Posts by SiebenW

  • Olympics from 1948 to 1980

    Reading a bit more about the 1936 Olympics, I have to admit that the "amateur" era already began here. Actually, Olympics had always been an amateur competition, but the point by which it really starts to effect the competition was the introduction of the FIFA World Cup in 1930. And since then, already the 1936 Olympics lost their FIFA recognition, and hence already the 1936 edition will be non-FIFA matches here.
    For the 1936 Olympics several countries did not participate about the controversy about professionalism and not being allowed to field their best players. There are even 3 to 5 FAs who don't count the 1936 Olympics in their official senior team's statistic. Some like winning Italy do even if they were forced to field a weakener squad. Personally, I'd like to have all 1936 Olympic participants as editable team, but it already starts with the Great Britain team mixed of English and Scottish players, so that one is for sure uneditable. So, the question is about countries like Austria and Hungary. I'd like to have them, but I have to admit that the case about the 1936 Olympics is not as clear as I mentioned it in my original post, and maybe it's best to leave this decision to the webmaster. Hence this topic may can be extended from "Olympics from 1948 to 1980" to "Olympics from 1936 to 1980".

  • Missing Data

    Not entirely sure if Muhammad Khaunda is an incredibly misspelled version of Mohamad Moustafa Kadir or indeed a different player who's only game was a match Moustafa Kadir was absent by coincidence?

  • If you find mistakes (of which there must be a lot)

    Quote from Ro83rto

    Does this open the door then for a completion of results to be taken for the 2007 Pan-Arab games involving UAE B and Sudan B?

    Also, Just missing Qatar Olympic 0-1 Palestine from the 1999 games. Lebanon v Oman was also from these games and wasn't a friendly match. Can I also make a (personal) suggestion that if the goalscorers are included in these matches, that they are put down as partially complete so that they can be added to the tournament page? This involves Libya v Bahrain Olympic, UAE v Syria and UAE v Libya.

    The 1985 and 1997 editions have goalscorers missing so I'm okay with them being left as they are for now.

    You mentioned a few very good points, I like much.

    First of all your idea about setting matches with known scorer from "missing" to "partilly missing" so that the result will be considered for the tournaments table. At the moment the current guideline from webmaster and admins is setting matches as missing until the first non-scoring player is set. That results in matches with 3 (or more) known scorers classified as "missing" while a match from which we don't know any scorer are set as "partially missing" when we may have just one player, examplary could it be the team captain shown on the ref/captains pre-match photo. Ironically, that player could be one of the unknown scorers, so having less information in that example leads to the match being higher classified. So, your suggestion makes good sense. Though I don't know if webmaster/admins will change the guidelines, it's up to them, I just follow.
    But in EVERY case, all matches, including the "missing" ones (like a goalless draw without known players) should count into the group tables. The current state is very annoying, and it was already discussed internally various times. So, this issue is more a software topic than an user topic. The software should be changed, but as you may have experienced the IT department is more focused on get the website running which is more than understandibly. So, the tournament tables have a lower priority. Not knowing when this will be adjusted.

    You are also right with the tournaments. If an official tournament is covered ALL matches should be list, either as non-FIFA or against un-editable opponents. The 2007 Pan Arab Games, may be a bit special, as NFT decided to do single match reports around 2008 and so the standards weren't established by then, and maybe even the (Pan) Arab Games as a whole tournament haven't yet been created. But on the other side, it is also another good example how everything turns out to be a mess without common standards with the only guideline we look at each team individually. Some matches are forgotten, some others listed as normal friendlies instead of being in the proper tournament, and then we have "alternate" national teams which are completely forgotten. I really fear that Olympics 1948 to 1980 will become that same mess, reason why I suggested to concentrate on the official stuff first, and then doing the Olympics properly.

