Talk:Australia national soccer team/Archive 1

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Re: Colours

Kit Colours

um.. these are not right At the moment we play in Yellow for home and green for away. The white kit is the 3rd kit (South Africa play in green and yellow so we wore our 3rd kit)

I have pictures of the home and away and will update this site shortly - unless anyone complains?


Go for it.

RE: "communist" Cambodia

I am sorry to be pedantic but.

Cambodia was not a "communist" state in 1965. It was a monarchy under Shi It tilted towards [north] Vietnam as the USA was bombing the **** out of it. So I edited the offending comment out.

On an even more pedantic note, the "communist" [i.e. extreme Khmer nationalist] Khmer Rouge did not seize power until 1975, where they went on to kill almost as many Cambodians as the USA did.

On an even more pedantic note, the Khmer Rouge were supported by Western powers, including Australia, after Vietnam booted them out in 1978-9, as a three party armed opposition coalition. This included military support.

Oh, no I have just seen the Khmer rouge controversy on this site so I am going home now.

Attempts in 1990 and 1994?

As far as I can tell, Early World Cup Qualifying Attempts seems to cover 1970 to 1986, and there's a mention of a decision in 1990 (but not about the qualifiers themselves), but then jumps to 1998. Andjam 04:39, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Soccer is the common name in Australia

Tancred, football in Australia almost always means either Australian rules football or rugby league. The belated attempts by the soccer authorities to change this fly in the face of more than 130 years of "football" meaning other codes. If you are unaware of what I'm saying, see football (word) and football (soccer) names for more details. There are national teams in both Australian rules (see International rules football) and rugby league (Australia national rugby league team) and since neither of them has the arrogance to refer to themselves as the "Australian football team", neither should the Socceroos.

If you think there is an issue of consistency/style, see United States men's national soccer team, Canada men's national soccer team and New Zealand national soccer team. At least discuss the matter before you move the page again. Grant65 | Talk 11:02, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I second Grant's comment. Also, for the sake of consistency, the page title should be Australia national soccer team or Australia men's national soccer team. Of the two, I strongly prefer Australia national soccer team. The reason why the USA and Canada team pages contain "men's" is because in both countries, the women's team has historically been much more successful than the men's team (although this is starting to change in the USA). See also United States women's national soccer team, Canada women's national soccer team. — Dale Arnett 15:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. Its Football. For many people its always been football. And as for the "At least discuss the matter before you move the page again", I did not see you do that last week Grant65. And as for the common name? Well today I read the paper and it was called football. Last night the TV news called it football and today I shall be going to see Sydney *FC* play in the A-league run by *Football* Australia. - Tancred

In Australia, no-one refers to soccer as football. (except maybe very few people who are not native to Australia) If you ask an Australian what is football? they will tell you AFL in Melbourne and NRL in Sydney, but no-where will they tell you it is soccer. Please move the page back. Xtra 02:30, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Really? I would have to say this is one of the most incorrect comments I have ever read on wikipedia. My grandparents were born here and I call it football. The people I spoke with in the cove yesterday at the Sydney FC heom game call it football and most of them seemed to be born here. You may have heard of Johnny Warren, he called it football and was born here. Today there is a poll in TheAge, a *Melbourne* newspaper and as I write this 50% of the respondents say the game is football.--Tancred 01:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

For my two cents, soccer is by far the most common term. In recent years, there has been a concerted effort by the sport's authorities to promote "soccer" as "football" and the latter is gaining currency. It is still far from common, however. I suggest Australian national soccer team. Hell, why not even Socceroos? --cj | talk 02:36, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

The "socceroos" is a nickname, and an embarrassing one at that. The FA have already stopped using it, apart from the requirments in the QANTAS deal, and when than ends, the usage will cease by the FA. The name most fans what the team to be called is "Australia", and Australia national football team fits the wikipedia format.--Tancred 01:16, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I accept that I should have discussed the move first, but the matter seemed obvious to me. What Tancred calls the sport or FFA, Sydney FC or SBS calls it is not common usage in Australian English. I can guarantee that if you asked 100 people at random in the center centre of any Australian city which football team they support or who their favorite football player is, almost none would name a soccer team or a soccer player. Grant65 | Talk
Speaking of AusE, you're aware we spell it "centre", right? ;-) Cheekiness aside, it appears there is consensus that "soccer" is the common term. We now need to determine the preferred title. I put it again: is there any reason why the article shouldn't be entitled Socceroos? If we're going by common usage, that is what the team is most commonly known as.--cj | talk 03:19, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Doh! What an ironic spelling mistake. Put it down to fatigue and alcohol.Grant65 | Talk 04:14, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I must say that "Australia national football team" doesn't quite pass the Google test. You get an order of magnitude more pages with "Australia national soccer team". Enochlau 03:21, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessarily object to Socceroos (the nick that refused to die), since there is no ambiguity about it. I think Australian national football team should be a disambiguation page with mention of the contested usage of the word football in Australia.Grant65 | Talk 04:14, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

