It makes me realise that only 1984 olympics can be a source of disagreement.
I still think that Mexico's team should be labellised "Olympic" as the line-up is by far too folkloric. I know the mexican FA was not obliged to do so, but as the games coulnt't count as full A internationals, this decision was not criticizable.
As you see, I don't like too much when the site is invaded by secondary data, especially when more important data is still to come. But unfortunately for me, that's what you are currently doing with the English clubs section... This obsession of very low-level ranking is really going too far ! I wish I never created most of the current 11th level leagues when I see how you exploit it. It's killing my balanced approach, as before the 2000's my intention is to cover only Northern/Southern Leagues direct feeders (Isthmian League had more steps, sor their feeders leagues were weaker), not lower levelless (non-)leagues.
So don't be jinxed if in the (not near) future some unselessy detailled info about non-league football we be removed. I want to classify English football leagues of the past as well as possible.
Precision : I do think that when the level is low, ranking is worthless. What's the interst to learn that a 10th level team finished 12th when more more than 10 temas did so ? Moreover, finishing 12th doesn't have the same value if the pool/league has 12 or 20 clubs.
What I did about England currently was filling appearances stats of 7th and 8th tier in recent years (2020s). Sadly, I just found stats from Isthmian and Northern Leagues, not from Southern Leagues. Which was hell of work as I had to discount cup appearances, play-offs and friendlies to get the league appearances we needed. And yes, when doing these league stats you find players who eventually moved on to new clubs, and some of these new clubs had to be created. Thanks to the FA pages several non-Leagues and Sunday leagues are covered with appearances stats, and in my point of view if a national team player plays competitive matches for a club, this club has to be created on NFT and listed in his club career. I see the english league system has some difficulties, as leagues had been ranked differently. When I create a club and going into a certain league, I see that a few teams are ranked, 1st, 2nd, 8th, 11th, while several other clubs are unranked, even the teams finishing 5th or 7th. So, when having to go through this league when creating a club anyway, I did fill up the missing ranks. Another point, is when going through a certain league which may started in 1988 (example), I saw no league tables in the beginning (88/89 in the example), half done league tables in the 90s, full league teables from mid 00s until 18/19, and again no-league tables after, which could make sense as after the post-covid-re-start only 9th or 10th levels got ranks to have a clear break, which I didn't saw before. So, when going through this league, I did fill up the half-finished rankings and the missing historic ones. Generally, to me if we do a single league affiliation, we can do the ranking as well, as it is not much more work. Like it is now, you always have to check, when was the time a ranking position is wanted and when not, when was a ranking position just needed when the team finished 1st, 2nd or 4th, and when you actually check for these points everything is mixed. So, it may be easier to do rankings always we are doing single grouped leagues, at least in the England case. Another point which came strange, that some English leagues were created with a start by for example 74/75 but when you do research about that league you see that this league actually started for example 69/70. So, that doesn't make sense either to me. If a certain league is created on NFT, we can cover all their history. And this is only about existing leagues. Benjamin already told me not to create any new leagues, an advice I did follow.
These were my points of view. But I want to highlight that you archivist are the absolute expert on this field, you are the one working most in this section about creating club histories and league sections. So, when you have any advices to me how to create clubs better in the future, I will follow your instructions.
Let's be careful about Olympic Qualifyers inclusions ! Some teams like Canada or Mexico fielded very under-strength teams. In this case, they shouldn't be referred as their "normal" A team but as an "Olympic" team.
So for example concerning the 3/15/83 Bermuda vs Canada game you recently created, it should be displayed as "Bermuda vs Canada (Olympic)" and no player from the specific olympic side should be visible nor created.
Thanks for your attention and congrats for all the corrections on international games that you solve thanks to the forum.
I had this topic very often with Benjamin Indeed it is quite annoying. But on the other side it can be easy as well. 1980 and 1984 Olympics were open for full national teams except Europe and South America. So, all countries from CONCACAF, CAF, AFC and OFC were able to sent their full senior teams, what most of the countries did. If they did not it was their choice, a bit similiar to Indonesia sending their Olympic team for the 2010 World Cup qualifier match vs Syria. Still, it is a full senior match for both teams, and not Syria vs Indonesia (Olympic). So, same counts for 1984 Olympic qualifiers CONCACAF.
To give you an overview:
Olympics:
1992 until date: u23 teams, so we leave them out 1984 and 1988: Full senior teams of CONCACAF, AFC, CAF, OFC -> we include, CONMEBOL & UEFA are restricted so we just list them as "Brazil (Olympic)" in the final tournament 1948 to 1980: open for further discussion, I would leave them generally out as they were restricted to amateur sides 1936: I would include until 1928: They are already all in as precessor of the FIFA World Cup
I understand that this criteria can differ from national associations. The problem with national associations is that they often change their mind what is official and what not. Sometimes defeats don't get counted more because of the result than because of the actual line-up. And than associations count matches against clubsides as full matches. For NFT, we should apply criteria which counts for all, and this could contrasts national FAs statistics.
An example for changing mind is Ireland. Their 1920 matches including olympics had been considered un-official, but a few years ago they finally did recognized them.
