Talk:Belgium national football team/Archive 1

rv incorrent qualifying record streak
LimoWreck, what was incorrect about (1982-2002)? I'm quite sure they were there, I saw all the games. Please explain when you revert. Piet 10:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm, 1982-2002 was correct, sorry, that got lost in the edits. It was the phrase "behind italy's seven" that was incorrect, but seems something got lost because i actually restored a part of a previous version. Seems to be correct now ;-) --LimoWreck 10:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * No problem. Piet 10:58, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Current squad
Since it not updated since October, the November, and February squad missed. I just change squad to only the current squad for last match. Matthew_hk  t  c  09:44, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Red Devils
I believe the name was invented earlier. Camille Jenatzy had the same nickname at around the same time, because of his red beard.

Vanden Borre
Should he be added in the Belgian current squad or Recent call-ups.--Villa88 (talk) 04:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Language
Does the team have any kind of policy about the language(s) used in the locker room? I'm curious, given the tensions between Flemings and Walloons. 24.11.127.26 (talk) 02:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Nope, freedom of language. It is true that now and then Dutch- and French-speaking players tend to cluster because of easier communication but in the current squad, there are no known tensions between players with different mother tongue. Most players understand Dutch and French, and many players (like Vincent Kompany and Romelu Lukaku) and coach Marc Wilmots can speak both languages well or fluently. Since the education of French in Flanders tends to be better than that of Dutch in Wallonia and since Wilmots is native French speaker, it is likely that French is used more frequently in the locker room.Kareldorado (talk) 12:04, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Football Uniform
Can someone change the Belgium football uniform on the display. the home kit is red and away is all black. http://www.footballshirtculture.com/11/12-kits/belgium-2011-2012-burrda-football-shirts.html check the references.

Andy4190 (talk)

Edit War
This article is clearly in the middle of an edit war, with MonkeyKingBar insisting on inserting this paragraph:
 * Belgium's FIFA World Cup appearances reflects the unusual depth of footballing talent for a country of this size, in the manner of the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Sweden. The Belgium qualified for six successive World Cups from 1982 through 2002, a record bettered only by Spain whose 2010 World Cup was their seventh consecutive qualification (a streak going back to 1986). Every other nation with an equal or longer string of appearances has had the streak "interrupted" by automatic qualification as the host or the defending champion (the 2006 tournament was the first for which the defending champion did not automatically qualify).

This is unsourced and is, it seems to me, original research. I believe the burden of proof lies with the editor attempting to insert or re-insert the material (MonkeyKingBar). Can MonkeyKingBar or another editor provide some justification for including this material? If so, I will gladly stop removing it. 99.224.54.167 (talk) 20:21, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think it needs to be included, it is OR and saying the depth of talent is "unusual" then listing three other European teams (to which you could add England, Denmark and Portugal off the top of my head as smallish Euro countries with fairly decent records) seems to suggest it is not unusual at all anyway. BulbaThor (talk) 22:13, 30 June 2012 (UTC)


 * England has over 50 million people, so it's not really "smallish". It has a much larger population than all the other countries mentioned. 108.254.160.23 (talk) 21:48, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

For me it is ok to insert pieces what a Belgian football fan could be proud about, but I would recommend only to include the parts that are still correct from a neutral/impartial point of view. For example, the part "a record bettered only by Spain whose 2010 World Cup was their seventh consecutive qualification (a streak going back to 1986)" is a at the same time kind of a compliment for the Belgian team but it also indicates an objective fact (I think, I don't know the qualification streaks for all countries) and because of that this small part could be inserted in my opinion. Kareldorado (talk) 18:53, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Youngest players
Would it not make more sense for the list of youngest players to state the team they were in when getting the first call up? An additional date for the debut could be useful too. — WardMuylaert (talk) 12:44, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Detailed FIFA rankings
The month-by-month coloured list of how many ranking points the team had at specific dates in the past are not very conducive to good prose at the article. I would propose that the highest ranking (and possibly lowest, too) may be included, somewhere in the history section, but a standalone section just about the rankings holds trivial value to the article. I have thus removed it; national team Featured Articles and Good Articles do not have such a section, so I imagine this article could be improved in different ways. Thanks, C679 12:17, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I somewhat regretted the removal, but agree that it was a substantial numerical portion with relatively few information. Thanks for the commented adaptation. I got the idea from Hungary national football team, currently a "B" rated article (which is not too bad at the national football team scale as most of these team articles are "C" rated). Kareldorado (talk) 18:31, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Update: Proposals for further elaboration of this article towards (F)A-class
After having put quite some effort in this article, I thought that next things could be useful to level up this article further to a splendid article about the Belgian national squad:

- Optimizing the word choice and the text in general

- Adding some kind of comment such that the current player list is always adapted in an appropriate way. In my opinion, this means: ranked by position, then player number, then surname, then first name; for loaners the club they actually play in should be shown. A similar comment between double arrows could be written, such that tables with numbers are adapted with caution.

- Uploading of suitable historic pictures into WikiMedia (a. o. squads from WC 1986, Euro 1980, (Done) as well as one of the mad Grand Place in Brussels in 1986), even though I don't know where to get the best pictures - legally (I am still quite a newb). A picture with the fan fury in 2013 and perhaps the "1895" logo (Done) would also make good pictures for "Supporters".

- Somewhat extending the team history and/or (Done) transferring the tournament history text parts into the history part. Maybe we should vote whether to do this last thing or not? Anyway, I think that in most A-class or featured national team articles an exhaustive history part is the case.

- Adding a "Records" section (Done)

- Creation of articles for the captains of the national team (to be found in the captain list) that were captain during a considerable amount of time - five matches, say

Is there someone with a creative pen around or a good photo searcher who wants to take care of one of these items? From now on I will probably contribute with rather minor edits. Thanks!

Kareldorado (talk) 13:58, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Managing the records: short summary and a separate article?
Hi, I'm aware that the current article is very large (about 180kB), mainly due to the many tables. Wouldn't it be better if we make a new article "Belgium national football team records", transferring the following tables: All-time team record, most appearances, most goals, youngest player, top-10 of captaincies? Then, at the main article we could make a small records section with statements about the individual and team records. Kareldorado (talk) 08:21, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Sure, why not, it's been done before, see England, Scotland and some more, even Iran. Basically: WP:BOLD! -- Pelotas talk undefined contribs  15:34, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, per WP:SS. C679 12:50, 17 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback; the records page is in progress! Kareldorado (talk) 19:24, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Historical results
I'm curious to see the results of 2013 and perhaps even earlier, but I don't know where to find them. Of course, I'd like to find them right here on Wikipedia, in the same kind of overview as we have here in the "Recent results and forthcoming fixtures" section. Any chance of having a few more 'recent years' in hidden format, or perhaps having them in a separate article somewhere? Or is that against some convention? I just feel like it's cut off a bit too late right now, because I can't even go back 9+ months. Sygmoral (talk) 18:08, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Look at the overview template below: you can consult in detail the results of the 1900s, 1910s, 1980s and 2010s. Currently, I am busy with completing the 1990s. Kareldorado (talk) 19:21, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Aha! I guess I should have found that, but the new pointer in the "recent" section makes it much more easily accessible, thanks! Sygmoral (talk) 01:13, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Yellow-on-red table headers
I don't like the red table headers. Not so much because they are red, but because the yellow-on-red combination simply doesn't look very professional. Yeah, I'm a web developer, I'm picky :) It's a bad contrast for readability, and it makes me think of toys or flashy shows.

I propose one of two changes:
 * Change the yellow text into white (still on red)
 * Go back to the default style (black on light-blue)

I'll be happy to make the required changes if we can agree :) Sygmoral (talk) 13:09, 23 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Well, for me it is a constructive suggestion, especially regarding the readability, but indeed, also to avoid an overcoloured page. I'd prefer white text on red background then. Kareldorado (talk) 20:06, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It will be a bit of work (also in the templates) but worth the effort. As I look over it the yellow does make the tables quite 'heavy' here and there. Kareldorado (talk) 20:22, 23 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Well, glad you agree! So I went ahead and made the changes :) I only changed the templates that appear on this page though - I haven't touched any subpages yet.
 * I was actually considering to only keep the top table headers as red, and change the second row and result row to grey - you can still see that try-out in my second-to-last edit on the Minor tournaments template and the Belgium vs Netherlands section. Might still want to do that after all. Sygmoral (talk) 03:04, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Article structure
Doesn't this article (still) feel too large? According to WP:SPLIT, it "almost certainly should be divided". But before making any changes towards that effect, I suggest taking a look at the current structure, and rearranging quite a bit. It may be easier to then see which pieces might need to be split off. I took inspiration from several other B-class national team articles.