How is Tancred overcoming the bar on moving the page to a redirect? Anyone? If he/she is using sysop powers it seems like an abuse to me. Grant65 | Talk 22:30, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I am not a sysop and have no idea what you are talking about here.I also find it odd that people want to move this page now, when its been here for some time and easy to find, judging by the number of edits and the number of people who contribute to it. --Tancred 01:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Regardless of whether this page has existed at this title for some time, it has come to the attention of editors who disagree with it. There is seemingly consensus to move the article, but a preffered title has not been settled on. --cj | talk 01:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Since no opposition has been expressed, I am going to move this article to Socceroos, even if only for the interim.--cj | talk 01:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Cyberjunkie, Why did you move this page? The "socceroos" is a *nickname*. Please go and have a look at how every other national football team treaded in wikipedia and please move the page back.--Tancred 01:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Nickname or no, it is the common term by which the team is known. How other national teams are titled is irrelevant if there is a dispute as to the title of this one. Socceroos was the only name against which no opposition was expressed. I'll happily move the page if another name is settled on.--cj | talk 01:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The team is called Socceroos, but the game is called football. Keep it under the football listing. - bato 5/12/05

In Australia, the game is known as soccer. Admittedly, on the back of a push by soccer authorities, "football" or "association football" is being used more prominently, but no-one could deny "soccer" as the common term.--cj | talk 02:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Soccer is no longer the common term. In fact I haven't heard anyone call it soccer for at least 6 months. This is even just people in the streets talking about going to see "that new football league". The game is run by the FOOTBALL federation of Australia, my local team is the Sydney FOOTBALL club and we are playing in the FOOTBALL World Cup...why on Earth would we class this under some mediocre, out-dated name that is only ever raised by people who try to put the game down? To me soccer is what the game used to be in this country...now, we play football. -Super Dulberf Carney-

The name of the game has been corrected back to Football, to align with the 7 billion people of the word who refer to it as Football. Us Australians will learn that Rugby refers to Rugby Union, League refers to Rugby League, and AFL is just that. Football is now called Football, as it should always have been. - ozzieshane 5/12/05


I'd like to respond to the comment on consistency, which cites United States men's national soccer team, Canada men's national soccer team and New Zealand national soccer team as reasons why this page should be called soccer. Note that these teams are run by (respectively) the United States Soccer Federation, the Canadian Soccer Association and New Zealand Soccer. The Australian national team is run by the Football Federation Australia, and thus should be consistent with teams such as San Marino national football team (run by the San Marino Football Federation), Cyprus national football team (run by the Cyprus Football Association) and the England national football team (run by The Football Assocation)... and several others, found here. AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 06:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

This is an article about an Australian team, and football is by no means used as a common term to denote soccer. As such, it would be incorrect given that Australian articles should be written in Australian English. Xtra 06:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Obviously (as shown by the fact this debate is even occurring), Australians have differing views on whether it's "soccer" or "football" (see also this poll), so I don't think you can define what it is definitely called in "Australian English". In this case, we should then defer to consistency with the rest of Wikipedia whereby the sport the team plays is given by the name of the national federation. AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 07:53, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It seems quite simple to me. the A-League is "Football but not as you know it", the Australian governing body is the Football Federation Australia, the teams are Sydney Football Club, Melbourne Victory Football Club etc..., with the few exceptions noted above (US Canada New Zealand etc) its Football. Even the most staunch hold out of the name soccer, namely the Australian Media has acknowledged its proper name, every news paper has results and news under the football heading, Rugby Union under the Rugby heading, Rugby League under the League heading and AFL under the AFL heading. Jaksar 5/12/02

There is actually a discussion of this going on in The Age at the moment: http://news.google.co.uk/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn&ncl=http://www.theage.com.au/realfooty/news/afl/real-football--the-great-debate/2005/12/05/1133631201816.html Shermozle 14:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Possible improvements to the article (whatever we're calling it)

  • Intro could use some expansion; as with many articles undergoing naming disputes it only includes info directly relevant to the dispute. Do we have a traditional style or strategy? Any players, current or historic, worth name-dropping?
  • The article mentions arguments over whether our first World Cup qualifying match against North Korea should have been counted as valid... but not who won.
  • Prose could use a general tightening-up (as ever). ～J.K. 04:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
The article implies that Australia lost. I agree with 1st point and 3rd point. It seems that the "History" part of the article has blown out of all proportion since I first added some body to it. I think separate articles should now deal with each qualifying campaign to lighten the text burden of this article. ViXx 15:08, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

A possible disam page

I'm an uninvolved admin. I see that it's been proposed that Australian national football team be made a disam page that links to Socceroos, the national rugby league team and also Australian rules football. If you guys have a consensus on that, I'd be glad to create the disam page. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 06:42, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


  • Disagree. Google "Australian National Football Team" and tell me how many pages you have to go back before you find a link which refers to a Union or League or AFL side as the "Australian National Football Team". In my scan quick scan I found none... maybe I missed something but quite clearly the VAST majority of the hits are talking about REAL football. --[dM] 08:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
    • The main use for a disam page is for searching. That's why we already have a disam page for Australian_football. The thing is, what you consider "real" football isn't the point since someone else will think that ARF is "real football". I can easily see both Australian rules football fans and rugby league fans typing in "Australian national football team" in the search box. They should see a disam page that shows the various uses of the term. After all, we have a Australian_national_rugby_league_team page and we also have a full page on Australian rules football (both of which are on the Australian football disam page). And as for the google search, when I typed in Australian National Football Team, the 5th link down was for the national Australian rules football team (the AFL). To me, that's good enough for a disam page. Disam pages are for searching. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 08:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I support a disam page. That should fix confusion. Xtra 09:15, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

a disambig page is fine with me (although this Australian national team in Aussie Rules only exists for matches against one other team, and it's not even Aussie Rules that they play!), but I don't think this article should be called Socceroos. I don't think any other national football/soccer team articles are given by the team's nickname, that's why it's mentioned in the infobox on the right... AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 10:47, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Disagree. Up until 3 days ago there was no problem with this article being called "Australia National Football Team", Rugby League and Aussie Rules were in Wikipedia and noone seemed to have problems finding them. As pointed out above, the handful of "soccer national team" pages are run by "soccer" federations. Australia has Football Federation Australia so this page should be moved back. Even in melbourne over 55% of people according to an age poll feel this game should be called "football" - Tancred

What about this for a disambig?

