Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/American coaches of foreign national soccer teams (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. I agree with towards the end of the discussion: the case for deletion seems to be stronger than the case for keeping, but it is with a few exceptions so poorly articulated here, with most "delete" opinions making no understandable argument, that I can't find a consensus for deletion.  Sandstein  08:09, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

American coaches of foreign national soccer teams
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Uh... Is nobody going to explain this? The previous discussion originally nominated by @GiantSnowman where he provided some valid and reasonable, albeit a little flawed, arguments that received a no consensus vote somehow because the creator of the article, who hasn't even edited in THREE YEARS!!! somehow argued that the article was meritable because it receives decent coverage by news sources (the reason why is obviously that there is a bunch of U.S.-centric soccer news sites that are more than happy to write articles about about American coaches who go abroad because most of them rarely coach outside the United States) and that it isn't a list, but a prose with a table, which is basically every single featured list ever.

As an American myself, I hate it when people unnecessarily fancruft or circlejerk about their or favorite club or country's footballing endeavors, especially the country of my origin. Plus, everything in this "prose and table" is already covered in each person's biography. Kinda surprising how there aren't any articles about English managers of foreign national football teams or French managers of foreign national football teams. This article obviously fails WP:GNG, WP:LISTCRUFT, and WP:ARTN. Do I need to go on any longer? KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 17:11, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 17:17, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 17:18, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Football-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 17:18, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related deletions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 17:19, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete per nom and my (flawed?!) rationale at last AFD. GiantSnowman 17:25, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Not flawed per se, but the more-a-less baseless arguments in the 1st AfD from people who wanted to keep the article seemed a little justifiable compared to yours, considering how they kinda deconstructed your reasoning because you kinda kept saying the same response. KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 18:33, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep It passes WP:GNG and the list has been discussed as a set by other secondary sources, see . It clearly technically meets our inclusion guidelines. The nom reads like a WP:IDONTLIKEIT. SportingFlyer  T · C  17:43, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * How? The topic is niche, unsubstantial, and not helpful at all for the encyclopedia. Nobody is outwardly looking to see how many Americans have coached non-U.S. national teams (which is a heck of a lot more than is implied on this list). Plus, the article you just referenced isn't even a paragraph long, very outdated, and comes from a niche U.S. soccer site like I just eluded to earlier. Just because some trivial topic has received coverage from multiple sources, doesn't make it merit an article. By that logic, we should have an article about Gareth Bale's injury record. If my argument is WP:IDONTLIKEIT, then your argument is WP:TRIVIAL and WP:ITSINTHENEWS. KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 18:33, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Niche doesn't mean unencyclopaedic. This is within the criteria of a) covered by secondary sources, and b) secondary sources cover it as a list. I am NOT making a trivial/it's in the news argument - I don't actually care about the topic - I'm just noting that it firmly falls within our inclusion guidelines. SportingFlyer  T · C  18:37, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * If you don't have any interest in the topic (and honestly neither do many others), then why are you playing devil's advocate to try to justify why it should be included and only because it passes WP:GNG on a technicality? The coverage is biographical and trivial at best and irrelevant and opinionated at worst. Those articles talk more about the stigma that American coaches are bad compared to that of Europeans, South Americans or even Asians, and how those coaches want to break the notion rather than that the topic is notable and will end up growing U.S. soccer. Not only is the prose incredibly bad and incoherent and the list very debatable on who should and shouldn't be included, but the sources used are less than relevant to the subject matter as a whole. In fact, from sources [15], [20] and [21], the article uses trivial quotes from those sources that were just meant to give more context to the reader and instead rather tries to spin it around on how it explains the importance of the topic as whole. I honestly fail to see the notability of the subject matter of this article as a whole, and by your argument of "it follows the rules" and "it technically counts" I can tell that you can't either. KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 20:58, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I vote at plenty of AfDs where I don't have interest in the specific topic. You've now spilled a lot of text at this AfD, which shows your argument regarding notability appears to be plainly subjective. Bad prose can be cleaned up, and the list is clearly defined. Whether we have an article or not has to do specifically with whether the topic has been treated as notable by secondary sources, which this one has, and in list form. SportingFlyer  T · C  22:28, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not trying to be subjective. It's just that objectively, this article seems more like something mentioned in a football news site once every three to four years more than something that deserves to be covered in detail and will stand the test of time. The topic is interesting, but not notable enough to merit an article. In fact, this article was created three months after its first source. The source is not only short, but it does not explain the topic in detail. It would honestly be more reliable to go through the category and see which managers have coached a foreign team rather than a random list that doesn't even fill half a page. In fact, it seems that more likely than not, that the article creator could have been trying to promote Soccer America. In January 2017, another article similar to this one that Barryjjoyce had created got deleted and had several external links to that of Goal, SB Nation, Yanks Abroad, and Soccer America. Yes, this article has tons of sources but it fails WP:NOTEVERYTHING as the topic in hand is not particularly helpful or will stand the test of time for anyone except freelance soccer writers looking to make some easy, but very little pageviews. From your last sentence, it also fails WP:NOTNEWS as most newsworthy moments aren't sufficient enough to gain their own specific article, especially the hiring of American soccer coaches. KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 15:16, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTNEWS doesn't apply because this is a list (and should probably be renamed), not an article dealing with a specific routine event, and you're quoting WP:NOTEVERYTHING on WP:USELESS grounds, not pointing to a specific WP:NOT. The way to rescue articles/lists at AfD is to provide sources, and oddly enough, you've actually done that. We're not going to agree with each other on this, so I don't really see any point in continuing this argument. I hope you agree with that at least :) SportingFlyer  T · C  19:00, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I've ignored this article and have been thinking about salvaging it for a long time until I read through the entire prose and list and realized just how non-notable the topic really is. All of the "sources" are fairly WP:ROUTINE and WP:EMSC, which I should've stated earlier in this argument. At one point, this article had the USMNT navbox in it despite having no relation at all with the United States national team. For when, here for the template and here for the article. Both were from a random IP who also coincidentally has a history of adding external links instead of full citations. This article is trying to amplify the growth of U.S. soccer, which it fails at. That topic is already explained in detail in both Soccer in the United States and the history of soccer in the United States. So, to answer your question of why I'm not salvaging it, that is why. I will agree that we do disagree. KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 20:35, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The articles that I've seen, such as a feature story on the Philippines coach, aren't routine. The article shouldn't have had the USMNT navbox in it. Again, none of that has to do with the notability of the topic. SportingFlyer  T · C  20:41, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete I can see this inviting huge numbers of unneeded lists.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:04, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you think that's happened over the past three years? --BDD (talk) 21:09, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Natg 19 (talk) 01:10, 14 April 2020 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: This discussion is a bit of a mess, keep votes don't really show GNG for the subject as a whole, more a synthesis of sources about specific coaches. On the other hand the delete votes aren't great either with a number of strange comments that don't come close to discussing the article in the context of actual policies and guidelines.