Also being not official doesn't say anything about being the actual national team or not. For example, what you mentioned about Canada in the 1984 Olympics 1st round vs Bermuda. These has been all full senior players. Except 3 players (one of the just a sub) all other players had other caps and had been already in the NFT system. At the end all 1984 and 1988 Olympic games are counted as "non-FIFA" matches as FIFA wasn't the organizer. So, it shouldn't give us a big head.
The only annoying team was Mexico, which was indeed an under20 side, which kept on playing as "Amateur national team" a few years. The goalkeeper had a (few) real cap(s) about a decade later, while Carlos Hermosillo was the only "real" national team player. But again, it was Mexico's choice to send these players and not a more actual full senior team like every other country in CONCACAF, CAF, AFC, OFC did. Not all these mexican players stayed amateur. A few played pro various years, and here my question is where did NFT find all these Liga MX stats for the historically created players? mediotiempo had a good site, but nowadays I can't re-find any archives to confirm these players and/or to get their league stats.
archivist again I want to thank you for mention such topics. If something isn't clear it has to be discussed. I had already discussed the Olympic topic a lot with Benjamin, but it seems nothing has passed to you. Olympic tournaments until 1928 and 1988 tournament is in, 1984 is nearly all in, and for 1948 until 1980 I would suggest to leave them all out, because of the restriction to amateur teams even though for some countries this came close to the real national teams. Also for friendly games, I strictly don't want any uneditable opponents. Either it is a national team game or not. For example I left out Luxembourg vs France (B) in 1923. Even if Luxembourg's FA does count it, it wasn't a full national team match if the opponent is a B-side, so I don't see the need of creating players for this. The case is trickier, if we have an official regional tournament where a B-team, amateur-team or Olympic-team joins. For example the upcoming MSG Prime Minister's Cup including Solomon (B) = Development Team. Here we have to list this B-team for the tournament tree and group tables, so this the case when these uneditable B -teams are needed.
Don't want to extend this post too far, as your question was just about the Olympics, which I hope to have answered. But if you have further questions here or in other topics, please point them out, it is important to discuss, so we don't go in the wrong direction.
Don't feel jinxed by what I'm gonna say, but I really don't like seeing you adding "folkloric"data as you are doing now for under-strength and not independant Slovenia...
Don't you think there's already too much to do with real full-strength teams (for which what you add is really great) ?
first of all, never worry about mentioning critical points, in which we may have different opinions. Such discussions are helping to raise awareness on which fields I focuse and which are fields may should left behind. Also it helps to stop doing the same mistakes repeatingly, or that different users are applying different standards. In general, I think we are discussion much too less here on NFT.
Now, coming to Slovenia. Checking their FA (NZS) webpage's national team matches list the very first match is in 1990 against Bosnia & Herzegovina. So, that match is a must for me. Clearly, it was (shortly) pre-independent, just like the following 1991-friendly vs Croatia, but Slovenia feature all their top players who formed their modern-day national team. Besides 3 players, all the others who saw action against Bosnia & Herzegovina had future appearances for the national team. That's why I decided to add the match 1990-12-08 vs Bosnia & Herzegovina even if the Bosnian side was a bit more tricky,
When doing research for this match, I hit on this article listing 3 further historic matches which could be seen as precessor of the Slovenian national team facing (independent) opponent's full senior teams. Especially, the match vs France in 1921 is seen as the historic birth of Slovenian national team football, see further article. It tells also much about history. The "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes" has just been created in 1918 after the brokedown of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and again Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were forced into a single state, besides their national interests. The tour of the France national team, makes this even more evident, as they played Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia in 3 separate matches, instead of facing a unified "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes"-team. The lack of independence is also the reason here why the France FA (FFF) haven't count these matches as official, but against Slovenia they started 8 players who got further (and official) caps. From the 3 uncapped players we have the reserve keeper of the 1920 Olympics. I'd also like to add the matches vs Croatia and Serbia, but couldn't find yet decent sources. Maybe, these matches are also seen different in Croatia and Serbia, but for Slovenia it really mattered. That's why I created 1921-06-23 vs France
Also, I did 1968-04-03 vs Austria like mentioned in the article. Here I may have been a bit over the topic, as the Slovenian team consisted also several "naturalized" players from different Yugoslavian states playing for Slovenian clubs. But in the end, it was a selection of NK Maribor and Olimpija which have been the only two Slovenian clubs in the 1st Yugoslavian league by that time. Besides Branko Oblak none have seen (later) full Yugoslavian caps. On the Austrian side, we only have players who collect further (and official) Austrian senior caps. So, I followed the article here and listed also this match. I'd also like to add the 1956 match vs China, but as we aren't much progressed with Chinese data from the 50s wanted to give it a wait to be better able to value the China line-up.
As we have the possibility to list all these matches as "non-FIFA", we can make it clear, that these aren't official matches for different reasons. Still, it has been matches from two full senior national teams of states which were independent (opponents) or became independent later (Slovenia). Thanks to the "non-FIFA"-section users can make their own conclussions.
What I learnt from your post, is that I won't investigate further here, and overall, not taking in account (possible) inner-yugoslavian matches like the 1945 Yugoslav Football Tournament, or similiar matches.
When you have such topics, never hesitate to contact me, either here on my wall or by personal message.