Australia has four different codes that are known as football. Each, except Australian Rules, has a national team:

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Regards, Ben Aveling 00:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Australian rules does have a national team of sorts, see International rules football. There is also a separate All Australian team, although this is purely ceremonial.Grant65 | Talk 02:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I still don't like the actual page called soccer, but if the disambig page is really needed i guess we have no choice. Can I just suggest the link to football goes to football (word) instead. AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 08:59, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I've created the disambig page. I've fixed Australian national football team to redirect here instead of to Australian national soccer team, which is a redirect to here. I also suggest moving socceroos to either Australian national soccer team or Australian national football team. Regards, Ben Aveling 21:19, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I see that

The article was moved...again. I'm going to move it back to Socceroos (which seems to be the consensus) and protect it from moves. We usually don't do that, but this page has been moved 6 times in the last week. Enough. Work out what you want to do. Not unprotecting it until you do. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 16:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with this protection.--cj | talk 17:17, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

How is moving it back to the socceroos going with the consensus? Not everyone wants this, and looking at the history of the page and who makes edits and moves the page, the people who contribute the most to the article want it to remain at "Australia national football team" Given that this is the official name of the game in Australia, that many people want it to stay there and that it follows the wikipedia style for these sort of articles, I would ask that it be moved back there. - Tancred

And I would ask that it stay here as a reflection of common usage in Australian English. What soccer fans, FFA, SBS or the Sydney Morning Herald want to call it are not representative of Australian popular culture and are therefore neither here nor there. There never is a 100% consensus with large groups, but for the vast majority of Australian English speakers, "football" means a code other than soccer, or the word is ambiguous. (That's why people in regions where more than one code is popular, do not tend to use the word "football" and instead refer to them to "AFL", "league", "union" or "soccer".) The mere fact of ambiguity is enough to prevent the article being called "Australian national football team". Grant65 | Talk 23:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
According to the Ukrainian government, the "official" English name for the capital city of the country is Kyiv; here, it redirects to Kiev, because that's the word most people actually use in English. "Official" names don't count for much on Wikipedia; the real question here is which people's usage counts. Much of the soccer (a term I use here for clarity's sake) establishment in Australia, not to say many of the game's players and fans — most of the people who'll be writing about it on Wikipedia, in other words — like it to be called football. Most people in general in Australia call it "soccer", because there's half a dozen or so different codes of football (and of course the only real one is whichever one they follow </sarcasm>) — and, thanks to the national team's recent success, it's only now that people in this category are getting interested in this article. Worldwide, soccer happens to be the most common code of football, but most people playing it, I venture, don't speak English, at least not as a native language. As for what a plurality of native English speakers worldwide think of when you say football, I'm terrified it might be 300 million Americans thinking of this... Frankly, I think it would be better to sidestep the whole issue and go for what's clearest. Regardless of whether the game's players and followers like the word, there's no way you can mistake the word "soccer" to refer to any other sport. The word "football" has that problem in Australia, and it's not going away anytime soon. ～J.K. 23:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Wonderfully articulated. Fully agree.--cj | talk 14:57, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The term soccer still makes me physically sick...it's FOOTBALL!!! I agree that a lot of people still call it soccer but that is only because the name of football has only been 'implemented' in the past 9 months or so. If we do not update our vocabulary then it will just drift back down to the disgusting old days of soccah and not let us all bask in the resplendant glory that is FOOTBALL. NO other sport has the right to use the term FOOTball because they don't use their FEET FFS!!!dulberf

a) that is factually incorrect. Both AFL and to a lesser extent Rugby use feet.
b) It is still called soccer and not football, because most Australians consider something else to be football.
Correct Australian English is to refer to it as "soccer" or "football (soccer)" or some variation. Xtra 02:55, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The word football originally meant games played on foot (as opposed to games played on horseback). The etymology has nothing to do with kicking. See Talk:football (word). Grant65 | Talk 11:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Current Article Name is Woefully Informal

Is there any room for formalising the name of the article? I think Socceroos is actually a nickname and therefore should NOT be the formal name of the article. I think it should revert to Australian National Football Team (perhaps with "Socceroos" in brackets) OR (begrudgingly) Australian National Soccer Team. I mean, if there was an article called "McDonald's Family Restaurants in Australia", we wouldn't call it "Maccas" would we? And "Manchester United" is not "The Red Devils". The tone of headings should be consistent with other articles. ViXx 12:30, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

