Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/National teams

Please create new discussions on the general WikiProject Football talk page. The discussions below are kept only for historical value.

Formation & Starting XI Stub Proposal
Might I suggest a formation section for each national and club team that would list the most recent formation and starting XI of a side and therefore the most likely formation and squad for future games. It would almost certainly be a first for any soccer database and would prove invaluable for sports journalists, especially those with no knowledge of the team in question. The only site where I have seen something similar is on the BBC website with the pick your fantasy team section. Also might I further suggest more descriptive and specific information on player articles. For example most articles are quite non specific in their description of players positions eg defender, midfielder. Very few articles mention the exact playing position of a player for either club or country, eg left back wing back defensive half etc. Also the preferred foot of the player. Perhaps someone with a good grasp of programming (not me! lol) could create a template of a starting XI on a pitch that others could paste and use for other teams. I would like to have feedback and ideas on my suggestion or indeed perhaps someone has already thought of this. Please feel free to criticise or endorse it. jamesy (talk) 22:56, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Confederation Cup Record
II suggest to add it.

Jerseys / Colors
I propose adding another section called Jerseys or Colours, which discusses some of the jersey colour choices (e.g. Italy's blue). This is similar to the Colours section for Club teams. Chanheigeorge 01:05, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

That is an excellent idea, I fully endorse it! jamesy (talk) 22:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Referencing templates
I've created WikiProject Football/National teams/Referencing templates to keep track of all referencing templates to national football teams, including historical differences.

Regional Flags
I've added regional/state flags to players of various nations (like hockey national teams pages, see this or this). You can see Brazil page or Italy page. D'you think it's a good idea? For foreigner players I've search where their fathers were born (or their parents with that nationality, eg.: Mauro Camoranesi is Italian because his grandfather came from Marches...so he has the Marches flag; another case is Kevin Kuranyi) or where they estabilishes with their families (eg: most of the French players came to France estabilishing in Paris suburbs). Let me know if you think this is a good method, or if there are betters; and maybe if there are errors on the flags. I've added regional/state flags to the squad of these national teams: Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain. --necronudist 14:12, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Personally I don't like it, I feel that it is info that should be included in the player's article and not in the article for the national team, but that's just my opinion. -- Elisson • Talk 15:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeh I agree, it is irrelavant to the national team article, and serves only as trivia, that clutters up the page. Philc  TECI 10:58, 3 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I would like to add that we should remove the flags from all the rosters, for consistency.--Panairjdde 08:21, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Mmmm it's a little ott for me. I'd rather you try and weave that kind of info into the bio section of an individual player's article. I admire your creativity though! jamesy (talk) 23:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

National squad lists
I have created a set of templates, Template:Nat fs start, Template:Nat fs player and Template:Nat fs end, to mimic Template:Football squad player &c. for application to the Category:Football tournament squads pages. They have been applied on Football World Cup 1978 (squads) and Football World Cup 1982 (squads) already, and I'll aim to extend this formatting to other squad lists in due course. Any interested party is most welcome to improve the templates and/or extend its use to other squad lists and/or identify more squad lists under the aforementioned category for the same purpose. User:Pkchan/National squad re-formatting may be useful to those who uses regular expression to perform the re-formatting. --Pkchan 04:22, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
 * How about adding a flag as reference to the club's nation? --Angelo 03:03, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Like this? Note that the   field is optional.
 * I am split between whether to include the flag before or after the club name. On one hand displaying it before would make the whole list aligned nicely.  On the other hand the convention of the tournment squads (eg 2002 FIFA World Cup (squads) is to show club's nation only if it is not that of the national team's, and showing it after would be more in line with this convention.  What do you think?  --Pkchan 11:41, 25 March 2006 (UTC)


 * In my opinion the best would be   (), the more complete and stylish. However, the flag should be on the right of the name, I think. --necronudist 13:37, 25 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Club crests should not be used for decoration, as they are all (almost all, at least) only available under fair use. – Elisson • Talk 14:51, 25 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I think we should provide just the club's nation flag, regardless any sort of copyright issue about the club crests. I guess that showing crests on the club field is quite unaesthetic. About the convention, I think we should always implement the country field. What about that? --Angelo 01:57, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * See this page for a mock-up of the national team template with the flag of nation of all clubs shown. Note that I have renamed the parameter as   to avoid ambiguity.
 * If you lot think fit I'll implement it at Nat fs player and Nat fs g player. --Pkchan 03:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Looks good! --necronudist 09:40, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Templated Squads
He there. I though of changing the current scheme of having an article with all the squads by templates that can be included in that very same article, but can also be used at say, the national team, and a posible 'list of World Cup squads of X national team'. Please, check Argentine squad for the 2006 FIFA World Cup (used as an example at 2006 FIFA World Cup (squads)/Templated), and the talk pages at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football and Talk:2006 FIFA World Cup (squads). Mariano (t/c) 14:41, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Given the lack of interest for the creation of squad templates to allow cross articles' consistency, I will delete the articles I created for illustrative purposes. Mariano (t/c) 08:58, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Performance in 2006 World Cup
There is a movement to add a sort of match-by-match description of the performance of each team partecipating to WC2006.

I think that this is a bad idea, and I suggest moving these sections to their own page, if necessary. In any case, for sake of consistency, this kind of information should be removed from the articles about each national football team. --Panairjdde 17:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it's best off if a "current events" flag was added to the article under the respective team's play history in each respective article (The Mexico article is a good example of such formatting). The information provided should be minimal (meaning no nasty tidbits), only showing the final score, major incidents during the game and perhaps (a bit hesitant about this one) their next opponent. And finally, after the world cup 2006 series has ended, remove the current events flag, remove the match-by-match report and make the permanent section as necessary under 2006. Because despite sake of consistency for all articles, such current information does have the merit of providing readers with useful information DURING the series.
 * See the England article (to show I'm not only being fussy about other teams) and the Korea article.--Sazabel 20:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

International Caps
Does anyone have a source we can use with up to date international goal/caps per national team or even per player? // Laughing Man 03:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I use 2006 World Cup website for the players caps at the end of the competitions and I added them with recent matches that they played. Another website that is good is RSSSF (The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation) . Also there are several individual website dedicated to each national team such as  for England, [ for Italy and many others. - [[User:Martin tamb|Martin tamb]] 04:42, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

recent call up section
Who dislikes the recent call up section. Kingjeff 18:03, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Some context here: Kingjeff is calling for the removal of the 'recent call ups' section from the England national football team, as a result of its removal from the Germany national football team. I pointed out that given there were no guidelines at places such as this, using one page as an analogy for the other was pointless.


