Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football

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Creation of WikiProject Football task forces

Seeing how this project has grown quite large over time, spawning a few subprojects, some successful, some less successful, I was beginning to think about creating task forces instead (and reorganising the subprojects into task forces). The idea is "stolen" (as with a few other past ideas implemented here) from WP:MILHIST, where this type of organisation seems to work very well. This will not be a large change for this project or the subprojects, but will hopefully improve cooperation in the long run.

In short:

• Existing subprojects (Australia, USA and Canada, Italy and Non-League) are reorganised into task forces instead. Not much will be changed, subpages and such will be retained.
• New task forces are created when enough users are willing to keep such task forces up and running.
• Each task force gets a parameter for the {{Football}} template to keep track of articles and assessments of articles related to the task force.
• More centralised than before, better communication and cooperation between the various groups than before, less duplication of info.

The name "task force" may sound a little militaristic, so if anyone has a better idea for a name, suggestions are welcome. I don't intend to do any reorganisation unless there is broad consensus (especially amongst the members of the subprojects) to do so. Comments, suggestions, questions? – Elisson • T • C • 20:20, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good Elisson. Not sure I'd be able to join anything other than the English league task force (don't mind the name, either), but happy to help as always. HornetMike 00:16, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Any more comments? Negative, positive, neutral? Anything? If I say that I will go ahead and make the change, will I get any reactions then? – Elisson • T • C • 16:21, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Very good idea, go ahead dude. I'd expected to find a task force of USA/Canada from WikiProject Football (soccer) in the USA and Canada in {{Football}}. "Team" (e.g. Team USA/Canada) or something similar may also be used in place of "task force".--Victor D ^PARLE 00:31, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Notable players

I see that all club articles have lists of 'Notable players'. This is entirely POV and fails WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE- one person's list of notable players will be different to another person's. What is needed to comply with WP policy is some clear criteria. I suggest that 'Notable players' is replaced by 'Full and u-21 internationals' but am receptive to argument as to different criteria. BlueValour 23:38, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

It's almost impossible to have one of these lists that doesn't appear POV or indiscriminate - to use a definitive criteria like internationals or x number of games will be unrepresentative and will be full omissions. ArtVandelay13 23:52, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I've noticed the same thing at Fenerbahçe S.K. I don't think renaming it to "Full and u-21 internationals" would be better, but instead make it policy that players in the "Notable players" section be full and u-21 internationals. Or players who have made a significant impact at the club (e.g. Helped win titles, 100+ games, 50+ goals) or something like that. CAN 23:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Great ideas and I appreciate the difficulty in having centralised criteria since the editors of clubs who never have had internationals will still want a list of Notable Players. By instinct, as you will see above, I am a devolutionist, and have no problem with editors shaping their own criteria for the 'Notable Players' list in their articles. However it is done, though, there must be criteria otherwise it will simply be POV which is not acceptable. BlueValour 00:10, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I led a call to remove the notable players list the Liverpool F.C. article in July 2006 where we came to a consensus to do it. Later, the section was replaced with its current form, which is a few paragraphs of prose about various record holders — much better in my eyes. aLii 12:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Why not, under 'Notable Players', provide a link to the category of that teams's players (who are notable enough to have their own Wikipedia entry) or to a list of notable players? See Manchester United#Former players as an example GiantSnowman 12:46, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, that does sound good. However, I still think that players who have had a large impact at the club based on a few parameters should be listed, along with prose paragraphs as used on the Liverpool article. The rest would, as you suggested, be listed at a different page. CAN 14:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

CAN's made a point. Some players really do have a larger impact at clubs than others. Based on honours, empathy with fans, whatever parameter it is. And this is what make him "notable" to the club's history. This is fact. —Lesfer ^(t/c/@) 16:15, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Do clubs have Team of the Decade, honor roll, hall of fame or equivalent? Listing players who are officially recognized by clubs or supporters would be preferable to trying to decide who's notable or not. --Ytny (talk) 16:19, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

That sounds good. But surely it would have to be sourced. —Lesfer ^(t/c/@) 16:26, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I kinda like what I did with the section at the Central Coast Mariners FC article. Basically, I clearly stated that the list included international representatives only, but did this in the prose rather than a footnote or header change. I agree that this can be a problem section, and that the CCM style won't work for all teams (imagine a section, with details in prose, like for Man U!), but I felt it worked well in the situation. Daniel Bryant 09:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Capitalisation

{{Football squad2 start}} Per the Manual of Style headers do not take "un-natural" capitals. Most navboxen and infoboxen also abide by this, I have changed this one to use the same style - Current Squad => current squad. Rich Farmbrough, 15:27 8 May 2007 (GMT).

Sunderland A.F.C.

I just had a look at Sunderland A.F.C. and I think it needs a clean up, it's slightly different to the normal norm we have. Just thought a few people might be interested in bring it up to scratch. Regards, Govvy 13:45, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes (or a lack thereof)

Is there a template/tag that will group together all player articles that don't contain an infobox? If not, should one be created for use on the players' talk pages? - Dudesleeper · Talk 03:16, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

• Seems like a good idea. I also have a similar idea, what about a tag at the top of the article, stating that the article needs an infobox? Dave101→talk  07:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Try {{infoboxneeded}}, using the syntax {{infoboxneeded|Infobox Football biography}} Oldelpaso 07:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Excellenté. I'm sure people thought "Why not just add the infobox instead of adding the tag?", but player profiles aren't always that readily available. - Dudesleeper · Talk 09:42, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

• I have created a new template {{Needs football biography infobox}} with an associated Category:Articles that need a football biography infobox which seems to meet your needs. Daemonic Kangaroo 15:33, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Assists

I've started to notice an increasing prevalence of assist columns appearing in player's stats boxes. I was wondering if anyone could point to any sites that had reliable data on them? I just deleted the assist stats from the Steven Gerrard article, because I wanted to update them, but had no idea where to find the relevent info. I'm not against having such info in articles, but I'd like to know where it's coming from. aLii 12:06, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm instead clearly against, because make an assist is not like a goal and its assignation to a player can be highly subjective. To me, it's better to delete all these trivias, this is an encyclopedia and not a repository for football statistics. --Angelo 14:23, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Angelo GiantSnowman 14:49, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Also fully agree with Angelo. "assists" is not a commonly used term in football, nor as in the likes of Ice hockey an officially recognised on the pitch action.♦Tangerines BFC ♦·Talk 20:08, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree. Assist stats are not widely available and which produces problems with making them verifiable. There is also the problem of indiscrepencies, as what defines an "assist" can be debatable. Dave101→talk  20:26, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd say it depends on the league. In MLS, for example, assist stats are readily available. If the information is extremely difficult to find, however, then I say yes, get rid of it. Che84 00:32, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Alberto Crapini