There are precedents, I mean New Zealand national rugby union team redirects to All Blacks. The persent dispute started when I tried to move this article to Australia national soccer team. But one person insisted on moving it back. Personally I would be just as happy to have it there, but Socceroos seems to be more popular. Grant65 | Talk 13:55, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't know if its more popular. It seems those who won't accept soccer as the common term for the sport are even more bitterly opposed to using the common term for the team. I'd argue the rugby union equivalent should be at "Wallabies", just as New Zealand's team is at All Blacks. However, I think Australian soccer team or Australia soccer team (or whatever other variant) is a reasonable compromise. I'd prefer "national" be left out as a redundant word. We could hold a straw poll to (loosely) determine "consensus".--cj | talk 14:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I don't think a poll is feasible. Only those actively involved in this thread would find this page and contribute. Could "Australian National Football (Soccer) Team" be a compromise? I think "National" should be retained on the basis that there is potential for confusion. For instance, a "New Zealand" team exists in the A-League, but it is not their National team (and hardly has any New Zealanders in it). Also, there are subnational teams (e.g. state representative teams), and other non-national representative teams (the Australian Institute of Sport team, etc) which when competing overseas (e.g. the annual Singapore U-19 Cup) could end up "representing" Australia. By the way, if you look at the history, I tried adding a disambiguation bit to the intro of the article with Rugby Union/AFL/League some time ago, but it was promptly edited out. ViXx 15:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
While polls may be evil, I think it feasible. Not that I think there is anything wrong with editors of this thread being the only voters, there are means by which to attract a greater survey. If conducted, notices could be placed at the Australian Wikipedians' Notice Board, the WikiProject Australian sports and even Wikipedia:Current surveys.--cj | talk 15:20, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

You can't really compare this to the All Blacks. The All Blacks are world famous for being such. Socceroos...That is just plain stupid and is totally new to me. All other nations have the national team format and Australia should be no different --Josquius 16:34, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

fedup and rather annoyed

As the title says I am rather fedup with what has gone on here in the past week. Despite some claims here, no consensus has been reached yet. Throughout this page are calls for the old name to return. As it stands today, the title of this page is not the official name of "Australian national football team", but an unofficial nickname "socceroos" - very encyclopedic. The calls for a disam page seem rather pointless to me. Rugby fans dont call their sport football, and League fans seem to use the term Rugby League. I can see no reason why this page should not be moved back to "Australian national football team" and then follow the wikipedia style for pages like this. --Tancred 22:35, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah denial, more than a river. "Football" in New South Wales and Queensland is rugby league. You can assert otherwise, but you are wrong. Rugby union is usually "rugby", but there are exceptions, such as the Sydney University Football Club, founded 1863, which is the oldest rugby club in Australia and one of the oldest football clubs in the world.
There seems to be a common misconception among soccer fans that "soccer" is an aberration, when it is used by hundreds of millions of people, around the world. If we exclude people in India, the Philippines (etc) for whom English is a second language (or lingua franca), "soccer" is probably the name for a majority of native English speakers. Even in the UK, the word soccer is understood, is widely used (see Soccer AM), and many British rugby union and rugby league clubs continue to refer to themselves as "_______ Football Club". Grant65 | Talk 23:19, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

A bit of decorum here, please! ～J.K. 00:16, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Please at least move the page to Australia national soccer team - Socceroos is not the right name for the page no matter what you want to call the sport. Anyway, Australian Rugby League controls rugby league, Australian Rugby Union controls rugby union, Australian Football League somewhat controls Australian football (where there is no national team - that sport is called International rules)... And the Football Federation Australia controls.... football! PS - I'm in NSW and a member of clubs in football and rugby league... football does not equal rugby league. AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 00:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Really? I don't think so. In any case the clincher is that that the word "football" is highly ambiguous in Australia, i.e. it can mean at least three different codes. So it's not suitable for use in the name of a soccer-related article.
I moved the article to Australia national soccer team and Tancred rejected that, so you will need to persuade him first. I'm guessing that Australia national football (soccer) team won't be acceptable either(?) Grant65 | Talk 11:18, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't mind Australia national football (soccer) team but (I think) we all agree that Socceroos is definitely not the correct name for this article. I'm strongly in the football camp, but I think "we" will have to concede that this constant moving back-and-forth is not doing anyone any good and a decision must be made. There's all that "polls are evil" thing, but this needs to be solved, it's getting tiresome. AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 13:41, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, let's make this the last attempt to reach consensus without a strawpoll. If nobody vouches for Socceroos, the article should be moved to Australia/Australian national soccer team. If this is accepted, then the issue is what to do with Australia/Australian national football team: redirect to new title or make disambig page? --cj | talk 14:15, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