 * Anyway, I cannot comment on the German one, but the English one serves to list those players who have been called up the an England squad over the last 12 months, but were not in the latest. It informs the user of those players who are in the 'wider squad', or who have had injuries or a drop in form that has kept them out of the latest squad (which is listed seperatly). It contains no duplication, as Kingjeff has claimed; just further information. --Robdurbar 19:28, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

you wanted it here, so now it is here. How about you become civilized and let others express what they think? Kingjeff 21:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Personally I think the section was a bit messy, but I think the section should be retained. Maybe some cleanup on the section by deleting players that already retired or retired from international football. Or maybe deleting the players that has not been called up since World Cup as they could be easily accessed by the reader from the World Cup Squads link/section under the Recent call-up section. Another option maybe by deleting the last call-up time but retaining the players, this will make the table looks easier to read. Or maybe merging all the players from Current squad and Recent call-up section and bold the players name that are currently in squad, but this options would make the list far longer. - Martin tamb 04:41, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Some good points. I believe that up till August 2006 the recent call ups and latest squad were together as one; I'm not sure why they were split, though I seem to recall that there was a reason. At the moment, offically reitred players are deleted (if you're thinking of David Beckham, he's not retired internaitonally. But Sol Campbell has, and he's not there). --Robdurbar 09:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the talk here, here and here are relevant; as they indicate how the section was formulated (on the English page at least). Robdurbar 09:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I referring the retired players to Zinedine Zidane (in France national football team page) and several others players in various national team page. As for England national football team, I personally think that the layout seems confusing with the addition of debut column. It makes the table looks complicated. I prefer the layout used in Italy national football team, France national football team, etc. -- Martin tamb 09:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that is good. Robdurbar 12:06, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Full teams only?
Many of the international teams pages contain a lot of data about achievements of U23, U21 and younger national selections. Additionally, there are many tournaments (Olympics, Pan-American games) that are only for age restricted sides. Some countries have pages for their "junior" teams, many do not. I think this cries out for a more consistent approach. My preference would be that only the achievements of the full team should be recorded on the articles in this "family", and that any nation whose underage teams have a suignificant record should have such a page specific to that purpose. Anyone else? Kevin McE 13:11, 24 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree. There already seems to be some sort of undiscussed consensus that under-20 (or under-21 in Europe) teams are allowed to have separate pages and thus all such info should go there. Younger teams than that, I'm not sure it is notable enough to include anything at all about them, except for the info already present in youth tournament articles. The problem is the later Olympic tournaments, as the teams playing there really do not compete anywhere else. I think it is ok to have the Olympic record in the main article, with a note explaining the Olympic football team composition rules. – Elisson • T • C • 13:22, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
 * (after edit conflict) Sounds sensible, though the Olympics are slightly more complex, as they used to be more prestigious than they are now and were not age restricted. Oldelpaso 13:26, 24 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The Olympics football tournament has not been open to full national teams from Europe and South America for more than 70 years, and has been unrestricted for other countries for only 2 editions in that period. To be equitable, this cannot be a matter of occasional edits to particular pages; there needs to be a consensus as to whether and how Olympic achievements should be shown on nft pages: my opinion is that only unrestricted selection events (1936 and before, + 1984 and 1988 for non UEFA/CONCACAF countries) should be included, and a footnote should be available to explain the absence of the record of this achievement where there have been medals won in restricted years.  I suspect that this would be more easily achieved if Olympic records were to be included in the infobox, rather than in a separate medal box.  Kevin McE 23:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Current squads and recent call ups
I am prompted to raise a query by the situation at Republic of Ireland where, until recently, 45 players were listed as being in the current squad: this at a time immediately before 2 international matches when there was a group of c. 25 at a national team gathering. Does it actually make any sense to describe anybody as being in a "current" squad when the next match is several weeks away, and the issue of what players might be selected is a matter of speculation? Is the "current" squad actually encyclopedic, or is it recentism to want to list it? Are recent (but not current) call ups any more notable than those who were in the squad in 1984 (to pick a year at random)? Kevin McE 01:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Recent results/Forthcoming Fixtures/Recent Call Ups/Current squads etc etc etc  WP:Recentism seems to be running unchecked on these pages. Kevin McE 19:01, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Biggest win/defeat
Hi! Unaware of this 'standard' template I made an edit to Portugal national football team] differentiating them by friendly/competitive matches. I did the same for the 1st international match. User:Martin tamb called my attention to this so I'll take it here. I suggest that when the largest win/loss is in a friendly match then the largest one at a competitive match is also included. A friendly is rather different from competitive matches, and making history/statistics including them may skew it, and weaken their value. As to including the first competitive match, I would do it, but I think it is much less important than the previous. It may be the opposite, really. It might be a more important info to know which other team was chosen - and chose - to play a friendly with. On a side note, looking at the template I a see a 'trivia' section, so I also suggest that it is excluded, according to Avoid trivia sections in articles. Enjoy! - Nabla 15:54, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe that, that a "friendly" is only a customary name for a match which is not part of a full "tournament". An international game is the same if it is the final of the world cup, or a match between the 2 worst teams in the world playing for nothing. The fact that goals and caps won in "friendlies" are counted seems to support this idea. As well as that, even "B" Class internationals (which often had top level club sides for example Manchester United vs Australia and were popular in the 80's) are included in the players for the international team goal and cap tallies. Macktheknifeau 14:44, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I would seriously doubt your claim that appearances in B internationals and in games against non-international teams are counted in a payer's tally of international caps. For exapmle, Steven Taylor (footballer) played for England B against Albania last month, but is not regarded as having been capped for England. Kevin McE 20:53, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm just wondering if only full/FIFA recognized internationals are placed for these in nft articles? I ask this because for Japan for example, their biggest win was an Olympic Games qualifier in 1967 and RSSSF says that FIFA didn't count the match as a full international. It's also confirmed so since that match isn't found on FIFA.com's fixtures and results page. This question would also be applicable to national team's first international match. Banana Fingers (talk) 06:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * If only what FIFA considers to be a valid match were so clear cut. You correctly state that FIFA does not list Japan's Olympic matches in the 1960s, and yet the very same page lists their Olympic medal in 1068, in an era when full teams from Asia could participate.  It would seem churlish to limit first international matches to those played under the auspices of FIFA when many countries were playing before the formation of FIFA.  Kevin McE (talk) 21:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Olympic Games
I want to ask if we are supposed to include in National teams' honours any achievement in the Olympic Games tournaments, since the teams which are contested there, are not the official national teams. - Sthenel 15:52, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I have tried to raise the same discussion above, under the heading Full teams only? but with little response. As I state their, achievements of restricted teams, IMHO, should be in articles specific to those restricted teams. (I've taken the liberty of correcting your apostrophe, as the issue affects more than one national team: blame the teacher in me)  Kevin McE 18:51, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! I'm confused but I think that national football team pages should include data for the full team only. - Sthenel 19:51, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Last game and next game
Greetings! Wouldn't it be better if in the article of each national football team (apart from the first game, biggest win and largest defeat) it included the last game and the next game? What do you think? User:Cymuforsal 22:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

As already said, that is a clear use of recentism. Its disregarded in an encyclopedia. Not needed! Domiy (talk) 00:41, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Noted players
How does one decide if a player is notable, and how does one reference it? Fasach Nua (talk) 08:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Such sections are usually discouraged on national team pages. I had it for my national team page (Croatia) and after it underwent peer review and FA nomination, it was said to be discounted as it is based on POV in most situations. Ensure that the page lists top goalscorers and cap leaders, but other notable players who aren't in that category really don't deserve to be mentioned in a seperate list. Unless, perhaps, you find some specific and appropriate criteria for inclusion, which nobody has managed to think of to date. It's best to leave out these sections. Domiy (talk) 00:40, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * As per these comments, those at this and previous discussions at WP:FOOTY talk, and the policies of no original research, neutral point of view and verifiability, I will purge these sections from nft articles next weekend unless there is overwhelming strong reason to the contrary. Kevin McE (talk) 09:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Results & Fixtures and Rosters & Call-ups
I've noticed a lot of talk about recentism on this page so I want to pose a question. Should national team pages include any information on recent and future matches, and if so then to what extent? It's been the norm on the United States page to list matches from the previous six months as well as all scheduled matches in the schedule section; the same criteria is used to list players in the current squad and call-ups section. The England page provides the same information with a 12-month standard applied. The Brazil page has a list of all the matches the team has played since Dunga became the manager in 2006; it's quite a list, and it seems very superfluous to me. The Brazilian roster lists call-ups from the previous 12 months. Others such as Scotland have no schedule given of any kind, but that page uses the 12-month criteria in its roster section as well. Is there any standard for this type of information? I can understand the argument for both inclusion and exclusion. JohnnyPolo24 (talk) 15:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposed change: Trivia for "Squad"
Trivia sections are discouraged by Wikipedia, and yet this page encourages them. Isn't this a tad idiotic? However, most football articles include squad listings. Perhaps the "Trivia" should be replaced by the "Squad" section.--&#91;&#124;!*//MarshalN20\\*!&#124;&#93; (talk) 23:58, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Demonyms: Spain team vs. Spanish team.
Why do the national football team articles not use demonyms, e.g. "Spain national football team" [sic] instead of "Spanish national football team"? The former looks like a bad translation, while the demonym looks like the correct English as seen in the first sentence "The Spanish national football team represents Spain". Google news lists 156 for the former, but 409 for the demonym. -- Jeandré (talk), 2010-02-19t10:49z

