Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of international goals scored by Zlatan Ibrahimović


 * 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 keep. The arguments made to retain the article have presented policy backed reasoning; these arguments state that the lists are notable to the world and also pass WP:GNG's requirements. One of the key pieces to the disagreement on the requests for deletion seems to be a lack of understanding, particularly on how important this information is outside of the Unites States. As we are not the Unites States Wikipedia, but instead the worldwide English Wikipedia, it is important that we recognize the global perspective of this site. That being said, the main point brought up by the requests for deletion is that this article falls into the essay WP:LISTCRUFT's domain. - Even though this argument stems from an essay, not a policy or guideline, it is used regularly as a de facto guideline in this arena. Therefore, we shall look at the requirements for this essay to fall into said category:


 * 1) The list was created just for the sake of having such a list
 * Not applicable to this list.
 * 1) The list is of interest to a very limited number of people
 * Not applicable to this list. (This information is useful to a worldwide audience.)
 * 1) The list is a violation of Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information
 * Not applicable to this list.
 * 1) The content is unverifiable or the underlying concept is non-notable
 * Not applicable to this list. The lists' information would be notably inclusive on the parent articles.
 * 1) The list cannot be expanded beyond a handful of terms
 * Not applicable to this list.
 * 1) The list is unlimited and/or unmaintainable
 * Not applicable to this list.
 * 1) The list has no content beyond links to other articles, so would be better implemented as a (self-maintaining) category
 * Not applicable to this list.
 * 1) The list is unencyclopaedic, i.e. it would not be expected to be included in an encyclopaedia.
 * This determination is made in a continuously evolving system and is too vague of a point to be taken into account in these discussions; we are not a paper encyclopedia. Therefore, this point is not applicable to this list.
 * 1) Determining membership of the list requires adoption of a non-neutral point of view, and reliable sources for avoiding it are not available.
 * Not applicable to this list.
 * 1) Determining membership of the list involves original research or synthesis of ideas.
 * Not applicable to this list.
 * 1) The list's membership is volatile and requires a disproportionate amount of effort to keep up to date.
 * Not applicable to this list.
 * 1) The list attracts the addition of little that is of clear importance or even relevance in the context of the topic.
 * Not applicable to this list.

So as we see this seemingly easy argument for this article to not be retained, does not hold up to a test of site-wide consensus. Therefore, the request for these lists to be deleted, is denied by the community and the greater backed policy consensus. These lists are found to be notable to the worldwide community, and are therefore retained. &mdash; Coffee //  have a cup  //  beans  // 22:09, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

List of international goals scored by Zlatan Ibrahimović

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Non notable list of goals Qed237&#160;(talk) 20:43, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I am also nominating the following related pages because of the same reason, not notable for it's own article:
 * Qed237&#160;<b style="color:green">(talk)</b></i> 20:50, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related deletions. <i style="font-family:Sans-serif"><b style="color:blue">Qed</b><b style="color:red">237</b>&#160;<b style="color:green">(talk)</b></i> 21:00, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * <i style="font-family:Sans-serif"><b style="color:blue">Qed</b><b style="color:red">237</b>&#160;<b style="color:green">(talk)</b></i> 20:50, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related deletions. <i style="font-family:Sans-serif"><b style="color:blue">Qed</b><b style="color:red">237</b>&#160;<b style="color:green">(talk)</b></i> 21:00, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep all: Obviously, a notable article. What else do you mean by notable list of goals, User:Qed237? He is the all-time top goalscorer of Sweden and you are saying this article is not notable? See this before you nominate any such article for deletion. &mdash; Swastik Chakraborty (User talk)  20:47, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * So why are you nominating List of international goals scored by João Vieira Pinto who is a more notable player than Sunil Chhetri. <i style="font-family:Sans-serif"><b style="color:blue">Qed</b><b style="color:red">237</b>&#160;<b style="color:green">(talk)</b></i> 20:57, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Because of his tally of goals scored. Pinto had scored only 23 goals whereas Chhetri has scored 50 goals already. &mdash; Swastik Chakraborty (User talk)  21:05, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * And where do you draw this arbitrary line? Do you have any sort of consensus saying a certain limit is okay? <i style="font-family:Sans-serif"><b style="color:blue">Qed</b><b style="color:red">237</b>&#160;<b style="color:green">(talk)</b></i> 21:09, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I haven't drawn any consensus line. I think a country's top goalscorer should have an article like that, nothing else. &mdash; Swastik Chakraborty (User talk)  21:13, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Like " He is Sweden's top international goalscorer of all time.[1]" for Zlatan's list? Are you deliberately wasting our time?  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:53, 13 January 2016 (UTC)