    Another annoying question is whether a national team is to be set as A-team playing non-FIFA or as an alternate team. Personally, I also see the standards clear, playing an official tournament without restrictions should make the team editable. So users can see which team played and make their own choice. And to not harm the statistics we set these games as non-FIFA, so the official statistics don't get affected. B-teams should only be listed when a nation sent two different teams to an official tournament. Even if games were played at the same time, a national team player pool of 30 to 40 players could have been split. Even in the 2007 Pan Arab Games the Emirates squad featured some players already capped in other matches for or after the tournament, but as the Emirates played some official FIFA matches at the same, and I know that webmaster and the other admins don't like non-FIFA matches too much anyway, I set the Emirates team as Olympic team, source KSA-team and also the scorer I saw linked on the wiki page matches in that age category. On the Sudani side I decided to list the matches as non-FIFA senior matches. It was an official tournament, and they had no other matches at that time, there next match was a friendly in preparation for CECAFA Cup, 6 days after their final Pan Arab Games' match. So, they technically were able to field their best players. Not sure if they really did, or if their A-team had been grouped 2 weeks somewhere isolated before the Eritrea match. Still, the top players from the Pan Arab Games could join the team for the Eritrea friendlies. Maybe Hamam Shimani has some more infos?

    Also I did clear up the 1999 Pan Arab Games. Like I did clear up a few other tourmaments in the last year. But still there should be a few more "messy" tournaments. Something generally, I had some free time at the moment and am focused on the Arab region now anyway, so it was a pleasure to clear up that tournaments, but in general that can become very time consuming. So, I mostly did it when I took a closer look at any of the participating countries anyway. So when posting more "messy" tournaments, I probably won't do them. At least not right at the moment. It still would be good to get everything in order. So either other users/admins/webmaster will take care or we put it on a list. Though in this "If you find mistakes"-thread these posts will probably get lost and forgotten, like all the other stuff not done straight away.

  • If you find mistakes (of which there must be a lot)

    Quote from bakerrp

    They're up there with the Aristide brothers of Mauritius, both christened Jean but known by one of their middle names. They have three younger brothers, also christened Jean.

    Cases are quite different, in Mauritius quite everybody from the Christian community has the "first" name Jean, while also lot of players are called by their last given name.

    The Angeles twins also have a similiar middle name, which is just spelled slightly different with "v" or "w", same like their first name, just now that the other letter is used, so both players have one "v" and one "w". Meaning both of their full names are pronounced the same way, that's why one player is called "Maru" and the other one "Mari". I added these nicknames a while ago, thinking this would make the case clear.

    Reddiablo (and other beginners as well):
    Hint, if you are not sure if players are (twin) brothers or a dupplicated same player, you can try to search for games when both players played, for example 2018-10-05 vs Bangladesh when both were starters. Even if they didn't play in the same match, you can go and try some googling if you find an article in which both were mentioned together, can be a nomination list, can be something about club football also or else. If you don't find nothing mentioning both, it starts to become suspicious. NFT, still has many duplicated players, even though I merged hundreds of player entries, there are still surely other duplicates, so guessing a duplicate has had good chances in the past, though we still shall take a deeper look before mixing brothers and namesakes, something which sadly still happened here.

  • Olympics from 1948 to 1980

    Let's start with some background information:

    Football at the Olympics:

    1896 - 1904: "demonstration" football for local low tier club or college teams
    1908 - 1928: World Cup predecessor for full national teams
    1936 : World Cup alternate for full national teams
    1948 - 1980: "amateur" era for restricted national teams
    1984 - 1988: restriction for South America and Europa, full national teams for CONCACAF, CAF, AFC, OFC
    1992 - date: "youth" competition: u23 teams + 3 overaged players

    As a page for national teams NFT doesn't feature the early editions from 1896 to 1904. The editions from 1908 to 1928 are already online. While the 1984 and 1988 editions are online with UEFA and CONMEBOL teams as non-editable "Olympic" teams, as these had been restricted: they weren't allowed to field "World Cup" players. From 1992 on, NFT doesn't cover the Olympics anymore for being a "youth" tournament.