El Salvador national football team
Could anyone help me fix this article for it could be upgraded to GA or FA? Thank you. Jaime070996 02:11, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Penalty goals
If a football player scores a penalty goal in a penalty shoot-out, does it count as a goal (in the caps and GOALS)? Jaime070996 02:12, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No it doesn't. As it says in Penalty shootout (association football) (albeit without a reference) "Goals scored during the shootout are not included in the final score, nor are they added to the goalscoring records of the players involved." Oldelpaso (talk) 11:21, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Current Squad (again)
The MOS does not show the current squad list and appropriate consensus template for such series, so I have boldly added it. It is de-facto consensus to have the current squad (as almost all national team pages have such a section) and various discussions at WP:FOOTY indicate this is the preferred template. Without this in the MOS sample page it is harder to argue for consistancy from rogue editors.-- Club Oranje T 00:19, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Good move, although I'd far rather not have the blue bar between positions (some players are more flexible: this isn't netball whereby players are restricted in what part of the pitch they occupy). However, can we establish a norm on how long we allow a so-called current squad to remain displayed when a team is inactive, as sometimes happens for several year in the case of less competitive nations (someone recently tried to publish the current squad of a team who haven't played since 2003)  Kevin McE (talk) 07:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm easy either way on the blue bar thing. Last one I did didn't have numbers in the ref, just had it broken by position (New Zealand women's national football team if anyone is interested) so I simply duped that, but I'm as happy to see them listed as one group by the numbers-- Club Oranje T 08:22, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed change: consistency in article title gendering

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus at this time. I read this lack of consensus with regret, since my gender wants me to see greater precision in article titles to help minimize systemic bias. My problem here is the difficulty in determining a primary topic; search-engine stats indicate there is none, but RS usage seems to indicate that the men's teams are (currently) primary. This has nothing to do with "political correctness" (a meaningless phrase if ever there was one); when commenting, opinions should be focused, concise and based on policy, not anecdote.  Mini  apolis  17:19, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

– –  In light of the recent criticism of sexism in wikipedia through article categories, I thought that it would appropriate to review the inconsistency in gendered titles of sports teams on wikipedia. Currently the most prevalent format for men's teams is "Country name national sport (football in this case) team". For women's teams the format is "Country name national women's sport team". Thus we have France national football team and France women's national football team. The fact that only the women's article title is gendered implies that wikipedia believes that the default sport team is a men's team, and that, by extension, sports are for men and not women.
 * Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/National teams → ?
 * Afghanistan national football team → Afghanistan men's national football team
 * Albania national football team → Albania men's national football team
 * Algeria national football team → Algeria men's national football team
 * Andorra national football team → Andorra men's national football team
 * Angola national football team → Angola men's national football team
 * Anguilla national football team → Anguilla men's national football team
 * Antigua and Barbuda national football team → Antigua and Barbuda men's national football team

The arguments I've found for maintaining the naming scheme are that women's football does not have equal prominence to men's football. I would argue that, while this is true, the reasons for the difference in prominence are due to societal pressures that encourage women to participate in more feminine activities that do not include sports. While perhaps wikipedia should be a reflection of those social pressures, it would seem that wikipedia also should reflect the logic of consistency across all its articles.

Football, of course, is hardly alone in this inconsistency. In fact, from what little research I've done, it seems to be more consistently gendered than other sports, as the US team is titled United States men's national soccer team.

Please let me know what other considerations I've missed as well as your thoughts on this change. I will request input from the participants in the discussions linked in this proposal. Originally posted: 20:59, 9 May 2013 (UTC). Dkreisst (talk) 21:09, 12 May 2013 (UTC)


