Peru national football team

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• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for July 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like to improve it in order for it to be a strong Featured Article Candidate that will be able to pass the process and become a Featured Article.

As of now, the article is a strong Good Article. It has been heavily improved and been molded in the form of the Scotland national football team article (though not exactly alike). The article holds plenty of references, but comments were made on some of them as they did not seem reliable for FA status. The article should be an easy read, and an easy article to review. There really is very little to improve by this point. All it needs is a "polish" that can give it that shine that will make it FA quality.

During the process of evaluation, User:Oldelpaso provided various excellent points that needed improvement in order to take the article to FA status. Among these were:

• A thorough copyedit is required, probably by a native speaker.
• Book sources. Could a reviewer get their hands on some football books that can help strengthen the article?
• Is there an excessive number of non-free images? What is the limit of non-free images allowed? (User:Giants2008 mentioned this during the FA review)
• Source checks. Specific notes were made on these sources (Could somebody check their reliability?):

http://www.ecuadorexplorer.com/html/pride_match.html http://www.eloratings.net/ http://gosouthamerica.about.com/od/callao/Callao_Peru.htm http://www.fussballtempel.net/conmebol/listeconmebol.html http://journalperu.com/?p=859 http://www.planetworldcup.com/GUESTS/matt20020826.html http://www.futbolplanet.de/asia/friendly_tournaments/kirin_cup_2005.htm http://www.worldfootballers.com/player.php/nolberto--solano-186.html I'll try to check these sources on the reliable sources examination of Wikipedia for a more "specific" opinion on the matter, but if anybody gets to check this before I get any response from the RS team, it would be nice if you could provide some comments on these sources.

And that should be it.

However, an important note should be made on behalf of some blogs used as references in the article. These blogs were found to be reliable as its writer, Mr. Jaime Pulgar-Vidal Otalora, is a historian and sports journalist who is involved in the Peruvian sports media and has collaborated in writing a series of books on the matter of football (so the guy is a verifiably real football "expert"). His blogs should not be deleted as they provide essential Peruvian sports history information that cannot be found elsewhere by this point and time.

Thanks for your collaboration,-//[*]MarshalN20[*]\\ (talk) 02:49, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is interesting, and it seems comprehensive and stable. However, it is not yet ready for a run at FA. Some of the image licenses are problematic. I also have concerns about overlinking, unexplained jargon, and other issues related to guidelines in the Manual of Style. Also, I've suggested a few places where I think it would be helpful to remove what seem to me to be pro-Peru editorial comments.

Heads and subheads

• MOS:HEAD says in part, "Section names should not explicitly refer to the subject of the article, or to higher-level headings, unless doing so is shorter or clearer." For this reason, it would be best to eliminate the words "football" and "national team" from all heads and subheads in the article. For example, instead of "Introduction to football" in the first subhead in the "History" section, you might substitute, "Beginnings".

Overlinking

• It would be good to go through the article looking for terms, especially common ones, that are linked multiple times in close proximity to one another and to delete all but the first instance. For example, Copa América is linked in the first paragraph of the lead and again in the third paragraph. Uruguay is linked in the last line of the "Creation of national team" subsection and again in the first sentence of "1930s Golden generation". In the latter subsection, "Teodoro Fernández" is linked twice in quick succession and again in the accompanying caption. In addition, it seems unnecessary to link country names like Ecuador, Chile, and England more than once in the entire article. Ditto for city names like Lima. The problem with too many links is that they become distracting and lose their effectiveness in the same way that overuse of italics causing readers to see italics as meaningless.

• Underlinking. Although most readers will not need to have countries linked more than once if at all, the many readers who are unfamiliar with football will not understand all the football jargon unless it is explained or linked. I've listed quite a few specific examples, such as "kit" below, but I probably missed some. The player positions, formations, gear, penalty cards, and other names or items specific to the game are things to look for and make clear.

Lead

• Should FIFA and CONMEBOL be spelled out as well as abbreviated on first use?
• "Founded in 1927, the team's home matches are held primarily at the Estadio Nacional in Lima." - Since the matches weren't founded in 1927, it might be better to say, "Founded in 1927, the team plays its home matches primarily at the Estadio Nacional in Lima."
• "The golden generation of Peruvian football in the 1970s brought Peru back into the world view, with greats such as Héctor Chumpitaz, Hugo Sotil, and Teófilo Cubillas leading to the belief that a new footballing powerhouse had emerged." - "Players" rather than "greats" to avoid inserting editorial opinion?

1970s Golden generation

• "The squad, managed by "Didi" Pereira, followed a 4-2-4 formation... " - Wikilink formation for readers unfamiliar with the sport?
• "Thanks to the goals of "Cachito" Ramírez, the squad achieved what had seemed impossible by tying with Argentina at a game popularly known as "La Bombonera" (in reference to the Estadio Alberto J. Armando where the game was played)." - Perhaps "what had seemed impossible" is a bit too editorial. Suggestion: "Thanks to the goals of "Cachito" Ramírez, the squad tied with Argentina at a game popularly known as "La Bombonera" (in reference to the Estadio Alberto J. Armando where the game was played)."
• "Additionally, the squad would achieve South American glory as they achieved their second Copa America in 1975." - Editorial comment seems to creep in here too. Suggestion: "Additionally, the squad won their second Copa America in 1975."