 * Keep per SportingFlyer. I certainly understand the concern that this could be a precedent, but since the article is not new, that concern appears unfounded. I think the flip side of WP:RUNOFTHEMILL is that these sort of "man bites dog" topics are fair game if they pass GNG, which this one does. --BDD (talk) 15:42, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Not exactly. This isn't a topic that is talked about ad nauseam or even that often. The sources used are fairly WP:ROUTINE and only random bits from interviews taken only at face value instead of descriptive essays about the subject matter and the influences of all of the coaches as a whole. The one source that SportingFlyer mentioned at the start of our argument isn't descriptive or insightful at all and should not be used as a reliable source. If anything, the article is just giving the managers arbitrary importance and glorification. KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 16:31, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep "The article is notable because it receives significant coverage by news sources." Yes, that's exactly how GNG works and exactly why this article is notable. Don't see how that's a flawed argument. Smartyllama (talk) 19:50, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not significant coverage though. If anything, it's actually WP:ROUTINE. I said that the original creator of the article somehow argued that it was significant, even though it wasn't. KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 21:36, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete among other things 2600:1700:F71:2890:6080:390A:453:B251 (talk) 14:50, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete Extremely bizarre. PointComm (talk) 15:48, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete - any information here can be contained elsewhere. Article title itself is confusing. Whole article has an air of misogyny about it. Nfitz (talk) 21:54, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Huh? Is it because of the lack of women coaches? Seems odd to point out a needed expansion while arguing for the deletion of a page. --BDD (talk) 19:08, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep - this article is notable because US men's soccer and it's coaching has a long history of being disrespected and failing abroad and in it's own country (see US national soccer team and MLS), so it makes sense that any US coach that coaches a national team (a big achivement) is going to get media coverage here. Swordman97  talk to me  22:25, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The fact that they were able to get a job coaching a foreign national team isn't a big achievement. Their success on the team however, is. By that measure, we should have Asian footballers who have played in Europe because no matter how objectively good or bad they are, they usually receive at least one mention in the news of their country of origin. The coverage and sources used are mostly WP:TRIVIAL and for the most part uses quotes from interviews and not all of the article. And those little sources that do tell an entire story and aren't interviews are just biographical (and already used in that specific person's biography) and not about the history of the perceived stereotype that "Americans are bad at soccer". The article frames itself about how Americans have been prejudiced in the football world and not about what each manager has contributed to the development of American soccer, which none can do since they are not coaching in the United States. And even in the terms of global soccer, their impact is almost insignificant, and only has any because they're from a nation with a large foreign influence and nothing else. This article is pure WP:CRUFT, plain and simple. KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 23:06, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per Nfitz. Mysogynistic indeed. 71.153.245.192 (talk) 17:51, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Fenix down (talk) 06:36, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete - The article doesn't appear appropriate. Plenty of individual coaches seem notable in this context, but that notability doesn't automatically transfer over to the concept itself. I'm not that familiar with our guidelines in terms of sports-related topics. Yet a certain amount of common sense is in order. As stated above, it's not right to synthesize notability the way that the article does. Deletion appears to be the right call. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 09:40, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In response to the relist discussing the fact "keep votes don't really show WP:GNG," it's based on a review of the sources in the article, are we now required to copy all of them over to the AfD? This article currently has 34 sources but I wouldn't consider it source-bombed, and the articles such as Soccer America, Yahoo Sports, and the Baltimore Sun article cover the group as a list (though sometimes only current coaches are covered.) Easily passes WP:NLIST. SportingFlyer  T · C  04:45, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment - I'm not sure you have understood my point. Yes, there are plenty of sources in the article, but these are sources that deal with individual coaches. For a list to be notable per WP:LISTN (I'd recommend that you read this, NLIST notes that this is what needs to be used) the subject needs to show coverage as a group or a set. What we have in the article is reports covering individual coaches. I'm not saying these do or don't exist, but these are the sort of sources that need to be shown and I'm not seeing anything that shows that. For example, if this were about British coaches abroad I would expect to see mention of sources such as or  for example amongst the many available with a simple Google search . What we currently have as justification for notability is a synthesis. Fenix down (talk) 07:16, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Exactly. The sources are mostly being used out of context to drive a narrative which fails WP:SYNTH. KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 14:54, 27 April 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.