Talk:United States men's national soccer team/Archive 1

message: United States national soccer team presently redirs to United States men's national soccer team (this page), whereas United States national football team is a disambig page with links to both USmnst and United States women's national soccer team.   I propose that we:
#move the disambig page to United States national soccer team, since soccer is the prevailing term in the US and both the MNT and WNT are senior national soccer teams.
#redir USnft to USnst, which should happen anyway by moving the page.
As a consequence, users typing in both USnft (Wikipedia standard) and USnst (prevailing US usage) will see the disambig page.   This is an improvement because right now "football" fans see the disambig, but "soccer" fans default to the men's.    (IMO this setup should be the standard for all nations with women's teams, except that football should override soccer where appropriate, but that's a battle for a different day eh?)
Please state any objections.   Cheers, PhilipR 00:01, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: (untitled)

message: +from my talkpage
I've readded the famous players that you deleted earlier.  These players are ALL former World Cup players or players who had achieved many caps with the national team.  Just because you have not heard of them does not mean that they are not famous past players.  Many of the ones you deleted also appeared and achieved fame in MLS and other leagues around the world. Batman2005 23:52, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The list is bloated.  Many no-names make world cup rosters, but are never famous.  I absolutely disagree. Plasticbadge 00:15, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of Famous Players 

message: I have a problem with the inclusion of this feature.  Sports Illustrated lists what they believe will be the starting line up, which is all well and good.  But when you look at this page  it talks about a completely different formation, different look, etc.  Should we make ANOTHER section for this one?  Additionally, this one  says that changes to the US roster aren't out of the question, specifically John O'Brien, who if not healthy could be replaced.  O'Brien who hasn't played more than 15 minutes in a game for months is listed as a starter in a story written about 4 months ago?  I think its crystal ball to try to predict starters for the tournament in this way, even with the source.  Every article you read is going with a different starting formula...Gibbs at left back, Lewis in the middle, Beasley on the right, 5 midfielders, 3 defenders, Ching or Johnson up top with McBride, O'Brien starting, O'Brien on the bench, O'Brien not even in Germany.  I think it needs to be deleted, and then readded when the world cup begins with the actual starting line up.  I'm going to remove it now, and direct people here to the talk page to discuss further. 68.78.15.99 16:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, there are at least 4 or 5 different "projected starting lineups" out there, Wynalda did one, ussoccer.com did one, fifaworldcup.com did one, i don't think its fair to include one without including all the others.  It's too much speculation so i support NOT including it until the tournament starts. Batman2005 19:09, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: agreed too much inherent speculation for my tastes, Batman2005 has a fair point, too many predictions out there, best left till the first game and then input it as "World Cup starting line-up" or something like that.  I've even seen predictions where Convey is on the left with Beasley coming off the bench, or Donovan on the right flank with Johnson and McBride up front. 75.2.7.200 19:28, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

text: This appears to be Batman2005 talking to himself. Jooler 20:05, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: NO Jooler, 7 people live in my house with me, all soccer fans.  I post under my username unless i've forgotten to sign in, i can't speak for the other people in my house.  But you can continue to try to attack me and bring me down that way if you want, just goes back to your immature and juveline ways from before. Batman2005 20:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Projected Starting Line-Up 