Is this guy real? On google only relevant links are from Wikipedia and, well, why would a decent Serie A striker move to the Conference North.. so yup, looks like some kind of prank to me. Mattythewhite 21:10, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Very very obvious hoax article. Send it to AfD, dude. ChrisTheDude 21:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Definitely a hoax. Consider also to PROD it. --Angelo 21:22, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Have speedied it. ArtVandelay13

Deleted. – Elisson • T • C • 21:30, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Player Info boxes

I've just been through all the Lincoln City players and all of the info boxes contained stats per season/club instead of just per club. An example of this is Jamie Forrester's page with this being before I changed it and here being what I've changed it to. I can't seem to find any other club which had its players in the old format before I changed it but I was just wondering whether this was a result of a concensus that has never become standard or whether my changes were correct? Chappy84 21:28, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Quite a lot of Swiss player articles are like this, but it's not advised, as the infoboxes would simply get too tall. ArtVandelay13 21:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Also when the flags are used the club names and seasons don't even remotely line up, at least not in IE6..... ChrisTheDude 22:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I really don't see the need for the flags in infoboxes and I think there is a consensus which agrees. Without legitimate dissent, this should be put into the MOS.  Sʟυмgυм • т • c  23:05, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'll agree that it should go into the MOS. I try to keep my watchlist clear of them as I know the problems that they can cause. aLii 23:08, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Though the subject is off-topic, I'll address the comments on flags by saying that their appearance in the infobox should be based on the individual player. For a guy who has only played in 1 or 2 countries, I think they're worthless. If a guy has played in more than that though, then they're extremely useful, because it can be difficult to tell what country a club is from based solely on the name. Jeremiah White, for example, has played either youth or professional football in 5 different countries. Adding flags makes his article more informative and easy to view for the reader. Justin Mapp, however, has only played in the United States, so putting flags is pretty much unnecessary. Also, the topic of flags has been brought up on numerous occasions, and no consensus could ever really be reached. Che84 23:14, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

But as Chris explained before, whenever used, flags don't line up with club names and seasons in IE6. —Lesfer ^(t/c/@) 23:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The entire format of player info boxes should be changed because one browser doesn't view them correctly? If there isn't a consensus, it shouldn't be removed. And I'm using IE6 right now...it's not very far off. Che84 23:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking at the Jamie Forrester example cited above in IE at the moment and the word "Total" in the centre column lines up with 2002/03 in the left hand column - I'd say that's quite significantly off..... ChrisTheDude 21:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's the format for player infoboxes. I do not see a single flagicon on it. —Lesfer ^(t/c/@) 20:52, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

They were added for a good reason. It adds more information to the page. In any case, in reverting my edit on the Jeremiah White page, you neglected the change in his stats. Please be more careful when reverting my edits in the future. Che84 21:03, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

All I can say is: if the majority of player articles are in as bad shape as those of Lincoln City's, we've got our work cut out. - Dudesleeper · Talk 01:18, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

My opinion on flags inside infobox templates: when they can add relevant and useful information, such as in this case, they should be included. --Angelo 01:37, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Regarding this case (Lutz Pfannenstiel) you mentioned above, Angelo, I'm looking at it in IE right now: the last Norway flag (for Bærum SK) lines up with "2002-2003". There's definitely a problem regarding these flags and some browsers. —Lesfer ^(t/c/@) 03:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

(answer to Lesfer) To me it looks fine. I use Mozilla Firefox 2 on WinXP, probably you're using IE. This is probably a bug in the template code. --Angelo 13:32, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

For the players' place of birth/nationality, they're useful (for those who have trouble reading). For the nation in which a club is located, it's just easy on the eye (or not, as the case may be). Opinions, of course, but I hope we agree on some kind of standard before too much longer. - Dudesleeper · Talk 01:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree about including it in the nation, don't really care so much about it (in fact I never implemented it when creating new players' articles), but it might be a useful adding. About including flags aside clubs, to me it seems all a redundancy issue of how often flags are repeated, and how are they really useful and consistent with the infobox look. Some idea about how to formalize this concept? --Angelo 01:56, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the flags clutter up the player infobox without providing a great deal of information. The name of the player's nation of birth is listed, so I see no reason to add a flag there. I understand that it is not always apparent which nation some clubs are from, but it's probably easier to handle that within the article text rather than in the infobox. Regards. Jogurney 22:34, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Angelo, just look at Samuel Eto'o's infobox. Do we really need all those flags for the clubs from Spain? CAN 00:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Bobby Robson

Hi all. My next task in the world of WP:FOOTBALL is to get Sir Bobby up to FA. His article has a lot of good stuff in it but is woefully short on citation. Anyway, needless to say I'll be going at this until it makes featured status and wouldn't say no to anyone who fancies lending a hand. All the best The Rambling Man 17:24, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Article Improvement Drive / possible reform

For some time the level of activity on articles selected for the football article improvement drive has been declining. I've started a thread on possible changes to the scope and structure of the AID at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Article improvement drive, ideas and opinions would be welcome. Oldelpaso 20:10, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Fromowner

Hey,

I was wondering whether there'd be support for adding the image associated with the fromowner system across a lot of football articles without images. I ask this because I tried as a test run to add it to a few (maybe most) Arsenal F.C. footballers and I've gotten great results - 100% free pictures for both Kolo Toure and William Gallas and maybe more that I haven't noticed. We don't have too many footballer pics so I think this would be a great way to get more. Yonatan ^talk 00:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I strongly oppose this. It means that naive editors just upload copyright violations which just create a headache for other editors to tag as such & delete. The Toure and Gallas examples are exceptions rather than the rule, I am sure. I would just leave the infoboxes blank instead. Qwghlm 10:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Geni is quite skillful at detecting these copyvios and wouldn't mind getting more images to look over. I could also do this job. Copyvios will be uploaded anyway, in any system (including the current system), this system is just a way to get good images from people who aren't familiar with the wiki interface (and as previously shown, two images in a month is hardly a bad return). Yonatan ^talk 14:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