The cases for these options have already been made variously on this page. Perhaps I should set up a straw poll on these options. Personally, I'm happy for the article to be moved to "national soccer team" as a compromise to all options (it grates least nerves). Moreover, I think the old title should be made a disambig. --cj | talk 14:22, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Coming in late here, so I'm sorry if I rehash old stuff. First off, "[Countryname] national football team" is the standard naming format for all countries (yes, I know about United States of America and New Zealand, and they're a pain in the arse). We should at least consider the football POV for an article on the Socceroos as well as the apparent Australian POV (I'm pretty sure Grant didn't do that, but it's not worth jumping up and down about, he was just being WP:BOLD). Secondly, as has been noted above, "Socceroos" is not a good name for the article (Italia is at Italy national football team, not at Azzuri). I would prefer moving it back to "Australia national football team", to fit with the vast majority of football teams, but e'en as I disagree I understand the potential for confusion with our national rugby or league teams. "Australia national soccer team" would be an acceptable compromise. "Football (soccer)" is unnecessary – it's just a way to shoehorn "football" in there, but still breaks the convention of football-related articles. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 16:13, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, "[Countryname] national football team" is standard format for those teams whose countries understand soccer predominately as football. For those countries in which other codes of football predominate (ie, Anglophones outside the UK), the article title deviates. As much as some fans of the sport might try to deny, soccer is what the sport is known as in Australia. The article title should concur. Australia national football team should be replaced by a disambig (as suggested by an outsider) because no one code has a monopoly on the term "football".--cj | talk 17:13, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Like I said, I can live with Australia national soccer team. Some people on this talkpage seem genuinely concerned with the potential for confusion of "football" (rather than simply being on a "I'm Aussie! It's 'soccer', damnit!" tear), and with such apparent confusion we should surely have a disambig at football rather than simply redirecting to soccer. Re: countries that deviate, I know about the USA and NZ, and they're a pain — and what about countries that don't call it football? Italia calls it "calcio", apparently for reasons of national pride; many Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking countries say "futebol"; Germany has fußball or something like that. Hmm, I think I'm just being contrary at this point. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 01:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Final debate

Sorry for long entry, but I am also tired of this debate.

TO END THIS; the debate should now solely consider: Is it confusing or difficult for an average Australian who encounters Wikipedia to find their chosen football code based on the wording of the title?

I would have thought that incorporating both names i.e. "Australia national football (soccer) team" (as per my initial example) would cause the least problems. It is NOT an attempt to incorporate "Football" in the title - there are MANY articles with "Football(Soccer)" in them - in fact there is a whole category. It is a form of intrinsic disambiguation. THERE IS NO need for disambiguation with other codes, as the other team pages could retain their existing headings (Australian national rugby union team and Australia national rugby league team). I think you should consider... would anybody looking for the Wallabies page ever enter "Australia national football team" in Wikipedia search? Try it out on your non-Wikipedia using friends. In my office poll, zero out of four entered "football" as a search term. I have to admit that for the Socceroos, only one entered "football".

Therefore, I agree that some visitors might enter "Australia national soccer team" and be annoyed if it led to a dead end (easily fixed with redirection); but I think (despite the debate), no Australian who has sufficient IQ to use the internet would be totally lost in trying to find whichever football code they were looking for. Certainly, nobody who contributes to this page would ever accidentally end up at the Socceroos page if they were looking for the Kangaroos or Wallabies...

I conclude that, at the end of the day, any formal title incorporating either Football or Soccer (or both) would be easily found by any person searching for that article. Please also note that some people have not heard of "socceroos" (esp. foreigners) and therefore would not enter that as a search term. If there were no redirections, this would be a disaster of a name to pick as a title. ViXx 16:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

"TO END THIS; the debate should now solely consider: Is it confusing or difficult for an average Australian who encounters Wikipedia to find their chosen football code based on the wording of the title?" — no!
We should not solely consider the views of the Average Aussie looking for info on the Socceroos. The "only $nationality will be interested in this article" POV is one that I've only ever seen before from Americans. Intriguing that it occurs so close to home as well... fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 16:36, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't think it would be wise to pigeon-hole the "soccer" viewpoint as a solely nimby-ist/parochial kind of POV. Surely the average reader can understand that soccer means football, and football can mead soccer. Both terms are used relatively equally (numerically) to refer to this particular code, but neither is universal. There's no reason why Wikipedia shouldn't also alternate where appropriate. Hmm... I don't think I've expressed myself well.--cj | talk 17:13, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
That wasn't my intent, and I apologise if I was unclear (it's bad enough to be biting, without biting haphazardly as well!). I don't object to "soccer" on these grounds, I just object to any of us framing the discussion in terms of "what an Australian might look for". What an Australian would look for is no more important than what someone from Angola might think. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 01:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Btw, I quietly removed the protection against moves. But. PLEASE don't move the article until things are settled or else it'll be reimposed. Thanks. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 16:59, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

It may have been better to have left protection against moves. However, since I'm now more involved in the debate, I won't restore it. --cj | talk 17:13, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

What is wrong with moving it back to Australia national football team and leaving the Australian national football team (Disambiguation) reference at the top of the article, with Australia national soccer team as a redirect? I suspect most people that look for the Wallabies will either search for Wallabies or Australia national rugby union team and those looking for the Kangaroos will look for Australia national rugby league team. The minority that are looking for either of these but type in Australia national football team will be easily sent there via the disambig link at the top of the page - I agree in essence with ViXx. Keeping it at Socceroos has I think been ruled out as a possibility. Cursive 18:00, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