message: :My final word till we get more opinions - Sebastian. Batman still contends that the USA is officially placed 3rd and Yugolslavia 4th, and yet he is prepared to have the article say something else entirely i.e. that the USA came joint 3rd. It appears to me that he is prepared to ditch his core argument as long as the text doesn't follow that set out by me. Now on the face of it there is little to choose between saying joint 3rd and saying quarterfinalist semifinalist, and I will freely admit that my innate stubbornness is a factor in my position, but I firmly believe that my arguments are well founded and right, and so rather than settle for your suggested compromise I would rather let the RFC process continue and see some opinions from others. To summarise my position The core facts of my argument are as follows :-
*In 1930 there was no 3rd place match, but there were two losing semi-finalist.
*At that time was no provision for separating 3rd and 4th place. Goal difference was not in use then. Goal average was used on occasion in other competitions but it was not used in the World Cup finals until 1962 where it was used as a last resort after a play-off and before the drawing of lots.
*In common with other sporting knockout competitions e.g. the Wimbledon Championships  or the FA Cup there was no 3rd or 4th place only 2 losing semi-finalist.
*I contend that it makes no sense to use any modern criteria to try to separate the teams retrospectively for the following reasons.
**Goal difference and 3 points for a win were brought into play in league football in order to encourage attacking play (and goals) and it thus obviously has a direct influence on how many goals teams scores or attempts to score once a win is secured..
**If the teams had been aware that the number of goals scored would affect their final placing, I suspect the scorelines might have been somewhat different.
**If we want to use modern criteria, Why should we stop at the use of goal difference, why not assign 3 points for a win instead of 2 and re-rank the teams accordingly?
*Batman contends that the pdf document is an "official" document and can be used to retroactively re-assign the finishing places of the teams for the 1930 competition.
*I contend that the document is entirely without context and it gives us no indication of its intended use and has no bearing whatsover on the actual way the 1930 competition finished. Aside from the above comments regarding the futility of using modern criteria, there are unresolved questions regarding the nature and purpose of the rankings shown.
**I note that in the 1934 World Cup, this document ranks Argentina 9th France 10th and the Netherlands 11th when they all lost their first round matches 3-2 and should theoretically all be at the same level. Without any context or criteria with regards to how the person who wrote this document came to the decision to rank the teams in that order I come to the conclusion that the most likely explanation is that they are actually in alphabetical order.
**I suggest that this being the probable case with regard to the 1934 competition, then we might postulate that for the 1930 competition this page lists Yugoslavia following the USA for exactly the same reason.
**Without any context we must speculate and it is possible to speculate wildly as indeed Batman does by suggesting that it might be in the order of who had the largest penises.
**I therefore contend that without any context this document is of no value.
*Sebastian brings it to our attention that on FIFA's website they display "World Cup honours" for each nation where the context is very clear.
**For Poland we find that it lists them being placed 3rd in 1974 and 1982.
**For Yugoslavia we find that it lists their achievement in 1930 as "Semi-finals".
**Similarly for the USA we find that it lists their achievement in 1930 as "Semi-finals".
***Note that the 1930 positions stands in contrast to Poland’s 1974 and 1982.
**I suggest that for consistency we should take this as our lead rather than some anonymous document that could have been produced for all manner of reasons.
*I point out that our pages don't attempt to rank the losing quarterfinalists as 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th. Instead we simply put "best result: quarterfinals" e.g. Mexico national football team.
**Similarly in other knock out competitions we list the round in which teams went out. My Wimbledon comparison did not meet with approval last time, so this time take a look at Millwall F.C. and their FA Cup performance listed as semi-finalist. There is no 3rd place in the FA Cup and this is exactly the same as the situation in the World Cup of 1930.
*So as far as I'm concerned putting "best result: semifinals" for the USA in 1930 as is already done on the Yugoslavia national football team page is entirely consistent with the way such statistics are dealt with on other pages.
:This is my position. Jooler 00:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Jooler, I am prepared to compromise because the nature of compromise is "give and take" i'm willing to give a little bit of ground to end this argument before it starts to take up even more room on this page.  It's not "abandoning my core argument" it's called....Compromise, something you seem to be unwilling to even consider. Batman2005 13:25, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  He shouldn't have to consider it, because he's right.  In that graph you are forced to put in a 3 and 4.  it doesn't make it so, and neither does logic.  But I'm glad you are willing to compromise.  I read the article fresh today and it looks good at this moment.  I'm glad you guys were able to work it out.  Now I have to continue reading every soccer (sorry rest-of-the-world) article I can find in preparation of watching USA kick some ass (hopefully :)) Oreo man 22:31, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jooler's position

message: *The document I provided is from the world governing body of soccer, which reserves the right, however arbitrarily or upsetting to certain members of the population, to rank teams for the World Cup as they see fit.  The source is NOT without context, as it clearly states in the linking address what it is, and it clearly shows that FIFA considers the United States as being the 3rd place team  Jooler says its without context as to how the teams were ranked.  The point is, FIFA doesn't have to say how they rank teams.  If FIFA chose to go with average height we'd have to accept it as FIFA's official position, that's what you get with governing bodies, they can make any determination they want and the community has to live with it.
*Additionally, it is altogether pointless to bring up other sporting bodies as FIFA is not responsible for ranking Wimbledon or other sports, only soccer.  Which is what they have done with this document.
*I further believe that the only reason that Jooler is showing such fervent disregard for FIFA's list is that he's simply not a fan of United States soccer.
*Furthermore, his continued contention that we do not rank the Yugoslavia, or Mexican teams by their final ranking is baseless, as with this source we're now able to do that.
*He contends that FIFA might have used alphabetical order to determine the rankings, further up he said it might have been hairstyle.  My response is simply that FIFA is in charge of making those decisions, not wikipedia editors and certainly not the general public.  Only FIFA makes those decisions, and the source clearly shows their position.
*As well, fifaworldcup.com is not maintained by the FIFA staff, it is an independent website that has been dubbed the official website of the world cup, not the FIFA website.
*Also, he brings up the FA Cup, again...the rankings there are for the FA to decide, not FIFA.
My point is very simple, Jooler continues to say that the source is without context, while completely ignoring the context of the source.  An official document from the world governing body of soccer who organizes and runs the world cup has ranked the United States as the 3rd place team and Yugoslavia as the 4th place team in the 1930 World Cup.  Now if wikipedia is going to start writing its own version of history, then this is the last time I'll ever edit this site.  It's not the Wikipedia World Cup as much as some people would like it to be so, we don't decide here who is ranked where and we certainly don't shouldn't disregard official documents that can be found by visiting the FIFA site and doing a little searching.  Wikipedia is about verifiability, all this junk about the FA Cup, Tennis, and the like is pure nonsense, if we found an official listing from the tennis governing body saying "so and so finished 3rd at Wimbledon in 1974" then we would certainly accept that as true.  We'll find no source more reputable about World Cup placing than FIFA, there's the source, it should be included exactly as it is.  HOWEVER, I've made an attempt to compromise, because unlike Jooler I believe in stuff like that.  Jooler makes no attempt to compromise and continues to push him anti-usa point of view on the editors to this page.  I was simply trying to cut the argument out and give both sides a small victory.  I'm willing to compromise, hell we can even say "Best Result - Semifinals, retroactively 3rd place" and provide the sourcing material that way.  But again, i suspect Jooler won't compromise.  
There's my position, like I said, it would be ridiculous to go against the World soccer governing body just because they retroactively assigned rankings.  Remember, they're allowed to do that, they're FIFA and its the FIFA World Cup, they could say that Brazil was second in 2002 if they wanted to and none of us could do a damn thing about it. Batman2005 01:22, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Batman, as my last footnote to your previous opinions. fifaworldcup.yahoo.com IS A FIFA OFFICIAL SITE, maintained by FIFA and sponsored by Yahoo. As you can see at the bottom of any page, ãll copyrights belong to FIFA. Sebastian Kessel Talk 03:34, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sebastian, perhaps you should heed your own advice and not "personally attack me"  remember as you said mr. pot kettle, typing in all caps is construed in wikipedia as a personal attack.  I'm curious...is it ok for Admins to do it and nobody else?  And fifaworldcup.com is not a FIFA site, it is a site hosted by yahoo, and webmastered by the german organizing committee who, while not an actual branch of FIFA, work under the watchful eye of FIFA to put on the World Cup, FIFA reserves the rights to all forms of media from the world cup, including...the official website. Batman2005 12:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Batmans Position...duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh BATMAN!