 * This seems very sensible. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:21, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Very good idea.-- Laun  chba  ller  21:30, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I would support the idea of putting gender into both titles for men's and women's sports team articles, even though I am sure that some people here will argue that reliable sources do not currently do this for various sports, so we should not either. Invertzoo (talk) 21:38, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Political correctness gone ... well slightly over the top anyway. How can this be justified under WP:COMMONNAME, which is always the primary policy for article names? Johnbod (talk) 22:15, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is the question. My argument would be that there is justification through the precision of the term.  My understanding is that national football teams are commonly referred to within the context of the tournament in which they are currently playing.  Football gets the most attention during world cups, which are gendered, and, importantly, separated from each other by one year.  Therefore, when referring to a national team during a world cup, there is little confusion as to which gendered team a speaker is referring: there is no need for the precision I base my proposal on.  Since the world cups are the most prominent points of reference to national football teams, I would suggest that there has been little effort to distinguish the genders of the teams because of the temporal separation of the already gendered tournaments.  However, during competitions which host both genders at the same time, such as the Pan American Games or the Olympics, the competition and those referring to the national teams competing in it, would have to be more precise.  At least, that is my hope, as I haven't actually yet looked into the media references during these tournaments.  On our pages, at least, for these "co-ed" tournaments, we separate the genders of the teams through article sectioning (See "Men" and "Women" sections of Football at the 2011 Pan American Games) and separate articles (See Football at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's tournament and Football at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's tournament), both of which are gendered consistently.
 * Perhaps a weakness in my argument is that the common names for the world cup tournaments are very clearly not gendered consistently. I think, though, that even though the world cup is the most well-recognized football tournament since national teams play at both the world cup and at other tournaments that host both genders at the same time, we need to think more about how precision could alleviate any confusion that might occur when the teams are playing at tournaments that host teams of both genders at the same time.  Dkreisst (talk) 00:12, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support This is resolved at the American college sports level where we have categories such as Category:Alabama Crimson Tide women's basketball players and Category:Alabama Crimson Tide men's basketball players plus Category:Connecticut Huskies women's ice hockey coaches and Category:Connecticut Huskies men's ice hockey coaches with no drama. - Dravecky (talk) 00:39, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That may be perfectly appropriate for that context. No-one is saying such styles should never be used. Johnbod (talk) 15:17, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose - I have to say I like the idea, and I don't see the point of separating novelists from women novelists, and I would support this way of thinking in some other sports; As a Norwegian I can't understand why the men's handball team is located at Norway national handball team while the women's team, which is the most prominent, is located at Norway women's national handball team. But when it comes to football, there is in most country the national team and the women's national team, football is a man-dominated sport and the article titles should reflect the common names. Mentoz86 (talk) 01:43, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support - I don't see there being any confusion from adding "men's" to sport situations where there are both male and female teams (and leagues). True, it's a bit wordier, but it also serves to tell/remind readers that there is a (roughly) equivalent women's team from that country/city/college/whatever. (At a U.S. college where a sport such as football has no women's team, the word "men's" could be omitted from the single team in that sport.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:39, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose - It is not the place of an encyclopaedia to campaign or to promote a cause. An encyclopaedia reflects reality.  It reality, the type of source we rely upon as Reliable Sources do not find any need to specify men's football.  Kevin McE (talk) 05:59, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Update a google search finds 1.5 million hits in news articles for a search of "men's football" and 1.7 million hits in news articles for a search of "women's football". Though google searches are probably not the best method of determining common names, this might show that, at least in english language media, the two terms are reaching parity.  (I say reaching, because I assume the term "men's football" is growing due to the growth of women's football and the need to differentiate the groups, but it could easily be that the term is declining.)  The top search item for both searches at this posting time (07:06, 10 May 2013 (UTC)) was, maybe a little too appropriately, Clare Balding: England women will win football World Cup before men.  Dkreisst (talk) 07:06, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I think you'll find that it's not because the two sports are achieving parity, more that mens football is generally referred to simply as football, so you're actively discounting the majority of references to it on the net - the inclusion of which which would push the figures for the mens sport into the billions. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 08:02, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, my search (news articles with soccer:250 million, and football (based on my best guess based on the ratio (.26) of non-american football v. regular football in first 50 articles in google): 92 million) shows all articles that relate to football at 342 million. Gendered articles, then, make up about one percent of that, with a small percentage of that having some overlap. Dkreisst (talk) 21:51, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Bladeboy's point, which you appear to have deliberately missed, is that the vast majority of sources you're describing as "gender-neutral" refer to the men's game. "Black swan" and "white swan" may be equally prominent in search results, but pretty much any source that refers to a swan without including a colour is referring to white swans. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:48, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Please be careful about how you use quotes. I did not use the phrase "gender-neutral".  If I had I would have been very wrong, as you suggest.  Beyond that, I'm afraid I was not entirely clear in my response.  I did not miss Bladeboy1889's point, my response was meant mostly to support his answer (thus my response to him starting with the word "Yes"): that only one percent of articles were explicitly gendered.  The others, which perhaps I should have described as non-explicitly gendered so as to avoid confusing readers, I'm sure mostly refer to football played solely by men.  Dkreisst (talk) 19:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose - like it or not the two sports do not have anything like parity in the public consciousness and therefore don't need disambiguating in this way. I can pretty much guarantee that the number of times the phrase "Did you watch the last England game?" was followed by the question "The men's or the women's team?" is exactly zero.  The proposal seems like WP:CAMPAIGNING to me. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 08:02, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose - I'm not a large fan of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, but it ever applied to a series of articles, it was these. Women's football is nowhere near as popular (either with fans or media) as the men's game - except in US/Canada - where the article titles reflect that. GiantSnowman 08:18, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support - No offence, but this argument that men's football enjoys some sort of 'natural' primacy is nonsense. Ideologically, it comes from the same place as the sad old farts who used to ban women running marathons because, supposedly, their wombs would fall out! Bladeboy1889, the last England game I watched was the women - not far from you. I've also - shock horror - seen a team from Sheffield win something this season. Clavdia chauchat (talk) 21:23, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Compare the men's coverage to the women's coverage at the BBC - says it all really. Not sexist, just accurate. GiantSnowman 22:00, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The fact that Sheffield F.C. Ladies barely warrant a mention in the local media proves the point. And your comments are most certainly WP:CAMPAIGNING.  The bottom line is that when the media and the huge majority of the population talk about England, Arsenal or Sheffield they don't disambiguate it to clarify it's a team comprised of men. That being the case neither should Wikipedia. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 08:06, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * So not "exactly zero" then? The FA website now disambiguates between men's and women's national teams - as, I imagine, do all sources who provide serious coverage to national teams of both genders. It seems to me not only desirable but necessary. As a matter of fact I'm not sure why you are quite so incensed by this proposition. We are only talking about national teams, not clubs. Clavdia chauchat (talk) 22:30, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Who says I'm incensed? I'm not the one ascribing WP:CAMPAIGNING comments reasons to my reason (you suggested that not disambiguating these articles is an "ideological" issue.)  It is "necessary" only to prove your point.  The BBC doesn't feel the need clarify that it's the mens team on this page, unless of course they don't provide 'serious coverage'?  My reasoning is that WP:COMMONNAME should be the case here - in fact I'd prefer that the 'national football team' bit was actually made into a disambiguation itself as the common name is simply 'Scotland' not 'Scotland national football team'.Bladeboy1889 (talk) 08:03, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Bladeboy1889, I don't think this is exactly what you are referring to as it is more a disambiguation of lists rather than teams, but it might be a start: National football team. Dkreisst (talk) 21:49, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Your point being? Bladeboy1889 (talk) 11:35, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Merely that it exists and that, if you had not yet seen it, you might find it useful for a proposal in the future. No offence intended.  Dkreisst (talk) 18:35, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I still don't understand the purpose of your comment. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 19:09, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You stated that you would "prefer that the 'national football team' bit was actually made into a disambiguation itself". I was pointing out that there was a precedent for your preference and that, if you had not yet seen the page, it could give you an idea of what that might look like.  Dkreisst (talk) 20:00, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I find Bladeboy1889's comment on COMMONNAME here useful to think about regarding the debate on whether to include the word "men's" in men's football team titles. If it is true, then there is little case for the current title to be maintained under the COMMONNAME argument because both the current and proposed titles are similarly, if not equally, uncommon. Dkreisst (talk) 18:35, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose Naming should be based on what the sources are saying. We should not be trying to right perceived wrongs. Eldumpo (talk) 07:23, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Men's and women's football are in effect separate sports, and the men's game has clear primacy (per PRIMARYTOPIC) in most regions. It's not comparable to the novelists situation: in the real world, reliable sources do not distinguish between male and female novelists, but they certainly do distinguish between male and female football teams and in most cases afford the former significantly more prominent coverage. I'm not opposed to hatnotes on all the men's articles, nor the moving of particular articles based on local relative popularity, but it isn't time yet to consider a general page move. That may well change in the future. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:00, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If men's and women's football are "in effect separate sports", then shouldn't the articles be titled "Albanian national women's football team"? Of course not, because no one calls it that, because football is football.  The rules are the same.  The women don't play "women's football"; they're women playing football, thus "women's national football team".  Powers T 18:18, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * No-one's disputing the order of the name, we're disputing the need to disambiguate the male teams in violation of WP:COMMONNAME, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:COMMONSENSE. GiantSnowman 18:39, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I realize you're not disputing the order. I'm saying that the order is evidence against your ridiculous claim that men and women play different sports called "football".  There is no sport called "women's football".  It's just football played by women, as demonstrated by the common name of their national teams.  Also: Common sense?  Common sense says if we have one gender specified, then we should also have the other gender specified.  That's common sense, to people with any sense of equity.  