What is wrong with it? I like soccer, I watch almost every Socceroos game (and I rarely call them anything other than "The Socceroos"). What is wrong is that it's arrogant for soccer fans anywhere to think that they have sole rights on the word "football", a word that was around 400 years before the Football Association was formed (which was 18 years after rugby was codified and five years after Australian rules was devised). A word that was rarely used to mean soccer in Australia until a few years ago. It is for reasons like these, in several countries, that the main soccer article is called football (soccer). Grant65 | Talk 23:16, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Whatever - I am not trying to lay sole claim to the word football - I'm pretty sure I would have said that the disambiguation would be unneccesary if this were actually the case - since football would therefore only ever refer to 'soccer'. I thought it was arrogant of you to move the page without consensus (or even attempt to gather such) in the first place, in particular in conjunction with the At least discuss the matter before you move the page again comment directed to Tancred - there's a Template:Move for a reason. But lets not go there lest we wander into personal attack territory. Cursive 00:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Hmm, you said that better than I could. Well done. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 01:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
In my naivete and innocence I imagined that a move to Australia national soccer team was uncontroversial, given that football is a contested and ambiguous word in Australia and that soccer is the common name of the code in Australia. I was wrong. Grant65 | Talk 12:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
By the way, it is disingenuous to talk about the Wallabies in this context, when the Kangaroos represent the dominant form of rugby football in Australia. It is also disingenuous and irrelevant to say that the Australian international rules football team (known in 1967 as the Galahs, now there's a nick to hate *lol*) don't play Australian rules. No, they play another kind of football, and they are recruited from the dominant football code in Australia. Grant65 | Talk 23:16, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand - the only reason why the disambiguation is/was needed was because of potential confusion regarding the which football team we were talking about. Hence I fail to see how it is disingenious to talk about them in this context. Also - I never said anything about Australian rules. Are you addressing me here? Cursive 00:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
It was directed mainly at Vix's spurious and rhetorical "would anybody looking for the Wallabies page ever enter "Australia national football team..." Grant65 | Talk 12:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
As stated previously, I would support any of the following Socceroos, Australia national soccer team or Australia national football (soccer) team. Grant65 | Talk 23:16, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
And what would you do with Australia national football team? Would you be willing to go to the over 250 pages that link there and fix all those links (I'm assuming you want a disambig page there) which all refer to the Socceroos? I am still in favour of Australia national football team though possibly would consider Australia national football (soccer) team as unwieldy as it is if along with the move and disambig page, all the relevant links were dab'ed. Cursive 00:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I've been involved in many page moves over the past few months, and if the article has a lot of links to it I've (as far as I can remember) always attempted to clean up after myself. Nobody should move an article without being willing to cleanup the redirects or ambiguous links left in its wake. If nothing else, it'll bring to those who do the work a newfound appreciation of just how many "[Countryname] national football team" articles there are. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 01:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I guess we could get a bot to fix those links. If we can't it would be a minor incovenience and an education for people following such links to end up at the disambiguation page ;-) Grant65 | Talk 12:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
As I see it: If we follow convention on Wikipedia, the article should be title Australia national football team. The reasons given that it should be called Australia national soccer team (or otherwise, including the word soccer) are that (1) more Australians call the game soccer and (2) the word football in Australia is used to describe up to 4 different codes. However, the codes in question are called rugby league, rugby union and Australian rules football, not football, and I don't think anyone who supports those codes will argue with that. As mentioned above, anyone looking for information on the national teams in other codes will usually search for the "national rugby league/union team", and on the chance they look for football and find soccer, it is pretty simple to click the link at the top of the page to go to the disambig page. Anyone looking for the Socceroos will most likely search for "football" if they call it football or "soccer" if they call it soccer. A recent poll in the Age found 55% would prefer for "soccer" to be called football instead of Australian rules. So, I think putting the page at Australia national football team will (a) cause no confusion for people searching for other sports (although some might get annoyed if they think the "name" of their sport is being taken) and (b) conform with the convention on Wikipedia. AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 01:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
The thing is, in everyday speech, AFL and at least some rugby fans do call their sports football, and only disambiguate when necessary for dealing with those heathens </tongue-in-cheek> for whom the word refers to a different game. I'm in favour of moving the page to Australia men's national soccer team -- because that is what more people here call the game, and the Matildas deserve note, too -- and leaving a redirect at Australia national football team. (As for precedent, this is presently the case for Canada; the U.S. one redirects to a disambiguation page between the men's and women's teams because the latter is at least as well known as the blokes and, until recently, considerably more successful.) ～J.K. 02:42, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
But when these fans are looking up their sport in an encyclopedia, would they look for "football" or "rugby league"/"rugby union"/"Australian rules"? In cases like this, usually the article is at the actual name, and at the top there is a little note directing users to the correct pages for things that may use that name in "everyday speech". I don't see the harm in this, and I can't see any reason to do otherwise - football is the name of the sport in this country (see my note somewhere up the page re Football Federation Australia), so why shouldn't the page be named football? When you say that "AFL and rugby fans" call it football, you are referring to a specific demographic, For example, (the easiest i can think of), a certain group of people might call heroin "horse". And, set in their ways, they might come on Wikipedia and look up the word "horse". Obviously, they're going to be taken to the page describing the animal, as most people would expect. But at the top of the page, there is a little note saying that the word "horse" may refer to other things, and takes them to a page which lists them. "Horse" is the name of the animal, but can refer to other things when used by different people. "Football" is the name of the sport (see note again), but also can refer to different sports when used by other people (ie "AFL and rugby fans"). If people decide to search for football referring to another sport, they can quickly be directed to the page they are looking for. AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 03:36, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, yes, but soccer players and fans, Australian or otherwise, who prefer to call the sport "football" (most do, but not all) are a demographic as well. When Wikipedia consensus works, all of the relevant demographics are, if not totally satisfied, then at least not too pissed off. ;o) Soccer is actually unusual among the games called football in having a widely-used name that refers exclusively to itself, and not other games called football, which isn't derived the region in which it was originally played. None of these sports were called anything but "football" until rules started being written down and disambiguation from other codes was needed.