    All that so good. I think the next edition NFT should cover is the 1936 tournament. But the question now is about 1948 to 1980. To be fair, that "amateur" restriction had been from the very beginning, but back then in 1908 basically just some English top players were considered as "professional", with the English FA having an on and off relationship with FIFA during the first half of the 20th century anyway, the olympic tournament was basically the World Cup predecessor until FIFA launched their own World Cup, and since then the Olympic tournament kept declining. The 1936 tournament was still good being played by full strengths national teams. I may would do the cut here and set WWII as end date. The 1948 tournament seems to have good squads, while starting from 1952 in became obvious that nations like Germany, France, and so on sent 2nd string squads, ending up fielding amateur sides in later tournaments. Here the "amateur" status started to seriously affect the team strengths. On the other side, various nations kept on fielding their best players by declaring their local top tier leagues "amateur" leagues. Sometimes a bit ridiculous in cases like Siegfried Haltman had a contract by a regional Brazilian team, for which he didn't play any official league match. After an opponent's complaint, Surinam's match were rewarded against them for fielding Haltman. Resulting in these Olympic "amateur" teams were basically home-based teams from countries declaring their "pro" league as amateur league.
    In my opinion, we should try to establish common standards counting for all countries equally. And here we had the restriction for all countries NOT sending their best players, excluding their pro players. Some did follow that rule, some others did play tricks. I know this resulted in many countries playing with actual full strength teams. One problem here would be to determinate which country to include and which not. I already see endless discussions here. Just looking at the squads from the final tournaments, we can see indeed many full strength squads especially in Africa or Central America, built up by full capped FIFA players. But on the other side, if we look at Gabon's 2012 or Fiji's 2016 squad, these are also mainly full capped FIFA players even with age restrictions. Far more difficult to judge will be the countries eliminated in qualifiers. Seeing all these missing matches for AfCoNs in the 1980s, I doubt we have good data for Olympic qualifiers. Ivory Coast was very proud of their pro league in the late 1970s. So, when they played olympics did they field a youth team or players from 2nd tier clubs or did they just declare their pro league as "amateur"? What about the Northern African countries? Morocco already had half of their 1962 WCq starters playing in Europe. Those were the players not allowed for Olympics. But the other half was able to start olympics as well. Is this now a team to consider or set as non-editable "Olympic" team? Still, we may have about 60%+ players in the NFT system for other matches. And what about fielding different strength teams in different rounds? For example, Canada fielded a more experimental side in their first round vs Bermuda, but in the 2nd round they fielded only full capped players during the 1984 edition, the edition we had common standards. What is now without a common standard for 1948 to 1980, setting their first round match as "Canada (Olympic)" and the second round "Canada" full team?
    Another problem I have is why opening tournaments just because some FAs do individually count these games as full national team matches? For example, Finland (and other european countries) also counts their 1984 and 1988 Olympic matches as official, as they weren't affected by the World Cup restriction for never qualifying for a World Cup. If we open now 1948 to 1980 because of individual FA statistics, shouldn't we add Finland's (and other's) 1984 and 1988, too? Similiar for Malawi (and other COSAFA countries) counting their 2009 and 2011 CHAN matches as official. I just fear that doing the olympics 1948 to 1980 will open so much more and bringing another endless discussions. Especially, as it is not easy to decide which national team to count and which not. It surely won't be that easy to exclude CONMEBOL as a whole and include CONCACAF, CAF, OFC and AFC as a whole while following eu-football.info's classification for UEFA. For example, Mexico did field (quite) an amateur side for the 1984 edition (when the amateur status was already lifted for CONCACAF nations), I really can't imagine them fielding a team we want to include for 1980 and earlier. At the end, I fear we will start another gigantic topic on NFT which will be stopped half done, similiar like Island Games. At the end, the missing menpower on NFT, not having much people actually working on the database, will remain the major problem. And my fear here, much time will be spend on non-FIFA amateur olympic games ... and the discussions about which country to include and which not, will relevant historic data with full FIFA caps is still missing.

    MY SUGESTION here, is to leave out the olympic matches for the moment, and concentrate on the missing historic data from 1923 to 1981. The next olympic tournament we should do is 1936. After that when we are done with 1936 historic data, or better after having the entire historic data, we can come back to the Olympics, starting from 1948, which was far more relevant in terms of full national teams than 1980, and work out the olympic tournaments from 1948 to 1980. Having all the other historic matches by then, we also have better facts to decide which Olympic team can be considered full national team and which not. Players already in the NFT system having just played Olympics may can be left in the national team for that year with either (0/0) matches/appearances or by (-/-). At the end, I am open for any kind of international matches, but by what Benjamin and archivist teached me, I understand that NFT is concentrating on the official FIFA data first trying not to get lost in too small details.

  • Missing Data

    Quote from Ro83rto

    Also missing a match in 2010: Oman 2-0 Burkina Faso 2010-05-22.

    It was part of the Yemen Unity Cup 2010 series. It was the Burkina Faso CHAN team, however, the Yemen v Burkina Faso match is already on here. It's one of those games where I'd rather have both on here or neither.