 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sweden-related deletion discussions.  Human 3015   Let It Go    21:18, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the list of Football-related deletion discussions.  Human 3015   Let It Go    21:18, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  Human 3015   Let It Go    21:19, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete: This list of goals is clearly not notable enough to warrant its own article -- samtar whisper 21:20, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * There are four lists, and at least the Ibrahimović list is a justifiable fork from the main biographical article. Or do you disagree?  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:36, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - notable and relevant list of one of the worlds best football players and his international goals. --BabbaQ (talk) 22:16, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
 * People consider Peyton Manning to be one of the greatest NFL players of all time, but why haven't we seen "List of touchdowns scored by Peyton Manning"? That's because throwing a touchdown is so minor. Manning holds the record for most NFL touchdowns thrown by a quarterback, with 539. That's something that can be noted in the Peyton Manning article. If we compare that to a list like "List of goals scored by Ronaldo", it's really not much different.  CatcherStorm    talk   02:53, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * A touchdown in NFL does not have the same significance as a goal does in soccer, due to the scoring system of each sport. --SuperJew (talk) 21:12, 13 January 2016 (UTC)


 * delete - I admit to a certain personal bias here, but I really cannot see how this is anything other than listcruft. The information about how many goals a player has scored surely belongs in the article about them, and as for which specific games they scored in, that is unencyclopedic trivia. --bonadea contributions talk 11:18, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Not at all. In some cases, the coverage of international goals from a player is global, e.g. in the case of Ibrahimović.  His article is large enough such that a fork can be created to cover his international goals.  Whether or not you have a "personal bias" (which is bad in these discussions), this kind of article, particularly related to a country's top scorer, is fully justifiable.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:38, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete all: Baseless article. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 13:54, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This means nothing at all. Can you expand, preferably relating to the deletion criteria please?   The Rambling Man (talk) 21:36, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete all - these kind of lists can be notable, but there is no indication why these particular players deserve such articles. GiantSnowman 18:10, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep all there's no policy or guideline based reason from all those who oppose, they just don't like it. Most of these list articles are rubbish, which would lend a tendency to delete, but referencing them and adding a bit of prose would make decent articles.  Most of this lists are reasonable forks from long main bio articles and are justifiable as standalone.  The Rambling Man (talk) 20:52, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * P.S. Is there some kind of competition around here to make the biggest point by nominating stuff we actually believe should stay, just because someone else nominated something we like for deletion? Get a grip folks. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:53, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep all "Non notable list of goals" is a pretty meagre justification for deletion. With the exception of Chhetri, all have substantial parent articles that could not reasonably contain this list, which is, in my opinion, encyclopaedic content. Chhetri is more of a borderline case, and I would not object to a merge in that case. <b style="color:#00cc33">Harrias</b> talk 21:12, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep Top-scorer of his country. Deserves a article and no guideline where to draw a line... Kante4 (talk) 21:20, 13 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep all Encyclopedic content, and notable with Ibra and Chhetri top scorers for their country, and Zidane, Ronaldo and Ibra with very successful, well-known (as in they would be familiar to most people, also who don't follow soccer) and referenced careers on club and international level. --SuperJew (talk) 21:33, 13 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep all There have been various conversations on this in the past, and no doubt an article which simply lists goals could be non-notable, however, in terms of number of goals, profile and most importantly, reporting by reliable sources, these are fairly clearly valid articles as I see it. A discussion at WT:FOOTY about what the line for such articles could be would be far more useful than debating short lists here over and over again. Macosal (talk) 03:03, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment - I'm of the personal view that these "list of goals" articles (along with cricket's "list of centuries" articles and several similar) are WP:NOTSTATS violations; but that they've become so widely used that it represents a soft consensus to the contrary, so I'm not going to challenge that (i.e. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS as a basis for not deleting). I'm merely going to agree strongly with Macosal that the soccer project needs to propose and agree upon a formal guideline for when these pages become valid. Aspirex (talk) 06:02, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Additional thought: The List of international cricket centuries by... series of articles is probably the best analogue for the soccer goals articles. The problem as I see it is simply as follows: it is customary for all players have a table on their page which lists all of their goals (or centuries). When that table becomes so long that it impacts the readability of the main page, it gets SPUNOUT into its own page. As a page in its own right, the spin-out probably doesn't meet notability guidelines. So we're stuck between three unfavourable outcomes: an article with an unreadably long table, or a non-notable spin-out, or the content being lost for players with lots of goals but retained for players with very few. Maybe the best solution is to merge every "List of goals..." article to the player page, and format the table as a default-to-hide collapsible table – that would allow any relevant commentary to be covered in prose, means the content wouldn't be lost, but wouldn't affect the readability. But I suppose that's far beyond the scope of this AfD. Aspirex (talk) 11:15, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Indeed, it is beyond the scope of this individual AFD. However, it is worth remembering that MOS discourages collapsed tables, see MOS:COLLAPSE for more information.  There's not reason that this kind of list can't have a decent prose introduction covering the goals, e.g. List of international goals scored by Wayne Rooney is one such example. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:06, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * A collapsible table is still the least of four evils. Aspirex (talk) 06:04, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
 * No, it's an absurd cop-out, to advocate contravening the manual of style. It would render any article with such a flaw ineligible for FA, for a start.  The Rambling Man (talk) 08:27, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Serious doubts regarding notability - I am a regular editor of articles about American college sports, pro football (American, that is), pro baseball, and Olympic swimming. Admittedly, I only occasionally edit American soccer articles for our national women's team members.  I'm not an expert.  That said, I find it rather odd that anyone would think to list every score of any athlete's career . . . why not a list of all 714 career homeruns of Babe Ruth?  Or all 420 touchdown passes of quarterback Dan Marino?  Or all 61 of Roger Maris' homeruns during his record-setting 1961 season?  Or all 90 of Hope Solo's shutouts as a goalkeeper?  Why not all of the 4,409 plays that contributed to Emmitt Smith's 18,355 rushing yards in the NFL?  At some point we cross the line from sports alamanc-like data to mere trivia of the most trivial character . . . .  We are an encyclopedia, and by its very nature an encyclopedia must summarize events, emphasizing the most noteworthy highlights over listing every occurrence.  These appear to be obvious violations of WP:NOTSTATS.  There are also serious notability questions present here: WP:GNG requires that an article subject receive significant coverage in multiple, independent, reliable, secondary sources in order to qualify for a stand-alone article.  WP:LISTN requires that the subject of a list be notable as a group.  The only sources for these articles are lists of goals from the football/soccer statistics website RSSSF; most sports projects typically discount sports stats websites as either trivial or WP:ROUTINE.  How about some coverage of these international goals -- as a group, not as individual scores -- from mainstream news sources like Le Monde, L'Equipe, O Estado or O Globo?  Please feel to link several two or three of the best examples of what you believe is significant coverage of the career goals of each of Ronaldo, Zidane and Chhetri?  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 07:13, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I think scoring goals for your country is somewhat more of an achievement that hitting home runs for your club, or throwing touchdowns for your franchise. "Shutouts" are not usually considered that exceptional, after all a goalkeeper could "make a shutout" without actually needing to touch the ball.  An international goal can only be attributed to a single individual.  And that the most successful players score maybe 50 or so in their entire career puts some perspective on the other mega-stats you've mentioned.  I can't speak for sources for these individuals, but in the case of Wayne Rooney, multiple reliable sources cover his international goals and the long and dreary wait for him to break the existing record.  The Rambling Man (talk) 08:01, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * TRM, you wrote, "I think scoring goals for your country is somewhat more of an achievement that hitting home runs for your club, or throwing touchdowns for your franchise." If you're unfamiliar with Babe Ruth, I would urge you to read the Wikipedia article, then do a quick Google search on "Babe Ruth 714," and see how many full-length books you find on the subject.  Wikipedia notability is defined by significant coverage in independent, reliable, secondary sources, not our perception of the subject's importance.  If scoring football goals for one's country is the notable achievement you suggest, then it should not be so hard to produce two or three feature newspaper articles that discuss in depth each of these three footballer's international scoring histories, right?  I will also add that nothing stops interested editors from summarizing these athletes' international scoring histories in their Wikipedia biographies.  What is at issue is whether these complete lists of individual players' scoring histories merit stand-alone articles based on the Wikipedia concept of notability per WP:GNG and WP:LISTN.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:56, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm sure you're right about Babe Ruth, I have little inclination to pursue a search on that, and outside the microcosm of American baseball, the record is somewhat meaningless. Association football and its records span the globe, the whole planet plays "soccer" and as such these kind of lists have global interest.  