So, an attempt at not pissing anyone off too much: The word "soccer" has the advantage of being both specific and succinct. Again, to be specific, I think we should specify that this article is about the men's team, and not the women's, which is just as national as the Socceroos. The article can be at Australia men's national soccer team, with Australia national football team redirecting straight there, and the disambiguation page separate — apart from anything else, people working on distant articles are going to be casually linking to Australia national football team all the time. The disambig page can be linked at the top in the usual way, with text along the lines of "For other codes of football, see..." ～J.K. 05:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Again well-expressed, Jiminy. I largely agree, but I'm still not convinced about a primary topic disambiguation. Albino Monkey, it's odd you still claim that "football is the name of the sport in this country" based on it's peak organisation. How can a name change of the sport's (detached) establishment less than twelve months ago possibly cement "football" over "soccer"? In Australian English, soccer is the sport's name. Therefore, if we defer to the MoS, this article should be at Australia national men's soccer team because a) the article is about an Australian subject, and b) it should conform to the predominate form of English already used in the article (ie, AusE). It should not be "football" because common usage (ie, AusE) trumps official usage. It seems, to me, the only thing left to decide is how to disambiguate.--cj | talk 07:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Well put, Jiminy and Cyber.Grant65 | Talk 12:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the option has been settled on, then. However, I'm reluctant to hold a straw poll on it because I'm not confident we'd not see meatpuppets. --cj | talk 12:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't think the option is settled on, but it's really getting a bit pointless. However, I'm interested in/confused by your assertion that "soccer" and not "football" is "Australian English", and how overrides the convention of agreeing with the name of the governing body... AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 13:40, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
BTW, no-one who follows AFL refers to it as AFL. They all (+/- 1) refer to it as football. Yet, for the sake of distambiguating it, it is refered to as AFL on Wikipedia. There is no sustainable argument to call an Australian soccer team "football" without adding or substituting the qualification of "soccer". Xtra 14:04, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Apart from the fact that there isn't an Australian national Australian Rules football team? But yeh, whatever, I'm tired of it. Change it to soccer for the sake of the AFL fans who might get confused. AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 14:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Albinomonkey, there is a national team comprised of Australian rules footballers, which plays International rules football. To address your earlier remarks, the governing body is simply not following common usage in Australian English, it is attempting to change conventions of Australian English. There appears to be little chance that they will be successful. And a random, unscientific survey of Age readers does not constitute any evidence evidence whatsover of a change in common usage, which was established more than 130 years ago, of "football" meaning Australian rules or rugby football. Grant65 | Talk 14:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
My suggestion - how about we go to either Australia national football (soccer) team or Australia national soccer team, with a redirect at Australia national football team, and change the dismbig notice at the top of the page to use {{redirect|Australia national football team}} - i.e.
“Australia national football team” redirects here. For other uses, see Australia national football team (disambiguation).
I don't like using men's in the title as it is only special cases like the US which do so - where their womens teams have been historically much more successful, and there is no need in this case. Cursive 15:08, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree. Australia national soccer team (football (soccer) in this context is a sop, not a compromise), with the real title as a redirect to prevent breaking the other articles. Someone should still check for double redirects. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 15:33, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I think Australia national football team should be the disambiguation page.Grant65 | Talk 22:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Australia national soccer team it is then. I'd rather Australia national football team become the disambiguation. Would anyone object to me enacting this move (disambig aside)? --cj | talk 01:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Australia national football team as the disambig is logical, but if we go with that I'd like to see a promise from User:Grant65 that he'll clean up each and every item in Special:Whatlinkshere for that article. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 03:25, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
So long as all the redirects point right, it should be fine. Periodically, it would be worthwhile (if the old page is a disambig) to dab links to where they're intended. That said, I'll move the page and correct the redirects.--cj | talk 03:34, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Hmm, seems somebody was naught and did a copy-and-paste move a while back (Tancred, I think). Australia national soccer team seems to have been this article's original location (see history). Anyone know how to merge page histories? I'll read up on it.--cj | talk 03:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Just FYI, a little google searching:
  1. "australian national rugby league team" 850 hits
  2. "australian national rugby union team" 525 hits
  3. "australian national soccer team" 420 hits
  4. "australian national football team" 240 hits
  5. "australian national football team" -rugby soccer 218 hits
  6. "australia national football team" 145 hits
  7. "australian national football team" rugby -soccer 30 hits
In other words, although football is used by all three, "national football team" is pretty much only used by soccer, but that it isn't used as often as "national soccer team". I therefore suggest the disambig remain where it is, that this page move to Australian national soccer team and that Australian national football team redirect to Australian national soccer team. Given that no one has yet AFAICT suggested this configuration, think of it as a compromise solution selected by Google.  :-) Regards, Ben Aveling 07:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I pretty sure what you've just suggested has been suggested already (although without analysis :) and that it is in fact the present situation. I've made the move and fixed the redirects, and a couple other links too. Although it's a logical contradiction, I think I'm fine with Australia national football team redirect here given most (if not all) Wikipedia links have already been changed to link to there.--cj | talk 07:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Fuddle said: "I'd like to see a promise from User:Grant65 that he'll clean up each and every item in Special:Whatlinkshere..." Nah. Mate, the person who moved the page from Australia national soccer team in the first place (see above) can do that ;-)