Powers T 18:47, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Powers, did you actually research whether that ordering is used? Because both the Scottish and the English national sides' official home pages use "Xish women's football team". Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:54, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry for not painstakingly visiting every single official home page to catalog their use and compile statistics. I'm just going on what our articles (such as England women's national football team) are titled.  Powers T 18:17, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * LtPowers, is your main concern here that we have England women's national football team as opposed to England national women's football team? If so, why not suggest a RM across women's football team - no need to drag male teams into this when they have clear PRIMARYTOPIC. GiantSnowman 19:00, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Maybe this debate is, as User:Thumperward suggests, about whether these men's and women's football are separate sports or not. Of course, if men's and women's football were separate sports, there would be a disambiguation warning at the top of the page instead a link under the "See also" section at the bottom.  This leaves me to wonder what a person viewing the article "{insert country} women's national football team" would think when they see a link at the bottom under the "See also" section that links to an article titled "{insert country} national football team".  Are they not already viewing an article that claims to represent the national football team?  Would this not be confusing to a reader?  It seems that PRIMARYTOPIC could be satisfied with a redirect from "{insert country} national football team" to "{insert country} men's national football team", as there is little evidence that supports women getting more coverage than men in football.  On further thought, I think COMMONNAME is a bit outside the realm of application here, as I don't think people are so attached to the title of "{insert country} national football team" that they would be disappointed to find themselves at an article titled "{insert country} men's national football team". The benefit from clearing any confusion around which gender the sport is addressing should override the difficulty of seeing an extra qualifier in the title.  Dkreisst (talk) 21:51, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * No. The current titles are the most conformant to the naming guidelines as they presently exist (we do not place articles at "correct" titles and add redirects; we simply place articles at the most commonly-used titles). If you wish to change those guidelines, argue it directly: do not do so piecemeal in the case of arbitrary topics. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 22:57, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The guidelines upon which I am basing my argument on are those of precision, consistency and, to a certain extent, recognizability. It seems the arguments against the change could be based on conciseness, to which I have little defence except that I believe it is needed to distinguish the articles, and naturalness, to which I would argue that the proposed title is equally as unnatural as the the current title, though most media citations disagree. I do not propose to change these or any other guidelines. Dkreisst (talk) 00:11, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Alternate add "association" to football as well. -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 23:22, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Are there non-association national teams? Dkreisst (talk) 00:11, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are, Ireland, Australia, Canada and the United States have national football teams that are not soccer teams, meaning most of the English-speaking world. -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 04:37, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That's not even nearly "most of the English speaking world"! GiantSnowman 08:14, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, sorry. I had hoped that you were referring to non-association national "soccer" teams.  That would have made this debate a bit more interesting. Dkreisst (talk) 18:42, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Additional history on this debate can be found here: Talk:United States men's national soccer team/Archive 3. Dkreisst (talk) 00:18, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Whether we agree with it or not, there is absolutely no comparison between the popularity of men's football and women's football. The national team will always refer to the men's team. TonyStarks (talk) 03:16, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support Popularity has nothing to do with it. And we don't have to follow sexist patterns in society if we don't want to, just like we don't have to follow racist conventions. We can choose to be better. Wadewitz (talk) 18:56, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * So your support is based purely on personal WP:CAMPAIGNING reasons? Bladeboy1889 (talk) 11:35, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support — Precision is required in naming.--Carwil (talk) 19:49, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * No it's not. GiantSnowman 20:06, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * What does commonname have to do with precision? No one's arguing what the common name of these men's teams is; the problem is that without a gender identifier, the names are ambiguous -- that is, insufficiently precise.  Powers T 21:10, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Snowman, your link (WP:COMMONNAME) says this: "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources."--Carwil (talk) 01:35, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Nothing ambiguous about it. GiantSnowman 08:14, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Support; long overdue. And I hope this debate attracts the same level of attention as the novelist brouhaha.  WP:AT names five criteria for article titles.  Of them, consistency and precision are best served by renaming these articles with the word "men's" -- consistency with the women's articles and with other countries' men's articles, and with other sports; precision because without the "men's" qualifier, the titles are ambiguous.  Naturalness and conciseness are already out the window by having to add the country and the sport to the title, which are usually omitted when the context is already established, but these are the most natural and concise titles possible given the precision requirement.  Recognizability is, I think, neutral on this topic.  The balance of these factors demands that we disambiguate these article titles from their women's counterparts.  Powers T 21:10, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Football is completely different to every other sport in the world in regards to media coverage, male dominance etc. It is an anomaly and should be treated as such. Funny how no-one "supporting" the move seems to be a member of WP:FOOTBALL i.e. doesn't know what they are talking about (with all due respect). Having "mens's" and "women's" in the US and Canada? Fine. Having hatnotes? Fine. Moving so many, many articles in violation of WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC? Not fine. GiantSnowman 08:14, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Special pleading, huh? Only a TRUE football fan would understand that FOOTBALL is special and girls can't play it right, huh?  Do you have any idea how very very sexist that sounds?  WP:FOOTBALL hasn't even seen fit to add hatnotes from these ambiguous names to the women's teams' articles, so I think appealing to the collective judgement of its members is questionable at best.  (Sure, you say the hatnotes are "fine" now, but why only now?)  Powers T 18:18, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, accusations of sexism, surprised it took so long. GiantSnowman 18:39, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I did not accuse you of sexism; I said your argument sounds sexist. It may not actually be motivated by sexism, but it sounds like it is, and that doesn't do much for your side.  Powers T 18:47, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I think you may have missed User:Clavdia chauchat above. I have spent a good portion of my time on wikipedia editing football articles, though I do not claim to be at all an expert.  I would not have made this proposal for the sport of football if I had not spent so much time looking at football article titles.  Dkreisst (talk) 19:03, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The "novelist brouhaha" was mostly the fault of non-contributors looking for a way to fill column inches. I would very much hope that nobody actually affiliated with the project wished for all that drama and disruption to occur again. As for your examination of the five naming criteria, you're plainly starting with your preferred answer and working backwards from there (hence discarding the two that plainly contradict your preferred outcome out of hand). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:43, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * How about assuming a little good faith. I don't discard naturalness, merely point out that the most natural rendering ("national team") is obviously unsuitable.  I suppose we could argue about whether it's more natural to say "Albania men's national football team" or just "Albania national football team", but the latter is obviously ambiguous, so I just don't understand how the "naturalness" criterion can apply.  As for conciseness, again, precision has to take precedence because of the existence of a conflicting topic.  Maybe I'm missing something, but your accusation of bad faith doesn't do anything to help me understand your position.  Powers T 18:18, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Why is it "obviously unsuitable"? Question - would you espouse renaming the article on London to London (England)? Bladeboy1889 (talk) 19:09, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh come on. Which country, sport, and gender would you expect to find under the title national team?  Powers T 19:26, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If you were talking about the "national football team", then I would expect you to be talking about the male sport. GiantSnowman 19:28, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Exactly what GiantSnowman said - I'd expect it to be about the mens team in the same way I'd expect the article on London to be about the capital of England and not a city in Canada. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 19:40, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll repeat myself: "Which country, sport, and gender"? You answered "gender", but not "country" and "sport".  Of course you can't, because it's ambiguous.  That's why the title "national team" is "obviously unsuitable".  Would you like to continue contesting my statement that the title "national team" is unsuitable?  Powers T 18:15, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * What point are you trying to make? The discussion is around the title "(country) national football team"  What has the phrase 'national team' got to do with anything?  As both GS and I clarified - if the question was '(country x) national football team' then I'd expect to find the article of the mens team.  Asking about a generic phrase has no relevance to this discussion.  Or are you proposing changing the words 'national team'? Bladeboy1889 (talk) 18:09, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It's noticeable that the only editors arguing against this change are the quaint 'gentlemen's club' from WP:Footy. If the gents will now graciously accept hatnotes on their articles (!) I don't understand why a small improvement/correction to the article title, alleviating the need for the hatnote, is not preferable. Clavdia chauchat (talk) 19:44, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The idea of a "gentlemen's club" is bullshit and offensive and I'd ask you to please retract your silly comment. Hatnotes are a sensible compromise, and page moves are not being accepted because they are in clear breach of WP:COMMONNAME, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:COMMONSENSE! GiantSnowman 19:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not a member of WP:Footy and find your generalisation quite sexist and discriminatory. I just happen to believe Wikipedia shouldn't be used for WP:CAMPAIGNING which this clearly is. (The nomination being based not on reliving ambiguity but on "The fact that only the women's article title is gendered implies that wikipedia believes that the default sport team is a men's team, and that, by extension, sports are for men and not women.") Bladeboy1889 (talk) 20:01, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you going to apologise for insinuating that an entire WikiProject (which covers football played by both sexes) is sexist, or would you prefer that to be your noted position? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:44, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I was the first to oppose, & I'm not a member of the project either, or frankly much interested in football. How many supporters are from outside North America I wonder? Johnbod (talk) 14:11, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Not the person who proposed it. Of the 10 supporters' user pages/comments, 2.5 indicate they are from outside North America (users Launchballer and Clavdia chauchat. user Invertzoo states she spent half of her life in England) and the rest indicate that they are from the United States.  Of the 7 opposers' user pages/comments, 4 indicate they are from outside North America (users Mentoz86, Bladeboy1889, GiantSnowman, and TonyStarks) and the rest make no indication of where they are from.  Of supporters, there are two people (Invertzoo and Wadewitz) who indicate they are women.  Of opposers, there are zero people who indicate they are women.  Dkreisst (talk) 21:54, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Not that it maters, but I am a male from the UK, though I am also a Canadian citizen who lived there as recently as 3 years ago. GiantSnowman 11:25, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Some viewing statistics may be useful here. These are today's figures for views in the last 30 days, for the mens' and womens' teams of 3 countries, and the womens' views as a % of the mens':
 * England: 88,915 - 4,153 - 5%
 * USA 50,448 - 22,989 - 46%
 * Argentina: 67812 - 745 - 1%

