this one: do the games after Varazdin's withdrawal count as 0:3 losses or not? If they do, the UEFA table is correct. If they don't, both tables are wrong, as indeed one team can't have 24 games while the rest have got the full batch... – Kosm1 fent 18:56, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Kosm1 is right about about his reasoning in his last comment. It will basicaly solve the case. FkpCascais (talk) 23:23, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I did not write the competition rules. If that table is further published in sports almanacs with Varaždin at 24 games, what then? UEFA has 30 games, soccerway has 30 games but goal difference doesn't include those matches. Dr. Vicodine (talk) 06:45, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Rabiu Ibrahim

Lol! I see that even websites now engage in sectarian vandalism, if you see the second external link, FORADEJOGO.net, for which team does he play? Not Celtic :)

Speaking of which (vandalism), sad, sad, sad...an obscure player, with the grand total of three games in THREE FULL SEASONS, signs for Celtic, and suddenly deserves the "attention" of a vast array of "users" who couldn't be bothered to edit there previously.

Attentively - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 19:12, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

What the heck? Well, that's one prime example why ForaDeJogo shouldn't be considered a reliable source. Cheers. – Kosm1 fent 19:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

For Portuguese players and/or foreigners with many seasons in the country, i think it still should "stay", to further "back that thought up" i recently discovered there is an English option available in the site. --Vasco Amaral (talk) 20:00, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

It isn't a reliable source in the Wikipedia sense, though it's harmless as an external link. It's probably pretty accurate for recent seasons of players playing in the Portuguese higher divisions, but that's all. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 20:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Indeed! I have sent them a message requesting correction of data, cheers back! --Vasco Amaral (talk) 20:06, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Talk about your efficiency mates, they've corrected the error :) --Vasco Amaral (talk) 22:40, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I remember finding an article or two in Portuguese newspapers which referenced the Fora de jogo - suggesting it is indeed a reliable source in the Wikipedia-sense. I'm not sure where the discussion was - I think it concerned the use of the site on a GA nominated article about a Plymouth Argyle player. Jogurney (talk) 02:42, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Found it! Jogurney (talk) 02:46, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Alright. Good for them that they fixed their mistake on such a short notice too. – Kosm1 fent 05:21, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, late to the party .. just wondering what the site had wrong about Rabiu? TonyStarks (talk) 09:08, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

According to them, he signed for Rangers... It was like they did it on purpose. – Kosm1 fent 09:11, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I'm sure that didn't go down with both sets of fans (Rangers and Celtic) :D TonyStarks (talk) 10:09, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Sheffield United Current Squad
Goalkeepers	1. Steve Simonsen _(ENG) 13. Mark Howard _(ENG) 25. George Long _(ENG)
On loan	23. Seamus Conneely _(IRL) Midfielder – at Alfreton Town 24. Erik Tønne _(NOR) Midfielder – at York City
Nationalities	England _(ENG) Scotland _(SCO) Ireland _(IRL) Wales _(WAL) Jamaica _(JAM) Austria _(AUT) Haiti _(HAI) Australia _(AUS)