Ben, I'm not suprised by that search result, given international usage of the word football. But the debate is about Australian usage of the word football. Try that search using .au sites only. Grant65 | Talk 10:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

  1. "national soccer team" 1630 hits
  2. "national football team" 792 hits
  3. "national football team" -rugby soccer 662 hits
  4. "national rugby league team" 248 hits
  5. "national rugby union team" 141 hits
  6. "national football team" rugby -soccer 55 hits
Regards, Ben Aveling 11:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
So 83.5% of Australian websites regarding the "national football team" are referring to football and not rugby. Better let them know they are not using correct Australian English. AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 12:09, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Uhh, Grant, it's not just Australian use that matters, although it has a lot more weight than it would on, say, a discussion on what to name Russian vegetables. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 13:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Ben. It proves my points that the word football is ambiguous and that soccer is the common name. Albino, what makes you think those 662 hits that mention soccer are primarily about soccer? Grant65 | Talk 23:33, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
This is ridiculous - the 662 pages contain the word soccer and do not contain the word rugby. Of course some of them will not be an entire page about the "soccer" team (note i used the term "are referring to" not "are about", as you seem to have claimed), but they do not have anything to do with rugby. AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 01:39, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

The fate of the "Australia national football team" page

Errm, I hate to be difficult, but....wouldn't it be logical to have the disambig there, rather than a redirect and a separate disambig? I don't see the logic. Grant65 | Talk 10:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Check the back links. Most people hitting that link will be looking for the soccer. Regards, Ben Aveling 11:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I changed the disambig to using the {{redirect}} template - the wording makes it clearer why the disambig link is there. Cursive 12:22, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't think that makes any more sense than this page being called Australia national football team. Grant65 | Talk 12:46, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
But your argument was that the page should be called "soccer" as that is correct Australian English. The page is called soccer, so as to cater for Australians as per your request (although this POV was disputed somewhere further up the page). Most people (esp those outside Australia) will look for football (as evidenced by the backlinks), and the redirect ensures they end up at the "correct" page. The few who are looking for rugby or AFL should have no problems realising they are not at a page concerning rugby or AFL and can click the disambig link. Causing EVERYONE who searches for football to go through the disambig is just wasting their time when we know what the highest proportion is actually looking for. AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 12:59, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Which to alot of people makes a lot of sense. Anyway this debate is over and consensus has been reached. Cursive 12:55, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't see the logic in having a dead end disambig page, when part of the point of disambigs is education. "Causing EVERYONE who searches for football to go through the disambig is just wasting their time..." Jeez, only if they are too lazy to click one more time. It has an educational effect for the "there is only one kind of football"-type people ;-) I'm only trying to be logical and consistent; that's why I started the Australian football disambig page many months ago. Perhaps that should simply redirect to Australian rules football (?) Grant65 | Talk 23:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, yes, but part of the point of wikilinks is not to surprise the reader too much. A lot of soccer-fan editors overseas are in the habit of creating country links in the format [[Country xxx national football team|Country xxx]] without checking them. Having the redirect straight here ensures that readers go straight to where they were expecting to, and once they're here the disambig link is right at the top of this page to pique their curiosity about other codes. Oh, and I agree with you about the Australian football redirect; the disambig can be moved to football in Australia. ～J.K. 01:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Confuse? Isn't the point of disambig pages to reduce confusion? If so a disambig should be at the spot where confusion is most likely to occur. Grant65 | Talk 04:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

And I don't think Australian football should redirect to Australian rules football. Grant65 | Talk 04:37, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

But it doesn't? It's a disambig. Though it does say that "Australian football" means "Australian rules football" whereas to me an "Australian football" is a Sherrin. Perhaps we should merge Australian football (disambiguation) and Australian national football team (disambiguation)? Regards, Ben Aveling 06:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I was responding to a suggested merger and I also disagree with your suggestion. I think the only good case for mergers is when the content of two pages is almost identical. In this case one disambig is about national teams and the other is about whole codes of football.Grant65 | Talk 10:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps this is an unusual case where the content is different, but the structure is so almost exactly the same that one disambig page could handle both jobs. 'we have four codes of football: rugby union, which has a national team; rugby league, which has a national team; soccer, which has a national team; australian rules, which does not have a national team because the rest of the world are wusses.' Regards, Ben Aveling 11:23, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I reprotected the article from moves

Tancred, it's obvious that the others don't want the article moved. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 20:51, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I for one want the article moved. But it's clearly unwise for anyone to do so just yet, until we can agree on where to move it. Thank you for reprotecting the article, and for your continued involvement in this (probably rather dreary, to outsiders) debate. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 01:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't find it dreary, fuddle, but on the other hand, I hope this ends soon. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 01:31, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
This discussion now is close to exceeding the length of the original article. It is obvious that resolution is unlikely to be achieved as the group has become polarised. This article lived under its former name for a very long time, and although there was some debate, it did not threaten the article itself nor result in multiple name changes. To me, it seems that the only way to have a solution is to have one imposed by someone external to this debate. At the end of the day, I hope that a good name is chosen out of respect for our national representative team. I will certainly be cheering the Socceroos/Australia National Football Team/Australia National Soccer Team from the stands in Berlin on July 9... ViXx 11:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Meh. That's typical. :) I'm involved in one dispute (Price-Anderson Act) where we're up to 600K on the talk page. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 07:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
(yawns) That's nothing. One word: Gdańzig. ～J.K. 07:39, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
You've page-protected the wrong version!
You've page-protected the wrong version!
This is intended used for page protection, not move protection, but I offer it up anyway. :-) Regards, Ben Aveling 07:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
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