One good way to obtain free images is to search Flickr for Creative Commons images. Even if there you find no free images. sometimes Flickr users will release an image under a Creative Commons license if you make a politely worded request stating your wish to use the picture on Wikipedia. More often than not they are flattered by the request. Oldelpaso 17:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Excuse my ignorance regarding image licenses etc., but are all images published under a Creative Commons license suitable for Wikipedia; these for example? WATP  ^(talk) • _(contribs) 17:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK, all CC images that are not NC (non-commercial) or ND (non-derivate) are suitable for Wikipedia. – Elisson • T • C • 17:41, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

FYI, if you enter a license that includes NC and/or ND (say, cc-by-nd-nc) you'll get a speedy deletion template instead of a standard CC license. Also, the quickest way to search on Flickr for Wiki-ready photos is to go to the advanced search page and check off "Only search within Creative Commons-licensed photos", "Find content to use commercially" and "Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon". --Ytny (talk) 17:50, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

My bad, should have made that clearer. Listen to Ytny instead of me :-p Oldelpaso 17:58, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

We allow CC-BY-SA and CC-BY up to versions 2.5 (and technicaly CC-SA 1.0 although that is very uncommon).Geni 03:48, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

If you wanna make life much easier, you can use this tool to upload free images from flickr directly to commons. It gets all the author information, etc. you just have to add a description and category and you're good to go. Yonatan ^talk 01:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I want to become a member

Hiya, please could i become a member of wikpedia project for football, as i done some articles before, heres one example Jonathan Baillie. Please add me and get back to me, send me a message. Thank you, please could you also tell me if theres any articles that need improving and i will update them for you.

Birch34

You don't need to be appointed a member, you just join. Add your name to this list here, add the WikiProject to your watchlist and then get involved! A little advice: in future you will need to sign your posts by adding four tildes (~) to the end of your message. But welcome to the project! GiantSnowman 18:13, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

User:Birch34 is a suspected sockpuppet. Mattythewhite 18:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

User:AlexNewArtBot

Would it be worth setting something up with regards to a new articles list for the project? WATP  ^(talk) • _(contribs) 18:44, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Soccerbase blacklisted?

Can someone try and make a slight change to any page which includes a Soccerbase reference and see what happens? I'm trying to make a change to such a page and my edits keep getting blocked by the spam filter as it says that Soccerbase is blacklisted?!?!?!? ChrisTheDude 07:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Seems sorted now, must have been an error with the filter ChrisTheDude 08:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I just gave it a go and it seemed fine. There is nothing on the Spam blacklist that could have blocked it - a bit of a mystery really... Qwghlm 08:45, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

List of England international footballers

Note - I have reinstated this topic to bring it up to date. See end. Daemonic Kangaroo 13:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this article should be expanded to include every player who has represented England, and not just, as is currently, players who have 25+ caps. Any thoughts/objections? GiantSnowman 20:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, should be expanded. Archibald99  20:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. A complete "list" is better kept as a category. – Elisson • T • C • 20:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

But a category cannot give more information - for example, we could have date of first cap, age when first cap was won, opponents of first cap; date of last cap, age when last cap was won, opponents of last cap; number of goals, all in a sortable wikitable. GiantSnowman 21:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I quite like the idea of a football equilavent of List of English Test cricketers, with the information above. That said, the England players category currently contains 824 articles and is no doubt no fully populated. That's a big list, if done properly. So I'm ambivalent. HornetMike 21:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I second what HornetMike says - a list of players is a good idea, with caps and appearances etc. included, more than a category can include. Qwghlm 21:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

A list similar to that for the cricketers would be great. Much more information than can be given in a category, but a huge undertaking (would be happy to help with it though). WikiGull 12:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

You could use this as a basis; might need to be wary of copyright issues but you cannot really copyright lists of statistics so as long as the format was different from that one it'd be fine, in my opinion. Qwghlm 13:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Great, I'll try and start doing something with this. Do we want to agree on the column headings?WikiGull 14:39, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I suggest:

Name	Caps	Goals	Date of first cap	Opponents of first cap	Age at first cap	Date of last cap	Opponents of last cap	Age at last cap

I also think the table should be organised by date of first cap.

Any thoughts? GiantSnowman 15:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

How about this (with first few lines)

Number	Name	Date of birth	Caps	Goals	Date of first cap	Opponents of first cap	Venue of first cap	Date of last cap	Opponents of last cap
1	Robert Barker	June 19, 1847	1	0	November 30, 1872	Scotland	Hamilton Crescent
2	Ernest Greenhalgh	August 22, 1848	2	0	November 30, 1872	Scotland	Hamilton Crescent	March 8, 1873	Scotland

WikiGull 15:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that the venue and opposition of first/last caps is a bit much (especially for narrower screens) - just the dates will do for now. Also I would get rid of the number column as well; I would just have name, DoB, caps, goals, first cap date, last cap date. Qwghlm 15:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Agree - scrap number and venue. GiantSnowman 16:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

How about using flags for the opposition then? Adds more information to the table without the wideness problem. Have done it for the first 20 players as below

Name	Date of birth	Caps	Goals	Date of first cap	Date of last cap
Robert Barker	June 19, 1847	1	0	November 30, 1872
Ernest Greenhalgh	August 22, 1848	2	0	November 30, 1872	March 8, 1873
Reg Welch	June 20, 1851	2	0	November 30, 1972	March 7, 1874
Fred Chappells	1850	1	0	November 30, 1872
William Maynard	June 19, 1847	2	0	November 30, 1872	March 4, 1876
John Brockbank	August 22, 1848	1	0	November 30, 1872
John Clegg	April 21, 1852	1	0	November 30, 1872
Arnold Smith	April 23, 1850	1	0	November 30, 1872
Cuthbert Ottaway	July 20, 1850	2	0	November 30, 1872	March 7, 1874
Charles Chenery	January 1, 1850	3	1	November 30, 1872	March 7, 1874
Charles Morice	May 27, 1850	1	0	November 30, 1872
Alex Morten	November 15, 1831	1	0	March 8, 1873
Leonard Howell	August 6, 1848	1	0	March 8, 1873
Alfred Goodwyn	March 13, 1850	1	0	March 8, 1873
Robert Vidal	September 3, 1853	1	0	March 8, 1873
Pelham Von Donop	April 28, 1851	2	0	March 8, 1873	March 6, 1875
William Clegg	April 21, 1852	2	0	March 8, 1873	January 18, 1879
Alex Bonsor	1852	2	0	March 8, 1873	March 6, 1875
Hubert Heron	January 30, 1852	5	0	March 8, 1873	March 2, 1878
William Kenyon-Slaney	August 24, 1847	1	0	March 8, 1873