Present

• Since "present" refers to no particular time, it might be better to say "2009" or "After 2000" or "21st century"
• Spell out CONCACAF on first use?
• "where the team enjoyed a surprisingly good performance, reaching the semifinals of the North American competition" - Delete editorial opinion? Suggestion: "where the team reached the semifinals of the North American competition".
• "under allegations of irregularities between the FPF, the Peruvian Institute of Sports (IPD), and the Peruvian government" - What sorts of irregularities? Is is possible to be more specific?

World Cup record

• Many of the paragraphs in this section are extremely short. The Manual of Style generally deprecates extremely short paragraphs and sections. Two solutions are possible: expand or merge. Merging some of the shorties here would probably make sense. Paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 could be merged into a single paragraph; ditto for paragraphs 4 and 5.
• "became the first player to be sent off during a World Cup" - Wikilink sent off?

Copa América record

• "This same story would repeat itself in 2007, and now the team looks on to the 2011 tournament to be held in Argentina." - Rather than "now", which is indefinite, it might be better delete the word. Instead of "looks on to", I would suggest "looks forward to". The altered sentence would read, "This same story repeated itself in 2007, and team looks forward to the 2011 tournament to be held in Argentina."

Stadium

• "(the highest certification granted to artificial pitches)" - Wikilink pitch?

Uniform

• "all-white kit" - Wikilink kit?

Rivalries

• "(Pacific Cup) is disputed whenever both national teams play... " - "awarded" rather than "disputed"?

Notable players

• "According to CONMEBOL, Peruvian teams are often said to play with much technique and elegance, generally making them one of the finest exponents of South American football." - Although sourced, this might still be considered non-neutral. Doesn't CONMEBOL say the same about several other teams? If so, is it a meaningful claim?

Current manager

• WP:MOS#Scrolling lists says, "Scrolling lists and boxes that toggle text display between hide and show are acceptable in infoboxes and navigation boxes, but should never be used in the article prose or references, because of issues with readability, accessibility, and printing."

Records

• "For goalkeepers, Oscar Ibañez holds the most appearances with 50 caps... " - Does "cap" mean "captain"? For readers unfamiliar with the sport, it would be good to explain the meaning or link to an explanation.
• "the only team that received no yellow or red cards in their games" - Wikilink yellow card and red card?

Other tournaments and records

• "before the tournament was officially restricted to U-21 teams" - What are U-21 teams?
• "The final match of the team was a disaster as the Peruvian defenders made a series of mistakes" - This is POV since the final match was a disaster only for the Peruvian team. This is another example of inserting an editorial opinion.

Memorable games

• "Peru is famously remembered for knocking Ally MacLeod's Scottish squad out of the group stage... " - Delete "famously"? This appears to be an editorial addition.
• "In the last game of the second group stage, the Albicelestes had to defeat Peru by at least four goals to surpass Brazil's five points and +5 goal difference, in order to go through to the final." - I don't think the meaning of this will be clear to readers unfamiliar with the sport.

References

• I don't think it's necessary to add (Spanish) to the citations in Spanish.
• Citations should include the date of publication if that can be ascertained. For example, it's easy to find the publication date for citation 55; it was 2009-06-11.
• To make the citations more transparent to readers, it would be good to spell out the names of the publishers. For example, citation 100 lists rsssf.com as the publisher, but it would be more helpful to list the Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation, which appears to be the official name.

Images

• Generally, images should be set to "thumb" size rather than a specific pixel size. Please see MOS:IMAGES for guidelines and exceptions.
• I believe your concerns about the number of fair-use images is justified. A question that is bound to be asked is "Are they all necessary for an understanding of the text"? It's doubtful that the answer to this is "yes" in every case; a clear example of a doubtful case is the "Fairplay Trophy" image. Another question is "Is a free-use image a possibility"? In the case of the Teófilo Cubillas mug shot, the answer is "yes"; in addition, the image was taken from Picasa, where it is clearly labeled "All rights reserved".

Other

• The dabfinder tool that lives here finds four links that go to disambiguation pages rather than to the intended target.
• Citation 9 has a dead link.

I hope these comments prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 02:37, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your suggestions Finetooth. The only things I don't agree with are the spelling out of the names "FIFA", "CONMEBOL", and other such things. Note that even the Wikiarticle on these subjects has their names in the abbreviated form as a title. If the reader wishes to learn more about these organizations, such as their full names, then that's what the Wikilink is there for. Also, about the "Spanish" tagging of the references, this was a requirement in the GA Review in order to help the people understand what source was in English and which was not in English; and I think it's a good idea for a reader attempting to see the sources and that doesn't know how to read Spanish. Other than that, everything else was great and I really do appreciate your help; aside from the things I mentioned, everything else will be implemented as you suggested.--$%MarshalN20%$ (talk) 18:46, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]