    Your personal point of view. I had mentioned it before, working on matches costs much time and effort. So, matches won't be deleted.
    So, the options are having both matches or just one.

    Personally, I am always up to have an entire data, but understand that admins doesn't want to have too many non-FIFA matches, so I generally leave such cases to them. Just here, I created the Oman vs Burkina Faso match as (missing) non-FIFA match.

  • If you find mistakes (of which there must be a lot)

    Quote from fezzle

    Just a note that Jordan played an U-23 side at the 2011 Pan-Arab Games, and if this could therefore be shown as such to not affect players' like Hamzeh Al-Dardour's record.

    Similar to how New Zealand's U-23 side was shown for the Pacific Games matches

    No, the case is different.

    The 2011 Pan Arab Games are a tournament designed for Arab senior national teams. So, every nation was free to field their best players without any restriction. If a nation did field alternate teams it was by choice. As it was an official tournament, all matches shall be listed including showing every line-up.
    To not affect players like Hamzeh Al-Dardour's records, the "alternate" teams (in the 2011 Pan Arab Games these were Olympic teams) had their matches classified as non-FIFA matches. So, it doesn't affect Hamzeh Al-Dardour's FIFA records.
    So, no issue here.

    The (2019) Pacific Games are a tournament designed for Pacific senior national teams. New Zealand was an invitee from outside the Pacific region, which makes the case different. Also the NZ side was much more "alternate" which few players capped at FIFA level, while the 2011 Pan-Arab Games' "olympic" teams, were made up basically by FIFA capped players.
    Personally, I'd liked to have the New Zealand matches as editable non-FIFA matches as well for the NZ side, as the Pacific Games were an official tournament and there weren't any other NZ matches at that time. But I learnt that the admins of this site don't want too much "non-FIFA" games. So, let's just be happy with the games we have. And if there are matches listed as FIFA matches not played by the full senior side, we can change these matches to "non-FIFA", but we don't delete them.

    fezzle I hope this explanations help. Also @all the other users, as I think discussions about that can get quite annoying if the same topics are poping up over and over again.

  • Turks and Caicos at the 2025 Outrigger Challenge Cup

    To sum the 2025 Outrigger Challenge Cup up, I want to link bakerrp's post from the "Missing Data" thread which got ignored/forgotten/overread like so many good posts in the "Missing Data" and "If you find mistakes" threads. As I want to extend this thread to the USVI vs MI match, I attach the team pics from the other countries as well.

    Also I want to credit Johnny Beaufays who has been a good friend of mine over a decade. I really admire his dedication for covering all kind of international matches on GSA, not only this particular game 2025-08-14 Marshall Islands vs US Virgin Islands, but all the other low covered international matches making GSA become my favourite page.

    So, with all these provided sources, I tried to clear up the 2025 Outrigger Challenge Cup by correcting/extending the NFT match reports by all available info', even knowing we still miss some subs for Turks and Caicos.

  • Missing Data

    Benjamin
    By the way, in the past I did always filled up (partially) missing games by my team pic collections. I just wanted to wait in the case of Bahrain vs Somalia, as I didn't know if you really wanted to have this non-FIFA match, as I am quite annoyed of these endless discussions about non-FIFA matches remembering the Qatar vs Lebanon match from august discussing for months. I hope the solution is clear:

    FIFA matches: MUST be on NFT
    non-FIFA matches: can be on NFT

    So, there is no right to place non-FIFA matches here, even with similiar character. When someone working on the database, puts his efforts into creating such matches it's good. But if there is no will/no menpower, these other matches have to wait, at least until all historic FIFA matches are in the database.
    I think, such statement is clear, and you just can copy/paste it whenether you got any demands for further non-FIFA matches.

    And NEVER delete matches. If some presumed FIFA matches turn out "non"-FIFA, we switch them to non-FIFA, so they don't effect the players' FIFA caps, but we leave these matches online:
    - to give users an idea why these matches are non-FIFA
    - to show that we were aware about these matches (avoiding future requiries, why these or these are missing)
    - and overall NOT to delete stuff we invested time and efforts into

    Because deleting stuff, people worked on for hours is even more annoying than these endless discussions archivist ;)

  • Missing Data

    Quote from Benjamin

    Not quite sure with all the players from Bahrain, there ist a Hashim and an Isa. One of them surely is Hashim Sayed Isa, don't know who the other is. Even less sure about the SOmali players. Can somebody tell me the players names that we use in the database?