Let me know what you think - have it stored on a subuser page at the minute. Am happy for that to be the working page until it's a bit more detailed if that helps. WikiGull 16:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me! GiantSnowman 17:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice work. However, whilst I see the reasons for just including flags, I think if you took this to FLC I think they'd automatically ask for full names. It's because not all flags are instantly recognisable. HornetMike 00:16, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Update

I have created a new article at List of England international footballers (alphabetical) which I hope is a complete list of England players. I know this is not in a table as envisaged above but at least it's a complete list. As this took me at least 36 hours to complete, I'll leave it to someone else to convert it into a table. Daemonic Kangaroo 13:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations, it looks fantastic! As soon as my exams are over I will have a week and bit of time to waste, so I'll help put it in a table. GiantSnowman 15:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

There are a large number of red links on this list. in the Category:England international footballers there are 688 articles, whereas there are 1148 players who have played for England; that leaves 460 players without articles. So it's time to get researching/writing guys! To me, the most surprising omissions are Ralph Coates (formerly of Burnley & Tottenham Hotspur) and David Nish (Derby County). Who can resist the opportunity to create an article about players whose names resonate like Percy de Paravicini or Pelham von Donop, or even James "Tadger" Stewart!. Daemonic Kangaroo 06:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

---

Ok, so now this means we have:

• List of England international footballers
• List of England players with only one cap
• List of England international footballers (alphabetical)

Now, this might be a chore, but why not just combine these and use the class="sortable" class to make sortable tables? Take a look at List of Arsenal F.C. players - using the {{sortname}} template you can sort players by surnames in the page with no need for separate duplicate pages. Am willing to put in some of the legwork on this one myself if need be. Qwghlm 10:14, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

You're absolutely right; they will need to be merged together, if someone can put in the time to convert the list into a table. Step 1 was to arrive at a complete list of England players which didn't exist previously on Wikipedia. Is there any way that the conversion from list to table can be done without hours of typing? Daemonic Kangaroo 10:34, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I have now converted it into a table (reasonable effortlessly thanks to regular expressions!), available here: User:Qwghlm/List of England international footballers. I'll look into merging cap and goal data in due course. Qwghlm 10:36, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow! That was quick - it's great to have someone here with the ability to do such things. I can just about create spreadsheets! Are you happy for me to dive in sometime and start adding the cap and goal data? Indeed, is there any reason why you can't replace the existing list with the contents of your user page? Daemonic Kangaroo 10:45, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking into the possibility of automatically parsing the tables from englandfootballonline.com directly and saving the chore of typing in information (1148 players is a lot!) for both you & anyone else here. I've done this sort of thing before (e.g. the league tables in most of Category:Seasons in English football were created automatically) so it shouldn't take too long, give me until the end of the day... Qwghlm 10:49, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll leave you to it for now, esp. as I have a lawn to mow! My only comment is that englandfootballonline.com does not have a separate page for each player which is why I chose to link to englandstats.com. Unfortunately, for some players, e.g. Tinsley Lindley the two sites have different goal stats! Hey ho - I'm being summoned into the garden. Thanks for the input so far. Daemonic Kangaroo 10:56, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Archiving Talk:Zinedine Zidane

Lately, I've created archives for talk pages that were getting long, namely Talk:Cristiano Ronaldo, Talk:Wayne Rooney and Talk:Red Bull New York. I was trying to do the same with Talk:Zinedine Zidane but I can't figure out how the discussions are organized. There are overlaps in dates and topics, and I'm afraid if I try to fix it, I'll make a bigger mess. I'd appreciate any help from anyone who's experienced with archiving pages or had a hand in creating the archives.

Now, it looks like it would make sense to have two sets of archives, a chronological one (up to June 2006, July 2006, and August to December 2006) and a topical one (name issues and Materazzi incident). - Ytny 07:23, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

FA Cup Final winning goalscorer

The IP user 172.143.175.212 has added a succession box to the page of every FA Cup winning goalscorer. There are several problems here:

• Poor wiki markup means that some existing succession boxes and templates have been affected. (Could be easily fixed, although may take a little while)
• He/she has linked to 'F A Cup Final' instead of the standard 'FA Cup Final'. I've created a redirect as a workaround, but this still needs fixing to the standard format.
• Most importantly, do we want this information, and if so how do we define a winning goal? Daemonic Kangaroo has already made this point on the IP user's talk page (User talk:172.143.175.212).

What does everyone think? --Jameboy 18:25, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I noticed that when Roger Osborne was edited. In my opinion we don't need it, it's analagous to overcategorisation. The Rambling Man 18:32, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

As you can tell from my comments on the anonymous user's talk page, I have considerable doubts about what he has been doing. My main concern is - why should the last goalscorer in an FA Cup final be more important than the first, second or third etc.? The technical problems with some of his edits can all be fixed - I just don't like the whole idea, and am all for simply deleting them, but am hesitant to do so without some strong evidence of a consensus that that is what should be done.. Daemonic Kangaroo 18:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Indiscriminate info. Just where does FIFA define "winning goal" anyway? - fchd 18:58, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

As per Kangaroo & Mr Rundle, if, say, someone was to score a hat-trick in the final, and then someone scored a fourth, who scored the winner? Dubious definition warning. Remove. The Rambling Man 19:08, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't like it. It's trivia - it's not as if it's a title, position or award. We've already been deprived of Category:FA Cup Final goalscorers due to unpopular demand. That would have been much more useful than this.  Sʟυмgυм • т • c  19:27, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree and have started rolling back these changes per consensus above. It's just succession boxes for succession boxes' sake. Qwghlm 20:23, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

User:Pedro Gabriel Kallstrom Henry

I'm rather concerned about the articles created by this user. I tagged Philips Sperrow Football Team as an AfD and I prodded Pedro Gabriel Barroso de Oliveira but I'm not sure about the other players that he has created. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 01:55, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Derry City F.C.

