Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of FC Barcelona managers/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was not promoted by Dabomb87 17:33, 11 October 2010.

List of FC Barcelona managers

 * Nominator(s): Sandman888 (talk) 20:17, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

This is the last, and by far the hardest, of the Barcelona lists. The first question will probably be why there isn't any stats on the page. Well they are no longer available. First they were found on LFP.es, then a copy of that was at historico.sportec.es but that died a month ago. A stats-table, with dead refs, can be seen on the talkpage. Have fun. Sandman888 (talk) 20:17, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment—no dab links, no dead external links. Ucucha 20:24, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * TBD? Are you missing a name? --Golbez (talk) 20:36, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah Barrow was the first full-time manager, but they still played football. What should I write, N/A? Sandman888 (talk) 20:38, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You certainly need to say something other than "to be determined" with no reasoning why. Also, the prose states that Barcelona started in 1899, but the list only starts at 1902. --Golbez (talk) 20:42, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * In football's early days teams were often selected by committee, similar to the way that international cricket teams are selected nowadays. Obviously we would need a source to say anything of the sort, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility that Barrow was the first manager. --WFC-- 14:04, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Query - did you check the Wayback Machine to see if those dead links have been archived? The Rambling Man (talk) 14:21, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah none of the machine got em. They werent searchable on google either, I guess they were hidden somehow. Sandman888 (talk) 16:24, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Oppose. You're right that this is the hard one. In my opinion, there's more work involved in the managers list than the players, seasons and possibly stats'n'records put together, especially given the quality of recent candidates.

Nominator asked if I'd express an opinion about stats. My views are simple, I think. Without stats, the list is incomplete. Some of the LFP originals of the sportec.es pages are available on the Wayback Machine (replace  in the URL by  ), but both versions appear to be complete only from the 1943-44 season onwards. They aren't all in the archive, but there are enough to convince me that the sportec pages are genuine mirrors of the dead LFP subsite and as such reliable. And the sportec pages have always been there when I've tried to access them; perhaps they were just suffering some temporary downtime.
 * Prose. The Man City and Man Utd managers lists, promoted almost simultaneously nearly 3 years ago, set rather a high standard in quality which those who've followed have been expected to try and emulate. Each of those has a lengthy and informative managerial history section as well as a basic lead. Probably the briefest prose section of managers lists promoted since those is that at Oxford United, and that only lists from 1949 when they first appointed a professional manager.
 * Stats. In my opinion at least, it needs some. I've had a look at the Old table on the talk page and the links to each manager's stats on historico.sportec.es do seem to be there? Unless there's something I'm failing to understand.
 * Oh my now they work. However the page seems to be technically unreliable, working and then not working for the rest of the month, what to do? Sandman888 (talk) 17:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Use them and put a request in at the Wayback Machine to have the page(s) archived? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:40, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see such a function on their homepage or in their FAQ. Oh and webcite returns with "The caching attempt failed for the following reason: The given URL contained a no-cache tag. WebCite respects the author's request to not have their web page cached." Hence the ungoogleability and no wayback. This renders archiving impossible. Next step? Sandman888 (talk) 18:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Bugger, that makes it tough. So I guess paper references are the only full-time solution... The Rambling Man (talk) 18:30, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well the thing is there is no "Definite history of Barcelona" or whatever they're called. Spain is just not a stats-country like UK is: there's no mention anywhere of a book of "barcelona statistics" or "estadisticos". And might I add, the FC Barcelona museum hasn't any neither. The only thing left is to write to the "Centre del documentation" of Barcelona and ask them to compile a list of stats. They respectfully declined. Sandman888 (talk) 18:42, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I've always struggled with the idea that Spain doesn't do football stats, and judging by the number and variety of works on sale on this site, it appears that in fact they do. In particular, the book Diccionari del Barca (ISBN 9788441201262), described there as ''Excellent who's who featuring every player that ever played for FC Barcelona. Hard-back, 414 pages. Career-statistics.'' Although that outline only mentions players, this page (in Catalan) says it covers players, trainers, management and with many statistical tables and data. Not having seen the book itself, I wouldn't know whether it does include manager stats, but from the descriptions, it certainly looks like it might. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 20:14, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah that certainly helps! I hereby retract my earlier statements and withdraw nom as shipping is 2-3 weeks. Sandman888 (talk) 00:21, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The newspaper archive citations should be formatted as you would with any newspaper article, i.e. Wish English newspapers had free online searchable scans.
 * Need to explain who picked the team before Mr Barrow's appointment, and then whatever/whoever it is, committee, directors, needs to appear instead of TBD in the table.
 * In the old table, Jack Dumby links to Richard Kohn, a man apparently of many names
 * Surely Campionat de Catalunia should be spelt with a "y"
 * I know English-language sources are preferable, but El Mundo Deportivo writing about manager X succeeding manager Y when it happened would be better than sources like #63, which just says "Barcelona will replace coach Frank Rijkaard with former team captain Pep Guardiola at the end of the season", which isn't a source for them actually doing it. Incidentally, the date of that one is 8 May, not 5 August
 * Citations should include authors where the item cited has one

hope some of this helps. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 16:37, 23 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Drive-by: I see little value in providing a full review at the moment, because there are two huge sticking points. As far as the stats go, my view is that a reliable source that we know exists but isn't accessible 100% of the time is a less desirable but on occasion valid source, provided that it does not vanish for good. If we are entirely convinced that it's the only possible way of sourcing the stats, my opinion is that we should use it in preference to going without. On the other hand, I see the unresolved matter of how the club was run between 1899 and 1917 as a big deal. As I said above, there's a good chance that for some or all of that time teams were selected by committee. But unlike the stats, I'm unable to convince myself that the information on who picked the team isn't out there. --WFC-- 14:04, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * To add to my point on the stats: provided that we are satisfied that it is impossible to source them alternatively, it would be valid to argue to leave them out. Although I hold it strongly, my opinion that it would be better to include than exclude the stats is nonetheless precisely that: an opinion. --WFC-- 14:10, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Could reviewers please indicate whether A: "Stats, but technically unreliable" or B:"No stats, but technically reliable" is preferred? Sandman888 (talk) 12:22, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll go A, for the reasons explained above. As for FT, I believe that all they're concerned with is whether the topic is complete, and if it is complete, whether all of the articles are GAs, FAs or FLs as appropriate. Someone could in theory take this (or anything else) to FLRC, but assuming consensus is reached properly here, a move of that sort on one specific point would likely be deemed a disruptive and bad-faith move. —WFC— 13:12, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Comments –
 * Let me be the first (only?) one to go with B in the debate above. If a list's content is unverifiable for whatever reason, it shouldn't be featured. It's a shame because I think the old table is much nicer than what's currently in the list, but if the stats can't be sourced, the table doesn't have anything to stand on.
 * TBD is short for To Be Decided/Determined. I don't think the club's early period should have this designation since their management was decided at the time; we just don't seem to know exactly how. How about "Unknown"? That's what the truth is, after all.  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 22:17, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.