message: You know what, just forget about it, but whatever the hell you guys want to put, i've got a headache and I'm sick of saying the same damn thing over and over and over and over and over again and it being completely disregarded by people looking to push their POV/USA bashing and rewrite history in the face of official sources that they choose to ignore.  So for all I care just put 219th for the 1930 world cup if you like, i'm sick of it.  I'm done here, i've got better things to do. Batman2005 00:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And I've given you several sources that shows that FIFA does not recognize USA as having recieved the third place award in the tournament (no matter that you've found some recently created document ranking countries on loose grounds that has got no information about how the ranking was done). Notice how the award link I've provided states "Discover all the trophies awarded since the creation of football’s supreme event." If USA is not included in that award list, that simply means that they were given no award. Should I disregard that because you want to push your USA POV? Rewrite history? There was no third place award given to USA in 1930. Who really is the one who wants to rewrite history? – Elisson • Talk 00:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm through with you, i'll speak to you no further, you obviously hate the united states, go away, stop speaking to me and enjoy your POV. Batman2005 00:48, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Don't forget that except hating U.S.A., I'm also hating Yugoslavia and I've got a really serious anti-Yugoslav POV! :D – Elisson • Talk 00:54, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forget About It... 

message: This article has 5 references using one system, and one using another. Furthermore, of the first five, only two show up at the Notes section at the bottom (notes 1 and 2). So now we have three references missing, and one in a different format (which starts the numbering all over again). Perhaps the people that have added those references can try to work something out? Fram 13:58, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. I think. – Elisson • Talk 14:07, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: References

message: This part troubles me
"The United States struggled in international soccer for the next 40 years. In 1988 the United States was controversially awarded the 1994 World Cup, even though it had not qualified for a World Cup since 1950"
Now how were they awarded the Cup 4 years early? -- mando 17:16, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  mando I'd say that part needs a rewrite, without a source talking about how the selection was controversially received it sounds like original research.  For all intents and purposes the 1994 World Cup is still regarded as one of the most finely run, I know FIFA was suprised about how it was received, much the same as they were in 2002 when Japan/South Korea did so well, I think 1994 definitely set the ground work for places like South Africa and Japan/South Korea to host even though they're not seen as "traditional powerhouses."  So...my opinion is remove the part about it being controversial until we have a source and just mention when it was awarded. Batman2005 18:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  1994 World Cup 

message: Here is the photo that used to be in the article, the original uploader left a LOT of trapped white space that made the article look REALLY bad, If someone can readd it and see to it that it makes everything line up real nice it would be great. Batman2005 01:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The uploader had zero whitespace.  The image was 200px, someone unexplicably changed it to 95px. Uris♥ 13:50, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

text: There is no white space in the photo. Perhaps check it on another monitor? Uris♥ 15:03, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Sorry I just checked in Internet Explorer 6.0 and you're right.  It's an IE-specific problem, but 80% of users still use that. I'll work on it... just a sec, I'll report back. Uris♥ 15:06, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Hey Batman, I just moved it a little and it looks better... but not perfect.  I'll work on it a little more during the England-Paraguay game since we know that's going to be a yawner. Uris♥ 15:10, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Whoops!  Still had England-Paraguay on my mind... meant Sweden-Trinidad, but that doesn't seem to be such a yawner afterall, at least not yet. 0-0 at the halfway point. Uris♥ 16:49, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bruce Arena Photo