Would anyone be willing to add their support to the nomination of Derry City F.C. for FA status? Cheers. Danny Invincible^Talk|Edits 12:35, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Silly season

(after my umpteenth Sylvain Distin related edit) Its that time of year again where the merest hint of a club wishing to sign a player results in articles being edited to claim the transfer has taken place. Thinking aloud here so this might be a daft idea, but how about creating a page for listing players subject to transfer speculation so that Special:Recentchangeslinked can act as a watchlist? Oldelpaso 20:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it all crystal-balling until the fat lady sings? The Rambling Man 20:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I meant a project space page, to make reverting gun-jumping edits easier. Certainly not a mainspace page! *shudders at thought of List of players who might possibly be transferred* Oldelpaso 20:35, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Personally I'm am just watchlisting every player that my team (Liverpool) gets linked with and am trying to keep them free of crap. I think a bit of sourced transfer speculation is ok, because it should cut down the number of bad edits that basically say the same thing. aLii 20:31, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about any of it. Speculation doesn't belong here, in my mind I'd imagine a snaphshot of an encyclopaedia (okay, so not a paper one) and can't believe that all the transfer speculation nonsense that will go on for the next two months should be documented, except perhaps on individual players pages with good (e.g. BBC) references. But aLii has a good point, this time of the year is so boring to continually remove speculation. Let me know if I can help! The Rambling Man 20:40, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

A good idea - at the very least, I don't think it would be harmful in any way, if kept in the project namespace. Qwghlm 21:18, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Sort of related question - can anyone explain why Fernando Torres is such a frequent target of crystal balling? In the last month, he has been all but signed to Manchester United, while his YNWA tattoo is a clear indication that he's headed to Celtic and/or Liverpool. I can also see Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo articles being frequent targets. --Ytny (talk) 22:26, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

The most trouble I'm having at the moment is people jumping the gun with regards to players signed on Bosmans and pre-contracts. I quite like the idea of the project page though, would make a lot of work this summer easier and quicker. Also, lol at the Torres/Celtic thing. WATP  ^(talk) • _(contribs) 22:50, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Lets standardize national team templates

The template keep on coming.

• Template:Canada Squad 2000 CONCACAF Gold Cup Champions (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Matthew_hk tc 08:51, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

• Template:Ghana Squad 1978 African Cup, Template:Ghana squad 1995 FIFA U-17 Championship, Template:Ghana Squad 1982 African Cup. Punkmorten 09:14, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I made a tfd for those four. Neier 13:48, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

It's easy to vote delete there, but no one actually bother to delete the deleted template from each players' article page. 121.44.13.175 05:43, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Alternative squad template

I've created a new template set for expanded squad lists, mainly designed to fill season information such as caps and goals per competition. You can look at it here and here. --Angelo 18:32, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

a couple of comments: I don't think goalies should have goals against listed in the goals column, while most keepers don't score, the Chilaverts and Higuitas do. The term "Caps" is usually only used for internationals. Oldelpaso 19:36, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I've replaced "caps" with "apps" ("appearances" is too long). About the goals against, I think this might be an additional and useful information. In case keepers score too, since it is a very unlikely thing (unless you go to the Rogerio Ceni and Hans-Jorg Butt's clubs) a footnote might be enough. --Angelo 19:59, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Noting results of penalty-shoot outs in cup ties

There has been some difference of opinion between editors (myself included) at the UEFA Champions League 2006-07 article about noting the results of penalty shoot-outs next to the results in the main article, rather than just showing a "p" next to the winning team. My opinion is that is useful information, others think less so and I have had my edits reverted (and the page requested for protection). There's a brief discussion on the relevant talk page, but I think it merits wider discussion here. - fchd 19:23, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

UEFA website uses both ways [1]. In my opinion, you should include the final penalty shootout result followed by the "(p)". That's the way I believe fits better. Writing just the aggregate result removes a bit of information, by the way. --Angelo 19:32, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

National team

I have found a few distressing redirects related to soccer and I didn't quite know where else to bring the issue up. National team redirects to FIFA and US national team redirects to United States men's national soccer team. These are just the ones I found, but there is a clear bias towards soccer here. The term national team should by no means be redirected to FIFA of all things. Could anybody give me a hand in fixing this problem? JHMM13 22:54, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Logo deletion

I've noticed the logo images of many national associations and related teams have been flagged for deletion due to their lack of a fair use rationale. The images need a licensing tag, such as {{Non-free logo}}, which in our case should be {{Non-free logo|football logos}} which will add the image to the football logos category.

But to keep the images we also need a written rationale as well as the {{Non-free logo}} tag.

I would suggest something like this:

Non-free media rationale – NEEDS ARTICLE NAME

Article	[[{{{Article}}}]]
Purpose of use	To identify the organisation and its representative teams. To appear only on the article on the Latvian Football Federation and the articles of its representative teams: Senior Under-21s Women
Replaceable?	Cannot be replaced with a copyright free alternative.

Just glancing at Category:All disputed non-free images I can see at least 25 football logos, all of which should be covered by this rationale. Therefore we need to act promptly.  Sʟυмgυм • т • c  11:07, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Category

I'm looking to set up a category for England 'B' internationals as there are quite a few such players who have articles on Wikipedia. There are categories for most of the other levels of England representation and I feel that it would be beneficial for Wikipedia to have one for B internationals as well. Does anyone have any objections/comments? I'll await some feedback before going ahead. Thanks. --EH74DK 11:51, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that such a category would be useful. You might find the RSSF site useful as a point of reference. Daemonic Kangaroo 18:21, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - that's a very useful link. There are also a lot of recent players who have won B caps. I'll go ahead with the category. --EH74DK 18:29, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

The Football League players categories

I was wandering, what is the need for Category:The Football League players (current)? Why can't that and Category:The Football League players be merged into one? Category:Premier League players gives them all past and present, so why shouldn't The Football League? Mattythewhite 12:20, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

There was an aborted attempt to Delete/Merge this category earlier this month at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 May 11#Category:The Football League players which resulted in no consensus. This may have arisen as it was lumped in with Category:The Football League players. 82.11.41.163 12:48, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the need for either category myself. Would have suggested deletion if I'd spotted it in the articles for deletion. WikiGull 16:22, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Serbia and Montenegro articles