It seems clear we should specify both genders in the article titles for the USA, but not globally. I'd add I wouldn't object to some reorganizing and renaming of categories like Category:European national association football teams, but that is not an issue for this discussion, which is long enough already. Some of these (eg Germany) contain women's football in sub-cats, while others (eg France) don't seem to. Johnbod (talk) 14:32, 15 May 2013 (UTC) Johnbod (talk) 14:24, 15 May 2013 (UTC)


 * By UK do you mean England? There is a UK team as well - Great Britain women's Olympic football team who played in the Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's tournament. Meanwhile the UK representative in the Football at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's tournament was the (ungendered) Great Britain Olympic football team. Why gender the tournament but not the teams? I think it's this sort of inconsistency we are trying to address. Using page views alone to establish WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is not ideal in any case, because most women's national team articles are little more than stubs, with less inward links etc. and bound to get less traffic (The USWNT is one of the only ones which isn't a stub). Again that's probably only reflective of the systematic bias within wikipedia itself. Incidently, these people complaining about the novelist categories should try joining the women's football task force! If they are offended by females being categorised as females they would blow a gasket when confronted with overtly sexist notability criteria, discriminatory and inconsistent naming of articles and all the other nonsense which this small but dedicated bunch are up against. Clavdia chauchat (talk) 18:10, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, yes - I'm on a campaign to infuriate all Scottish women. It's going really well so far. Changed. There's nothing wrong with the England women's team article, though the Argie one is a bit short. But 1st time readers won't know that until they've got there. Johnbod (talk) 23:10, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Claudia, a friendly word of advice - maybe if you stopped with your baseless accusations of sexism, discrimination and bias, you might get more editors supporting your viewpoint. But you won't, so you won't. GiantSnowman 18:25, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not opposed to moving on a case-by-case basis where there is appropriate supporting evidence. The US would be the most obvious candidate. And in time I imagine there will be further moves. I just don't think that we've reached an appropriate threshold to do a mass-move, especially as the primary motivation for such a move is as a reaction to an event that it bears little comparison to. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 08:56, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I believe US/Canada are already at 'male/female', an argument could perhaps made for Australia, but no justification for the rest of the world. GiantSnowman 11:26, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Exactly - some form of disambiguation is required where there is evidence that widespread confusion may arise (which in the vast majority of national football teams there is not), not for reasons of perception or righting issues in society - which has largely been used as a rationale on this page.  Where that is doesn't work on a case-by-case basis then renaming would be relevant, I don't think anyone has suggested otherwise. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 13:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * There seems to be some consensus forming that the change should be selective rather than global - ie this proposal be rejected. Can anyone suggest specific cases where the present naming might need changing? Johnbod (talk) 14:13, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * What is the appropriate threshold? Even if women's national team articles are only getting 5% of the traffic that's potentially one in every twenty visitors being mucked around by something which could easily be fixed. From a quick glance Japan, China, Sweden and a few others are all sitting at 10%+ page views. The chaps from WP:Footy have been very clear with their views but I think it would help to get some more objective input, perhaps from a slightly wider demographic (no offence intended). Clavdia chauchat (talk) 18:10, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Making an offensive suggestion and then putting 'no offence intended' after it does not give you a hall pass. You're suggesting that anyone opposing your position isn't objective I take it?  And by objective I presume you mean 'people who agree with you'? Your comments in this discussion have consistently made personal attacks on the motives of those with a differing point of view to yourself, made accusations of bias and discrimination against anyone who doesn't agree with you, you've provided no real evidence to support your position, dismissed or ignored any point or substatiated evidence that doesn't fit your world view, regularly admitted your position is not based on Wikipedia principals but is based on your own personal dogma, are consistently WP:CAMPAIGNING and now seem to be proposing WP:CANVASSING to try and gather support for your position. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 08:38, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I give due weight to the opinion of the WP:Footy lads, but asking for a wider input is not WP:CANVASSING. Quite the opposite in fact. Clavdia chauchat (talk) 13:13, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * And again you try and imply bias on the part of other users and continue with your high handed posturing. If you're actively seeking support for your position (which your tone firmly suggests to be the case) then that certainly is WP:CANVASSING. Your position is clear - you believe a change is necessary to further your own political agenda, and should be noted as such in any review of the nomination. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 13:59, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Fix it with a hatnote then, as opposed to annoying the vast majority of readers looking for the men's team but who are directed to a disambiguation page if the proposed move goes ahead. GiantSnowman 18:25, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not fond of being directed to a disambiguation page when looking for an article. This is why I think redirects would work better.  Dkreisst (talk) 00:32, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Personally I'd say over about 10% might be a reasonable threshold. Johnbod (talk) 23:16, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Giant Snowman's comment should direct us to be rather less concerned about the issue. I suspect that the proportion of readers of Italy national football team, for example, typed Italy national football team at any stage.  They will follow links, or have it on a watchlist, or type italy football into the search box (the word national is by no means part of the common name for either sex), or be directed from another site.  This is a purely administrative issue, that can probably be quickly closed and concluded.  Kevin McE (talk) 06:22, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If the vast majority are looking for the men's team, then surely they would be assisted rather than annoyed by having the page title reflect what they were looking for. There seems to be an acceptance that we need hatnotes to disambiguate, but correcting the title seems to be a "bridge too far" for some. I'm trying to understand why that is. Clavdia chauchat (talk) 13:13, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It's only a "correction" in the minds of those wanting a page move. The national men's side is rarely, if ever, referred to as such in the real world, with the exception of particular territories such as the United States. For the vast majority of cases it is simply an extra bit of disambiguation tacked on. We could likewise argue that changing all the names to read as "German national senior men's association football team" would be a "correction", but that would only amplify the problems with the current proposal. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 07:25, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry for missing a day of discussion. While the "primary motivation" was an incident that related to novelists and categories instead of football and article titles, the issue, that women are being made invisible on wikipedia, is comparable. Dkreisst (talk) 23:53, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I would re-propose that all the men's team article titles be changed but that we place redirects from "Country national football team" to the men's team article, with a hatnote for those looking for a women's team. For the US and other countries where there is an almost equal interest, there must (as there is) be a disambiguation page, as there is little clear difference in interest.  This change would satisfy PRIMARYTOPIC, as the people seem to be looking for men's teams would find the article they are looking for immediately, as well as maintain the consistency and preciseness in article naming, as the name of the article would be altered to avoid confusion. Dkreisst (talk) 00:32, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose - a more reasoned and reasonable tone than some of the other contributors above but the response remains the same for all the reasons previously stated. It would be simply getting the change made by the back door.  Such a move would be unnecessary, doesn't meet WP:PRIMARYTOPIC or WP:COMMONNAME, would fill up articles with thousands of pointless redirects and is made for self confessed WP:CAMPAIGNING reasons. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 13:03, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 * By your own statement and by those of others on both sides of this debate (Kevin McE, LtPowers), COMMONNAME has little to with this proposal as both "Country men's national football team" and "Country national football team" are equally uncommon. PRIMARYTOPIC, as I stated above, would be satisfied by the redirect.  The benefit, again, would be a precise, consistent and unambiguous article title.  Supporting the correct title is not CAMPAIGNING.  Dkreisst (talk) 17:52, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 * From one of your comments: "While the "primary motivation" was an incident that related to novelists and categories instead of football and article titles, the issue, that women are being made invisible on wikipedia, is comparable." - You state the reason for change is part of a movement to improve the perception of women, not to improve wikipedia or to make things easier for users. Various other reasons have then been sought by those supporting to retrospectively try and justify it.  The motivation is a personal dogma - thus WP:CAMPAIGNING Bladeboy1889 (talk) 19:07, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The quote you used shows that somebody else's words are guessing my primary motivation. (That is why "primary motivation" is in quotes.)  My primary motivation is to improve football articles on wikipedia.  Changing the article titles and creating redirects to create precise and consistent article titles will do that. Dkreisst (talk) 19:22, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 * From your nomination: "The fact that only the women's article title is gendered implies that wikipedia believes that the default sport team is a men's team, and that, by extension, sports are for men and not women... ...I've found for maintaining the naming scheme are that women's football does not have equal prominence to men's football. I would argue that, while this is true, the reasons for the difference in prominence are due to societal pressures that encourage women to participate in more feminine activities that do not include sports."  Seems quite a clear motivation to me. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 19:28, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Also from the nomination: "wikipedia also should reflect the logic of consistency across all its articles". Is this not a motivation? Dkreisst (talk) 20:22, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Dkreisst, there is ZERO point in having 'X national football team' redirect to 'X men's national football team', it is unnecessary disambiguation. What about the minority of people searching for 'X women's national football team' by typing 'X national football team'? Would you then have a hatnote on 'X men's national football team'? If so, page moves are pointless and we should just hatnote from the very off, as we discussed days ago! GiantSnowman 09:38, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You still haven't answered why, in your munificence, your project will now accept hatnotes? Surely we need to disambiguate or we don't. If we do, I think everyone accepts we will have to at some point, then let's fix the titles too while we're at it. Also, I'd be interested to read what you and Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) feel is the "appropriate threshold" mentioned previously? Clavdia chauchat (talk) 16:27, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * As far as I'm aware, the WP:FOOTY project has never rejected hatnotes, and I certainly never have. In fact, I've mentioned it as a good compromise here a few times. Hatnotes are an aid to navigation for pages that are the clear primary topic, as male football teams are. GiantSnowman 16:45, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If you're going to continue to be sarcastic, it's difficult to believe you're arguing in good faith. The topic of hatnotes was brought up for the first time little over a month ago, and had broad support. In fact, this whole discussion was continuing along the lines to which I expect this RfC to be closed (hatnotes everywhere, a couple of articles moved, no general consensus for a bulk move at this time). As regards an appropriate threshold, all the evidence so far suggests that the only women's article which receives more than an order of magnitude less page views than the men's is the United States (roughly 50% each). That's even though the pages (or at least those in a short sample of high-profile ones I've looked at) have hatnotes now. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 07:25, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you, GiantSnowman, and everyone else, for your patience. I think there is a reason for a name change and redirect.  The name change allows for a more precise and consistent naming of the article.  The redirect and hatnote (in my mind looking like this: "Country national football team" redirects here.  For the women's football team, see "Country women's national football team") shows that the primary topic is the men's team.  As I'm sure you are aware, there are plenty of redirects that take this format.  An example is here: Football League Championship.  Dkreisst (talk) 20:08, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * But you have contradicted your own argument. Your are concerned that people searching for 'X women's national football team' by clicking on 'X national football team' and getting the male team are being mis-led, discriminated against etc. etc. You believe your proposed redirect/hatnote system will solve that, even though it actually makes zero difference, other than giving unequal teams a false equal footing. You want to place male and female national teams on equal footing even though they are clearly not in terms of fans, media coverage etc. Not a single person here has been able to refute WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. GiantSnowman 08:54, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