But honestly, we're talking about apples and oranges here.  International goals for footballers are rare, whereas home runs, touchdowns, shut-outs in local games are commonplace.  To be the top scorer for your country is super-rare, i.e. there's one, per country.  The summaries were included, but they got expanded, then forked out.  There are examples of these kinds of lists which have decent introductions, independent and good references discussing the goals as a whole.  I have already told you that I'm not able to do that for these examples, my Swedish, French, Portuguese etc is not as accomplished as I'd like.  While you can call for GNG and LISTN, if they're allowable for incorporation in a biography, you have you answer as to why they can stand alone for biographies that are too bloated.  As an example, I'll point you at Wayne Rooney's list, which, naturally I crafted and made superb, almost legendary.  Rooney's goals for England were extensively covered as he approached, and eventually took, the record.  If you give me a year or two to learn Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish and French (mais oui!), I'll try to source the other lists in the same way.  It would be odd if the leading scorers for those nations didn't have a similar amount of interest and covereag.  On another note, there are dozens of cricket century lists too, do you object to those?  It would be useful to know what's coming up.  The Rambling Man (talk) 20:50, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep all: As per The Rambling Man. Also, these are very informative and encyclopedic lists. In Cricket we do have lists of "centuries" and "5 wicket hauls". Some of them are featured list. In football we can have list of goals of notable players. All of them are notable. Chhetri is top goal scorer of India. He too deserves list. So, there is no problem in keeping all of these.-- Human 3015   Let It Go   18:32, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Neutral Zlatan's list is notable in its own right as he's Sweden's top goalscorer. But I see where Qed237 is going with this; it may get out of hand. Is there anything to stop me creating List of goals scored by Dixie Dean in 1928? I wouldn't say Zidane's goalscoring record for the national team defined his career, like it has done with Keane, Henry and Rooney. He is France's 4th highest goalscorer (which is impressive for a midfielder), but he was the face of a multicultural team. His role was that of a creator, regardless of how many goals he scored. Lemonade51 (talk) 22:14, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Therefore they shouldn't be nominated in the same AFD? --SuperJew (talk) 22:23, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Perhaps not. My stance is this; there has to a clear and cohrent criteria for lists such as these. Otherwise there's nothing to stop clumping lists together for AFD. We've already established that Zlatan is his country's top goalscorer, which, de facto, meets the notability cretria. Zidane, by contrast, is not his nation's top goalscorer. He has the name, but for me it would tread a fine line between noteworthiness and achievement. His biggest achievement for his national team wasn't scoring goals (yes, he was a big-game player, he scored twice in a WC final), but he isn't (only) remembered for goals. He wasn't destined to score, but to orchestrate. Zidane was the symbol of blanc-black-beur, l'effet Zidane so they say in France. Sure, more prose would make things a lot better, but can't justify keeping a list with two sentences, and no context. Lemonade51 (talk) 22:57, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
 * A yearly list of goals, if it has been discussed as a topic in secondary reliable sources, would be perfectly legitimate. But I doubt you'd find that.  The Rambling Man (talk) 08:27, 15 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep all - Zlatan and Chhetri on the grounds that they are their countries record international goalscorers and Ronaldo and Zidane as generally recognised world class players. Fenix down (talk) 15:55, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep all - As per consensus from previous deletion discussions on similar articles. Spiderone  09:38, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment - When will someone decide on these articles' fate? &mdash; Swastik Chakraborty (User talk)  05:46, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep all Ronaldo and Zidane are clearly world's top players in World's most popular sport and Zlatan and Chhetri are the there countries leading goal scorers.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 10:07, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete all Scoring a goal is not a major acheivement, so I believe all of these fall under WP:LISTCRUFT. Joseph2302 (talk) 18:19, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment: In a sport where the average score for a team is 1 or 2 goals, scoring one of those goals is a major achievement, and being the topscorer for your country even a more major achievement. --SuperJew (talk) 19:03, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep or Merge: Per other's arguments and past discussions on the WikiProject Football talk page. Inter&#38;anthro (talk) 20:59, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete all - Can't see how this is anything other than fancruft. This would be akin to an article on List of playoff touchdowns by Peyton Manning, which would be just as inappropriate.  Onel 5969  <i style="color:blue">TT me</i> 13:40, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Not at all, touchdowns in a subsection of a specific national sports tournament are not as notable as international goals in a global game. Unless, of course, you can find evidence that reliable secondary sources deal with his touchdowns during playoffs.  I doubt that'd exist.  But it's clear that a country's top international goalscorer's goals are notable.  The Rambling Man (talk) 13:59, 19 January 2016 (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.