I have reverted all redirect. It is believed that the articles should be invert into historical articles, not redirecting articles. KyleRGiggs 14:27, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I really don't understand what you've said above. Could you please clarify? Qwghlm 15:10, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

He's changed the Serbia and Montenegro articles from redirects to Serbia into their own articles. I don't think this is a good idea, as Serbia are officially the successor team of Serbia and Montenegro (and Yugoslavia), and every stage can't have its own article. ArtVandelay13 15:25, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh God, I'm not even going to go there. FWIW there are separate pages for the Northern Ireland and Ireland (IFA) teams despite one being an official continuation of the other. But I stay well clear of nationalist disputes these days. Qwghlm 15:44, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

National teams' page template

Hi. I have raised a couple of issues about the National teams' pages template at it's talk page - Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/National teams#Biggest_win/defeat - and i hope some will take a look, and give an opinion, there. Thanks. Enjoy! - Nabla 14:43, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

A Class articles

Evening. Currently we have three A-class articles. Derry City is currently gunning for FA, Sheffield United was rejected as a GA back in late November, and Aldershot Town has never been pushed for anything. I'm tempted to put the Shots and the Blades up for GA, and if Derry fails I think that should go up too, as most A class articles are good enough for GA status. Any thoughts or objections? к1иgf1$н£я5ω1fт 19:13, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I can't see the Aldershot article getting anywhere at all in its present state, it doesn't have a single reference in it ChrisTheDude 21:29, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Aldershot's current rating is under scrutiny. Dave101→talk  21:40, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Isnt it GA < A < FA? Daniel 08:48, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Is or Are

When describing clubs. I've seen it discussed before, but never a proper consensus and I reverted the Rangers F.C. article when it was changed from the latter to the former, only for my revert to be undone. Without wanting to revert again without checking, which is correct? WATP  ^(talk) • _(contribs) 14:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I would say is. Mattythewhite 14:48, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

It was already discussed somewhere else. There's no mandatory form, the only thing is to be consistent (if you are using is, always use it in the article). My preferred option is to use the third singular form. --Angelo 15:02, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

*Lengthy discussion with no consensus here.* WATP  ^(talk) • _(contribs) 15:04, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm probably going to muddy the waters here. I would say "Rangers F.C. IS a football club", but "Rangers ARE a football team" - i.e. the club is singular but the team plural. - fchd 15:08, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd favour is, as that's the norm for British English (although, admittedly, it's not exclusively used). Are is more of an Americanism. See American and British English differences#Formal and notional agreement. robwingfield ^«T•C» 15:16, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

One more good reason to support the is choice :) --Angelo 15:18, 25 May 2007 (UTC) I didn't read that article, sorry. In fact the article says the exact opposite (is is AmE, are is BrE). My English is the one I learnt in Canada, in any case, and I always used is in Italian football articles. Anyway, I think it's actually just a matter of personal preference. --Angelo 16:20, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Umm, that link supports what Qwghlm says below, that are is the BrE variant, while is is the AmE variant. I've started to use the plural form for the Swedish football club articles i edit or rewrite, since the English taught in Swedish schools (as well as Swedish football) is much more influenced by BrE than by AmE. – Elisson • T • C • 16:13, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I use are, at least for articles about British clubs, as in British English the plural can be used both for sporting entities (teams) and corporate entities and associations (clubs) with no fuss. Qwghlm 15:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

My personal preference is are, purely because the majority of usage in the media and in general conversation in the UK certainly seems to lean that way. WATP  ^(talk) • _(contribs) 16:27, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I've had a short search around the web to see how British and US news services differ in sports articles. BBC uses are [2], CNN prefers is [3]. --Angelo 16:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

All British media use the plural form almost exclusively. Basically I agree with fchd in that "team" is plural, but "club" is singular. aLii 18:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

A "team" is made up of 11 players minimum. They are. A "club" is a collection of people also. They are. You cannot differentiate like that, in my opinion. Therefore, I would always use are, if or when I have to in the future. Ref ^(chew)(do) 23:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

That argument's slightly spurious - a country is also made up of a collection of people but you wouldn't say, for example, "England are located in Western Europe". I wouldn't anyway..... ChrisTheDude 16:17, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Olympic goals don't count in international stats?

Do goals in the Olympics count as international goals? For example, Brian Maisonneuve scored twice for the USA in the 1996 Olympics, but his infobox says 0 intl goals. --AW 15:17, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Olympics matches are at U-23 not full level, so I would say no. That said, you could always have the Olympic/U-23 caps listed separately from full international caps in the infobox, as long as the distinction is made clear. Qwghlm 15:29, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Olympics football is a U-23 event since 1992. Matthew_hk tc 15:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

And before 1992 it was nominally an amateur tournament wasn't it? aLii 18:46, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Teamlist changes

User:Adam mills2005 has made a number of changes to the Premier League to Conference teamlists. Firstly he actually fixed an inconsistency, where they had dots to seperate the teams, whereas all the lower league templates have these - |. I dunno whether everyone's OK with that, or whether there was a reason for dots, or whether the lower league should have dots. Consensus? I think in doing so he's mucked up the spacing, which is beyond my skills. And he's updated them a bit prematurely, it looks a bit weird, although it'll all be sorted over the weekend. HornetMike 18:29, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

FIFA Clubs of the 20th Century

Basically a public poll, nothing official or notable about it. What's Manchester United doing in the top ten anyway. Please delete, oh mighty admin. BestEditorEver 11:25, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

If you don't think it's worthy of staying in Wikipedia, propose it for deletion. To me, this article does not fit speedy deletion requisites (read here for details). --Angelo 11:50, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Pfft. Can't be bothered right now. Thanks for the links though! BestEditorEver 12:14, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I've taken off the prod tag - it's an official poll, by FIFA, and one that was officially recognised by Real Madrid. By all means AfD it, see what the consensus is. ArtVandelay13 15:55, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Real Madrid ranks first, of course they would recognize the poll findings. But Google only comes up with 23 hits, some of which are mirror sites--so I have my doubts if the poll is relevant. A club with only two European Cup finals as second best? This poll can't be official. BestEditorEver 16:54, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

They wouldn't recognise a poll by, say, FourFourTwo magazine - the key thing is that it's a FIFA poll. Whether you agree with the results is here nor there. But again - AfD it, see what people think. ArtVandelay13 17:00, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Never heard of the magazine, but it's British, hence the Manchester United result. Anyway, could you provide a source that backs up your claim that the poll is officially recognized by FIFA? No point in seeking deletion if that hideous thing is actually official. BestEditorEver 17:13, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