I wonder for example whether there is a specific reasoning for the order of the current sections? I would suggest moving around some of them, with a special focus of course on the first few items, which I suppose should contain the most important and most 'urgent' information that a typical visitor would want to find. For example:


 * 1) History
 * 2) Team image
 * 3) Media coverage (moved from top level)
 * 4) Actions
 * 5) Support (moved from top level)
 * 6) Popular culture
 * 7) Mascot/logo
 * 8) Kit
 * 9) * Including sections Colours and Crest, rather than the other way around
 * 10) Grounds (might want to rename to Stadiums or Home Stadium)
 * 11) Rivalries
 * 12) Staff
 * 13) Players
 * 14) Recent results and forthcoming fixtures (before the historic results below, and right after 'players': these both hold "current" content)
 * 15) Competitive record
 * 16) * I suggest moving "Record per opponent" to a separate page, and then linking to it in a new introduction for this section.
 * 17) * I suggest collapsing those minor tournament tables.
 * 18) Honours
 * 19) * In current form, it breaks the flow of the article... I suggest moving everything apart from the major tournaments into the separate Records page, which can then be linked to from an introduction here.
 * 20) Managers
 * 21) Captains
 * 22) * I suggest making a separate page for the all-time list. Or maybe merge it with List of Belgium international footballers or something. (Btw, it doesn't fit on small screens, thought I'm still contemplating how best to fix that. )
 * 23) Records
 * 24) Belgian League XI
 * 25) * Can we put this into any other section? Perhaps at the end of History - 1920-78?
 * 1) * Can we put this into any other section? Perhaps at the end of History - 1920-78?

I've been doubting a lot about whether to suggest moving Kit into Team image as well, but I guess it needs its own section. Moving Media coverage and Support in there would improve the menu overview though, as would moving Recent results up and removing the subsections of Honours. I believe it will make the menu slightly more easily digestible! Sygmoral (talk) 00:35, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Joris, thanks for critically analysing the article size and structure. I agree that it should have been divided already, however, I did not find the time and courage yet to do so. Some things that definitely should happen are:
 * Create a "history of ..." article, shorten the current history section (and perhaps move the evolution of the kit uniform to that)
 * Copy parts of World Cup history to the article "Belgium at the World Cup" and shorten the current World Cup section (and perhaps the same with the European Championship)
 * Belgian League XI: I would put a sentence about this in the history section, and copy the current block to the History article that yet needs to be made.
 * Slightly further cutting down on some of the five sections on team image


 * Soon I will get back to the other issues as well (more structure-related). Kareldorado (talk) 04:01, 31 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Proposed article structure: done. The reason I used "Grounds" as sections title was that apart from the home stadiums I also mention the training grounds here. On the other hand, the national football team does not "possess" all the stadiums they played at, so probably "Home stadium" is a better choice. Kareldorado (talk) 20:24, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Main work remaining for this article: the issues brought up by you, me, and peer reviewer Euryalus (his comments stand in the archive, see ). Kareldorado (talk) 20:24, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I just went through the whole article, to try and improve some parts that didn't feel like natural English (not that I'm native, but I consider myself pretty good :) ). I don't think I made any controversial changes, mostly just rewordings and a few typo corrections.
 * The only remaining things I'm personally still thinking about, are the introduction (which could even be halved), and some legends under tables that just look a bit odd when the table's collapsed (especially under the Managers table), so I'm considering to move those legends "inside" the table (in a full-width cell at the bottom) some time in the future. Sygmoral (talk) 02:46, 7 April 2015 (UTC)