An interesting point regarding some of the comments above - have a look at this discussion. There's a suggestion of a rename for a football team article citing WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:COMMONNAME - and the person pushing for the move?... Bladeboy1889 (talk) 13:13, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 * What's your point? That discussion is more evidence that it is invariably women's football articles which are shunted out ("ghettoized") irrespective of notability or wikipedia policy. Look, I can see that this entire proposal— for some reason— has you absolutely seething. Instead of namecalling and shouting about policies you obviously don't understand, perhaps you might try responding to some of the points raised. For example what do you think the "appropriate threshold" of respective page views should be before we consider correcting the titles? 10%+ as Johnbod suggested? 25, 50%? Clavdia chauchat (talk) 16:27, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * My point is that you have spent this debate insisting that WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC are irrelevant but are quite happy to insist that they are of primary importance when it benefits your push to change the names of other articles. You seem to misunderstand disagreeing with you as 'seething' - I oppose this proposal as I have repeatedly stated, nothing more.  Your understanding of 'name calling' is somewhat odd considering the repeated comments you have made and have been picked up on repeatedly.  You are quite obviously a troll and I don't intend to continue rising to your ranting.Bladeboy1889 (talk) 16:40, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose - We may not like it, but the men's game does dominate over the women's game almost globally and therefore WP:PRIMARYTOPIC would seem to apply to the men's national teams. – PeeJay 19:47, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment (my !vote's above): Re-reading the precision requirement, I still see "The title is sufficiently precise to unambiguously identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects." Men's is needed to distinguish the topic. If only the men's team were on WP or the women's team was vanishingly small/unlikely to be searched for, that would be one thing. However, the women's teams are here on WP in almost every case. And we have several cyclical events that make women's teams likely to be the preferred search term at certain times (Men's and women's world cups occur in different years; some national women's teams make tournaments like the Olympics when their male counterparts do not). When these happen, WP's neutral=men redirects will and should be publicly ridiculed.--Carwil (talk) 23:29, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I have no strong opinion on the titling issue, but this "preferred search at times of major events" is a hypothesis that can be tested using pageviews. The current women's world champions are Japan, surprise winners in 2011 – if mistaken pageviews occur, I'd guess this would be the "worst case". The 2011 World Cup started on 26 June, and the final was on 17 July. Before the tournament, Japan national football team got about 1500 views/day . Japan women's national football team usually got <100 views/day (, but climbs over 200 the week before the tournament. There is a spike as the tournament starts, peaking at 1783 views on the 27th. The men's article also increases in activity, but not at a level distinguishable from noise - that week the views are highest on the 29th, when the women's article is back down to 500 views. In July, there is a spike on the women's article every day the team plays, nothing obvious for the men's. There's a spike on both on the day of the win, but far higher on the women's (3.7 x the views for the men's and 9.5 for the women's). How many of these are misdirected, and how many are due to a general increase for related topics? Let's try the reverse scenario. On the day of the UEFA Euro 2012 (men's) final, views of Spain national football team were 7.9 x that of the previous day, and for Spain women's national football team, they were 2.8 x higher. Inconclusive. Now this is hardly scientific, but I thought attempting to get some numbers might be useful. Oldelpaso (talk) 21:10, 20 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Support rename: The names without gender are misleading to readers. They are not the national football team.  They are one of several national football teams. After a rename, disambiguate the original pages to include links to all national teams for a nation. Gender should be included in the name as it is a defining characteristic of the team. --LauraHale (talk) 00:39, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That's plainly not happening. We're not inconveniencing 90% of our readers of these articles with a landing page for the sake of any issue with the titles. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 07:30, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support - A confused reader might think that the Antigua and Barbuda national football team is a women's team. We need specificity. T  C  N7 JM  00:44, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment - As a Norwegian, I think it is interesting to look at the page view for the Norwegian national teams; they are both rated as C-class and while the women's team is one of the best in the world, the men's team is a mediocre team that rarely qualifies for the World Cup or the European Championship. However, the men's team got 47,452 page-views in the last 90 days, while the women's team got 4,340 views in the same period. Even if all of the readers of the women's team article first entered the men's team article, there are 10 times as many readers of the article about the "mediocre" team than readers of the "world class" team. I think that is a good enough reason to not mass-move hundreds of articles about men's team, as those are WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Mentoz86 (talk) 03:47, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Support In line with WP:NPOV, the proposed naming convention is accurate. As mentioned previously, many categories are set up like this already. It's a good idea to get consistent with titles as well. Hmlarson (talk) 04:21, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, categories are NOT like this naming style - even the US categories are (for male) and  (for female)! GiantSnowman 18:56, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You make a good point and provide all the more reason for adopting this proposal to provide more consistency going forward. As mentioned previously by other editors and shown in just a few examples here:, ,, , etc., including gender in the title clarifies which team the article refers to. It seems rather backwards to assume a sports team is male; it should be specified in the title with a disambiguation hatnote at the top of each page linking to the other gender's team. Furthermore, the proposed title naming convention is already in use on so many other similar articles. See: United States men's national soccer team, Canada men's national soccer team, Canada men's national youth soccer teams, England men's national basketball team, China men's national basketball team, etc. It seems like a great time to clean up the rest of them and for equal representation of sports no matter gender, race, or culture. Hmlarson (talk) 00:15, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That is college soccer - where male & female are on a more equal footing; the same cannot be said for professional football and it certainly is not the case at international level. It is not backwards at all to assume the national football team is male - in all but a few countries (namely US and Canada) that is very much the case. This is a case of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, nothing to do with any perceived discrimination, and has been evidenced above by media coverage of male national football teams, far outweighing the coverage of their female counterparts. GiantSnowman 08:54, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, a clear consensus seems to be developing that it is backward, and it is unacceptable. Notwithstanding the minority from wikiproject men's football! Clavdia chauchat (talk) 17:45, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If that's your interpretation of "clear consensus" then good luck with the rest of your Wikipedia career, you'll need it! Are any of the supporters not from the women's football taskforce? (which might I remind you is a subpage of the WP:FOOTY you seem to enjoy criticizing so?) GiantSnowman 19:04, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not from WFTF. And you're condescension about "subpages" is just weird. If you don't see a consensus for the change, may I suggest we solicit broader input?--Carwil (talk) 12:31, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Not a condescension, a fact - it is a taskforce which is a smaller part of WP:FOOTY. Of course there is no consensus for change - a basic count of votes shows equal footing, and the arguments of the supporters is not nearly as strong as those of the opposers). GiantSnowman 12:59, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Indeed, and once again I am not "from" the project. Clavdia chauchat's persistent ad hominen comments filling this page have reduced whatever chance of passing this had. Johnbod (talk) 17:24, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The idea that this discussion has generated a consensus is ridiculous, based purely on a pro v con count if nothing else. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 18:09, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I also am not from WFTF. I wonder, though, why you ask.  Do you believe that WFTF members would have a bias?  It seems to me that, as they have a stake in supporting both football and women's visibility, that they should be the voices we listen to for this topic.  Maybe a better question would be if there are any opposers who are from WFTF. Dkreisst (talk) 18:42, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It's a relevant question because of the repeated groundless accusations of bias and sexism levelled at individuals and WP:Football elsewhere on this page. You seem to question the idea that some members of WFTF may be biased or have an agenda they're pushing, whilst in the next sentence suggestion that as they are likely to have an agenda that they should be the sole arbiters? Bladeboy1889 (talk) 18:59, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I would invite those who are calling any mention of sexism a "personal attack" to check this notion at the door. It's perfectly possible to discuss gender bias and/or women's visibility without suggesting someone is a bad person. And if you don't think that gender bias and sexism can appear in categorization, I invite you to peruse some of the examples here.--Carwil (talk) 01:47, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Of course it's possible - but not when we have certain users here who fling it about as a clear insult. When it comes to "male vs. female", you cannot treat football/footballers the same as you would artists, teachers etc. because of the clear, clear, clear dominance that males have in the sport. Those of us opposing are not being sexist (if we were we would have demanded that United States men's national soccer team gets moved to just United States national soccer team!), we are simply being knowledgeable about the sport and applying WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. That's what this boils down to, and I have not seen a single 'supporter' argue against PRIMARYTOPIC. GiantSnowman 08:24, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree Carwil - it is possible to discuss gender bias without implying someone is a bad person. However, some participants in this discussion obviously can't do that.  My question was why bias is only perceived or possible in those opposing the motion and not those promoting it? Bladeboy1889 (talk) 08:35, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * While you have not seen a supporter argue against PRIMARYTOPIC, I have not seen an opposer argue against consistency or precision. Perhaps this is what the issue boils down to? Does one have precedence over the other?  Dkreisst (talk) 20:10, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