There is a FIFA.com link on the page itself. Incidentally, the magazine isn't British, it's sold everywhere and not well-known in Britain. I doubt a British bias would put FC Bayern in third; Man U have a huge worldwide following which would put them into second place. Not something I agree with, but there you are. ArtVandelay13 17:18, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I've noticed the link too, but the page doesn't indicate if FIFA endorses the poll results or not. Doesn't give any information at all on who conducted the poll or who commissioned it or who paid for the results (Manchester United). Whatever. I'll get over it. BestEditorEver 17:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, and please try to keep a NPOV in the future. Just because you don't think Man Utd fits on the list, doesn't mean everyone else thinks the same. – Elisson • T • C • 18:19, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Your condescending tone aside (although it amuses me), the above conversation was mainly about the whether the poll is valid or not. Questioning the ranking of Manchester was just an aside. You would know this of course if your reading comprehension wasn't that of a third-grader. See, I can be condescending too--though apparently I'm better at it. BestEditorEver 18:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

BestEditor, please, let's avoid personal attacks. Well, this was pretty much simply based on a opinion. But (un)fortunately there's no room for opinons in here. Wiki does not care what we think about Manchester United, Real Madrid or Malaysia National Team. This ranking, poll, or whatever it is, it is fact, it is real, it is there, sourced with a link to FIFA.com, and this is what really matters. And Man U is on the list regardless of people liking it or not. —Lesfer ^(t/c/@) 19:53, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh ok then (thepollisrigged) BestEditorEver 20:55, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Importance rates

Looking around the Wiki, I've seen many of the articles supported by this WikiProject still don't have an importance rate and lots of them are not realistic (e.g. Demis Nikolaidis, Sheffield United F.C., Beşiktaş J.K., Fenerbahçe S.K. and Galatasaray S.K. as Top-importance). I guess we all should make something to fill this gap. --Angelo 20:10, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

One problem, in my opinion, is that the template used for the importance scale is a general one. Personally I think it would be better creating a similar template specifically for this WikiProject; multiple examples could be given for player bios, clubs, stadiums etc. I think this would help make assessments more consistent and result in fewer unrealistic ratings like above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dave101 (talk • contribs) 19:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that the suggestions made here by HornetMike are very good, and are the guidelines that I now use. Gasheadsteve 19:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

To me they're fine. However, we all should consider about rating all football-related articles. Most of these articles don't have any kind of rating at all. --Angelo 20:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

How would you assess Sheffield United F.C. in terms of importance? To me it's "mid-importance", however this was reverted by another user, seemingly a Sheffield Utd fan, who set it up as "high-importance". P.S. Here is my proposal for importance rating on football, it is mainly based on Gasheadsteve's one, feel free to put it into the assessment department if you agree with it. --Angelo 00:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

That looks much better. I would support using that over the current template. Dave101→talk  15:10, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Fulham F.C. squad

What do you guys think about this? Kingjamie 20:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Also this. Personally I prefer the standard squad template. WATP  ^(talk) • _(contribs) 20:53, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, what are you going to do with teams where contract and apperance data is hard to come by Kingjamie 20:56, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, it's also barely relevant to the main club article. WATP  ^(talk) • _(contribs) 21:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I have now reverted these versions Kingjamie 21:17, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I understand some people could prefer the old format, but some other people could like to have more information about the whole squad in one table instead have to go to each players article. Also, there is no need to use this new format for all clubs, I used it for FC Barcelona because I'd like to know those information, I collected it, and release for anyone else who also like to know it. I believe those information are relevant to the article because the players are the most important asset for a football club. Also, the new table only add new information, it doesn't take anything, so it doesn't take anything from anyone who couldn't like it (the old one takes information from people who could want to know it). I'd like to place it back and hear from other people (I had opened a discussion on FC Barcelona), if someone used it on another club it shows some people like it.

However, the current template set is the result of a long, hard discussion on the matter and it seems to be fully appreciated. A large majority of people here agreed that additional unnecessary information related to individual player should be instead included into the players' associated articles. I could also say the current template is appreciated too as it's been used in (at least) the Italian, Spanish and Swedish Wikipedia. --Angelo 20:10, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Soccerbase and t'play-offs

This has probably been asked before, so please link as necessary. Soccerbase isn't including league play-off appearances in players' stats, which will likely cause some confusion when editors compare stats in their articles with their profile at said website. What's our take on this: include play-off appearance stats or not? - Dudesleeper · Talk 04:23, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

They are listed in the "Other" column, see the profile of yesterday's goalscorer Robbie Williams. Playoffs are technically a separate tournament from the league. Oldelpaso 08:42, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Where is that stated? If the Football League or the Association of Football Statisticians say so then fine but I think we need some sort of definitive reference to make sure and prevent arguments in the future. Qwghlm 09:07, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The Other column isn't displaying Williams' goal from yesterday (it's showing zero goals). - Dudesleeper · Talk 09:23, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Probably because its a UK Bank Holiday this weekend and its not yet been updated, the game isn't listed in the "games played by this player in 2006-07" either.

Upon further inspection of a number of places which keep appearance statistics, some count playoffs as additional League matches and put them in the League column, others put them in the "other competitions" column, and there is no dominant approach. The fact that Manchester City's official club records and Soccerbase treat them as separate may have misled me. In the case of British clubs, I'd go with whatever convention Rothmans uses, as its as close to the definitive statistical tome as one is likely to get. Anybody own one? Oldelpaso 09:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Regarding, your first point: you would be correct; it has been updated now. - Dudesleeper · Talk 13:01, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, lordy Soccerbase's refusal to see play-off games as league games does my nut in. When updating an infobox - what's seen as a simple thing to do - people aren';t going to search through the season stats to see whether those 3 appearances listed in other are play-offs or Auto Windscreens or whatever. Even if you have, as I have with a number of Watford ones, people often think you've done the adding up wrong when updating and simply delete them. As far as I'm concerned, the play-offs are a football league extension tournament, thus they're league games. No other statisician I've encountered seperates them. As a side-note, the more experience I have with it, the more I find Soccerbase is inaccurate fairly frequently. I wish football have an equilavent to CricInfo. HornetMike 11:59, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The Rothmans yearbook (sorry, Sky Sports yearbook now) does EXCLUDE play-off appearances from season-by-season and career league appearances. - fchd 12:13, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