    Starting line-ups for both teams done.

    Good reaction. If you can't match the players easily, don't give you a headache, just give me a hint like this, so I can fill up the starting XIs easily as I already worked on them when doing the team pic.

  • Missing Data

    Quote from mikaelj

    Thought it looked like him but then who is #16 Isa ?

    #16 Sayed Redha Isa

    There is always confussion between these two.

    I better leave the (full) name legends here, too:

    اللاعبون من اليمين إلى اليسار في الصف الخلفي: وليد الحيام والسيد محمود الموسوي وسيد رضا عيسى وحسين عبدالكريم وجاسم الشيخ وعمر سالم

    اللاعبون من اليمين إلى اليسار في الصف الأمامي: عمر صابر وإبراهيم الخطال وحسين العكر وهاشم سيد عيسى وهزاع علي

  • Missing Data

    Quote from Benjamin

    Well, I want less games on the page. Main reason: People then come along and want us to add more and more games. "Oh, you have added this strange game, now you have to add these five strange games, and if you don't you are doing a very bad job, and I will pester you with emails forever."


    This is what happens, and I don't have the time for it. So I won't be adding any strange matches anymore. If someone else wants to add them, I think I can live with that, but it does mean more work for me, because I have to answer all the mails and so on.


    I want to concentrate on the stuff that is really important. And I won't do anything more, because if I do, the really important stuff suffers, as we have seen more and more during the last two years. The only way forward for seems to be to ignore more and more stuff that comes in. Because I just don't have more time.

    That's a good statement, and we can all understand and live with it. You may can add this to the FAQs. Or just save it, to copy-/paste it to answer emails.
    My point just was to please NOT delete matches. Nobody would have complained if the Qatar vs Lebanon match would have been left out. But you decided to include it, and since then I started to track the players appearing in this match. But also in general, I never want to delete any matches (we have the non-FIFA status for them), as by deleting lots of efforts put into these matches, the players, their clubs, etc. would be all gone. On the other side, the argument can also used against, like you have deleted this match, so you now have to delete these 5 matches as well. So, we just have to live with it, that there never have been consistency on the question which games to include and which not.

  • If you find mistakes (of which there must be a lot)

    Quote from majope

    In Nigeria vs. DR Congo 2025-11-16, Edo Kayembe should be instead of Steve Kapuadi.

    Yes, you are right. Though as to FIFA also happen mistakes from time to time, I prefer more local sources, like the FECOFA fb post mentioning also Edo Kayembe as entering player. To clear all doubts, we can take a look at the photo shot of the onfielded player standing near the kick-off cirle and starting to celebrate after the final shot, we see #5 Edo Kayembe.

    So, I corrected the match report.

  • Missing Data

    Sorry, I can't surely identifiy the missing player. I had the anthem line-up pic, and did save it. Maybe by a future deeper Myanmar check this pic will help. Or after the next Asian Cup qualifiers we can see clearer.

  • Missing Data

    Quote from Benjamin

    Ah, great. That means that we will have some players without an international after we have deleted this one.

    Can't we just leave this match as non-FIFA match? As I wrote previously, we have a few matches played 70 or 80 minutes and some matches abandonned between 60' and 90'. It really annoys deleting matches after people have invested work into them. And it would really bother me having these players now without international cap.

    Generally, I think the NFT page has some kind of more value by listing such matches omitted by other pages. Sadly, I see less and less of such games nowadays. So, can't we just be happy that somehow did the work uploadid the Qatari vs Lebanon friendly, having it set to non-FIFA, not affecting the official FIFA caps number.
    Personally, I'd like to have even more matches like the 2025 Mapinduzi Cup in Zanzibar or the Eritrea vs Niger friendlies. Deleting now the matches we already have would be even worse and discouraging for the people working on the database.

  • If you find mistakes (of which there must be a lot)

    Quote from Nehme1499

    I think there's a difference between a football match not following standard regulations (11v11, 2x45' halves), and a football match that does but just happens to not have been played during FIFA days (for example). Anyway, it's your opinion and I respect it. But I feel that not all "unofficial" games are the same.

    Yes, you are right here. Unfortunately by the current system, we don't have any sub categories for non-FIFA friendlies, which would be tier2 and tier3 friendlies. We just can list full FIFA matches, or non-FIFA matches.