This discussion was proceeding nicely until being derailed by the WP:Footy lads. They started the squawking about political WP:CAMPAIGNING and typed offensive nonsense about "exactly zero" interest in women's teams. A quite pathetic misuse of WP:CANVASSING was a particular low point. When their arguments were challenged, they pompously demanded an apology (?) then indulged in passive-aggressive "troll" victimhood when one was not forthcoming. Perhaps ironically given the subject, a few have behaved like big girl's blouses! Johnbod is the only editor in the 'no' camp who has displayed any interest in content, applying policies correctly or looking to build a wider consensus. I and, I suspect, a few others would quite like to get back to that. Clavdia chauchat (talk) 09:38, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Biggest win / Biggest defeat
How about we delete these entries from the standard national team templates? They seem like the sort of unimportant trivia that are discouraged from inclusion in the infobox. See Help:Infobox: "Infobox templates should not be used for details that are too trivial to include in the article body." Barryjjoyce (talk) 06:28, 10 January 2014 (UTC)


 * This discussion has been moved to the WP:FOOTY talk page. If you have any comments on this proposal, please leave them on the Footy talk page, not here. Thanks. Barryjjoyce (talk) 02:40, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

History
I propose adding the following note to the History section. (The WP:USCITIES article contains a similar note).


 * Note: History sections can become very long with more detail than appropriate for a general overview. If the overall article and the history section become quite lengthy, much of the history materal can be moved to a History of _ main article (using the main template), with the main article containing just a WP:SUMMARY of the history.

If you are wondering what the team articles would look like, several team articles — e.g., United States, England — already have separate History articles and a shorter history summary on the main team page. Barryjjoyce (talk) 02:37, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Asst Coach
I suggest removing the Asst Coach field from the national team infobox template. Assistant coaches get relatively little coverage compared to other key items in the infobox (head coach, captain, FIFA ranking, etc.) Barryjjoyce (talk) 23:37, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Infobox image
Why do all national team articles have as first image a badge? I think it should be of a squad, either current or from a golden era. The badge is a good image for the association, and indeed all the association articles I checked have also the badge as its first image. Surely the reader expects to see players wearing the typical kit. Edwininlondon (talk) 15:50, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Phrasing of national team names
Has there been a discussion concerning the phrasing of national team names when concerning the truncated link such as "Spain national football team". would the published truncated link be "Spain national team" or "Spanish national team"? It is common for "Spain" to appear alone at times and at other times "Spain national team" or "Spanish national team".2603:8000:D300:D0F:13D:4D93:6C73:FF3C (talk) 04:03, 2 May 2023 (UTC)