As do both of Barry Hugman's books: the PFA Who's Who, and the Football League Records 1946-2005. Based on this, the infoboxes have to omit them too, it's the only way they'll be consistent. ArtVandelay13 12:24, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

In which case I say go with those books and declare playoffs not to be league matches. Maybe it's worth adding this to the instructions for {{Infobox Football biography}}? Qwghlm 17:09, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I've added a note there, but haven't gone further until we reach a consensus. - Dudesleeper · Talk 19:45, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, the BBC seems to be counting them as league games. If you compare Steve Howard's league goals on the Derby page on the BBC and Soccerbase websites, you'll see they give different numbers. Gasheadsteve 18:42, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I've been doubting the Beeb's stats for a while now, and I've just discovered they aren't listing Andy Morrell, who scored 16 league goals this season. Also, they had the aggregate scoreline of Blackpool's win over Oldham in the play-off semis incorrectly displaying as 4-2 for the duration of its appearance on the League One frontpage. - Dudesleeper · Talk 20:11, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll go ahead an remove them from the Blackpool player articles in which I included the play-off stats. Hopefully people who added them to the player articles of the other eleven teams involved in the play-offs will get wind of this. - Dudesleeper · Talk 18:44, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

To compound the issue, Soccerbase is including play-off results when calculating managerial statistics. - Dudesleeper · Talk 19:56, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

No reason why it shouldn't, it includes matches from all competitions. ArtVandelay13 20:14, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

That's right, so it should. It's part of a manager's personal stats. However, rewinding slightly, the play-offs certainly are not part of the League season. They are not pre-published League fixtures within the season, they are a separate tournament at the end of the season, with participants obviously TBA at the time of the publishing of League fixtures. That's logical; it's unfortunate if it disrupts the statisticians among us. A little extra research usually does the trick in these cases. Ref ^(chew)(do) 20:18, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Starting line-ups

Just came across this, what are people's opinions on starting line-ups in club articles? Surely there is no one standard line up, due to injury, form, squad rotation etc. and so isn't this just conjecture and opinion? GiantSnowman 10:20, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree. As I put it in a previous discussion - the manager picks the team, not Wikipedia. Such an inclusion is inevitable POV and only leads to edit wars. It should be removed straight away. Qwghlm 10:57, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

This has been discussed before somewhere. Anyway, yeah the consensus was that stuff like this is definetely POV. Either it's just someone picking the best players, or it's a "most common" line-up which is deceptive also - even if you pick the 11 players with the highest appearance stats, the line-up depicted won't necessarily be the most regular one. I think it was agreed that such pictures showing the line-up from a special match - a cup final, for instance - were alright, although I don't especially like them. HornetMike 11:59, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

A tip to seek out these starting line-ups: Check Image:Soccer.Field Transparant.png and see which pages this image is included in. Punkmorten 13:08, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Er...as of the timestamp below, only this talk page links to the image - that's not an impressive tool to be using at the moment, really. Ref ^(chew)(do) 19:52, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

He meant the "File links" section (half way down the Image:Soccer.Field Transparant.png page). - Dudesleeper · Talk 19:57, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Click on the link, scroll down, discover the section called "File links". Punkmorten 19:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Notability

I would like to see the consensus on how best to approach minor incidents that are of significance. Whilst there is a temptation, indeed an obligation, to keep wiki up to date, at what point do we draw the line. For instance, today West Brom lost in the playoff final. This was a significant event in the club's recent history. But does the fact that the match took place on May 28, 2007 warrant a mention?

This specific example has a straightforward solution, i.e. a re-edit to inform the reader of the event, without giving irrelevant and unnecessary detail. A better example is Aston Villa, and the coverage given to their title and subsequent European Cup winning season relative to the last few seasons. Could someone outline the general policy for sports teams in this kind of case, or if there isn't one what's the general consensus? BeL1EveR 17:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd say the date is important since European seasons span two calendar years. - Dudesleeper · Talk 18:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the exact date, to the day, is important, instead the sentence about West Brom's promotion final loss should just use the season involved. As for the recentism in articles, there is no general policy as such but any article deemed of Good or Featured status should have a comprehensive and balanced coverage of a club's history. Qwghlm 19:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Premier League - potential featured topic?

A WikiProject's greatest achievement is probably producing a featured topic.

Premier League is currently an FA, and among the 20 clubs' articles, there are 4 FAs (Arsenal F.C., Chelsea F.C., Everton F.C. and Manchester City F.C.) and 1 GA (Liverpool F.C.). The other 15 clubs' articles all deserve at least a B-class rating.

Hence, "Premier League clubs" (with Premier League as the lead article) has the potential to become a featured topic. If at least half of the other 15 clubs' articles are improved to GA status, a featured topic nomination is likely to pass.

Unfortunately, because I do not know much about most of the clubs, I am not in a position to contribute much in terms of content. Nevertheless, I would be happy to file, comment at and addressed concerns raised a peer reviews, GA nominations and the featured topic nomination.

I will consider joining this WikiProject in future, as I intend to contribute to articles pertaining to Chelsea (which I have supported for 4 years) and football in Singapore.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 07:09, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree, that sounds as if it would be possible and would be an excellent achievement. There are probably a number of topics within the scope of this project which could have the potential to be featured as well as the Premier League, perhaps things such as Football in (country) articles and related pages or World Cups. WATP  ^(talk) • _(contribs) 10:03, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

League play-off finals

Just wondering if these would be regarded as notable enough to safely exist as articles. There was no mention of it at WPF:Notability. - Dudesleeper · Talk 19:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I would think so; it might not be the league exactly, but its close enough.. and are appearences in the League Cup enough to give notability? Mattythewhite 19:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean with "league play-off finals"? If you mean a standalone article for things like the 2007 Football League Championship playoffs, I disagree, otherwise we should also consider making an article for more relevant finals such as the UEFA Cup and Intertoto Cup ones. --Angelo 20:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

We have Football League Championship Playoffs and I think notability would certainly stretch to a similar list for Conference finals. If you mean articles for individual finals, then I'd be inclined to agree with Angelo, above. To back him up, {{Champions League Final}} also has a few redlinks.  Sʟυмgυм • т • c  20:26, 29 May 2007 (UTC)