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1930 FIFA World Cup

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An article about the first ever World Cup. A current GA, I've been expanding it with the eventual aim of taking it to FAC at some point in the future. I'm not in a particular hurry though, since my goal is to reach FA before the 2010 World Cup kicks off in June... Oldelpaso (talk) 10:08, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Jameboy

I noticed a mixture of date formats (e.g. July 30 but 3 August). Not sure what the correct format should be (probably dmy), but in any case it should be consistent. --Jameboy (talk) 22:42, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is most interesting and very good, and I think that with more work you should be able to get it to FA. I've done a pretty close line-by-line reading, and I've made quite a few specific suggestions. Most should give you little trouble, while a few are a bit more problematic.

Lead

"FIFA chose Uruguay as hosts" - Two things. Should FIFA be spelled out on first use, thus: Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)? Also, should "hosts" be "host" since Uruguay is singular? Or does Uruguay mean the team, which I guess is plural? Is the country the host, or is the team the host?
"played in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo," - Add a comma in front of "Montevideo"?
"Thirteen teams entered the tournament; nine from the Americas and four from Europe." - Suggestion: "Thirteen teams, nine from the Americas and four from Europe, entered the tournament."
"The first goal in World Cup history was scored by Lucien Laurent of France." - Flip to active voice? "Lucien Laurent of France scored the first goal in World Cup history."
"a crowd of 93,000 people" - I generally add an nbsp code to something like 93,000 people to keep the digits and units from becoming separated on computer screens by line-break. WP:NBSP has details. Just where to use them is partly a matter of judgment.

Origins

"1920–1928 (in the 1908 Olympic Games and the 1912 Olympic Games the football competitions had been organised by the Football Association and the Swedish Football Association respectively)." - Since the material inside the parentheses forms a complete sentence in its own right, I'm inclined to add a terminal period after 1928 and then start the next sentence with a capital I; i.e, (In the 1908 Olympic Games and the 1912 Olympic Games the football competitions had been organised by the Football Association and the Swedish Football Association respectively).
"The 1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, did not plan... " Should this say the International Olympic Committee (IOC) did not plan... "? The Olympics (games) can't plan. Adding the full name here would make the IOC abbreviation clear in the next sentence.
"so football was dropped from the Games" - Lowercase "games"?
"announced plans to stage a tournament independent of the Olympics, open to all FIFA members." - Suggestion: "announced plans to stage a tournament independent of the Olympics and open to all FIFA members."
"A vote was taken, and the proposal was carried by twenty-five votes to five." - Flip to active voice? Suggestion: "The membership voted 25–5 to accept the proposal."
"Uruguay also offered to refund the expenses of all participants." - I take it that here "Uruguay" means the country rather than the team. It might be useful to make the distinction clear in places where the two might be confused.

Participants

"invitation to the Football Association" - It would be good to add the abbreviation here on first use, thus: Football Association (FA).
"FIFA president Jules Rimet intervened" - Probably you could just use "Rimet", unlinked, since you fully identify and link him in the previous section.
"This is the same vessel which took Jules Rimet, the trophy itself and... " - Three things. Plain "Rimet" is all that is needed. "Carried" might be better than "took". "Itself" could be deleted without harm.
"It is at Rio that Balway was said to have learnt that his wife had died in France." - "Learned" rather than "learnt".

Summary

"The thirteen teams were drawn into four groups, with all the games being played in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo." - "With" is often a weak conjunction. Suggestion: "The thirteen teams were drawn into four groups, and all the games were played in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo."
"opening two matches of the tournament were the first ever World Cup games" - Delete "ever"? Or "first-ever"? Or "first World Cup games ever played"?
"was the scorer of the first ever World Cup goal" - Delete "ever"?
"Laurent later said: "We were playing Mexico... " - The quote should not be italicised. Since it is at least four lines long, it would be better set off as a blockquote without quotation marks. MOS:QUOTE has details.

Group 1

"had to leave the field after twenty minutes" - For consistency, it would be good to use digits for numbers from 10 up; i.e, "had to leave the field after 20 minutes" with an nbsp.
"and Laurent spent most of the match limping after a fierce tackle by Luis Monti." - Suggestion: "and Laurent, after a fierce tackle by Luis Monti, spent most of the match limping."
"A total of five penalties were awarded during the match which was refereed by the Bolivian coach Ulises Saucedo, three of them controversial." - Suggestion: "A total of five penalties, three of them controversial, were awarded during the match, which was refereed by the Bolivian coach Ulises Saucedo."
"The game which was marred by a brawl sparked by a foul on Arturo Torres by Monti." - Delete "which" to make this a complete sentence?

Group 2

"Both matches their matches followed a similar pattern, a promising start gradually transforming into heavy defeat." - Delete "their matches"?
"Against Brazil, where both teams had only pride to play for" - "When" rather than "where"?
"side finally changed into an alternate kit." - Wikilink kit?

Group 3

"when Plácido Galindo of Peru was dismissed against Romania" - Should "dismissed" be explained? Would "ejected" be more clear?
"100 years to the day of the creation" - Sentences in Wikipedia articles generally avoid starting with digits. "One hundred years to the day... " would be better.

Group 4

"which contained a significant number of new caps" - "New caps" needs to be explained for readers unfamiliar with the sport. It doesn't mean "hats".
"Their first opponents, Belgium, were beaten 3–0." - Flip to active voice?
"bemoaned the state of the pitch" - Wikilink pitch?
"however, in 2006 FIFA announced that Bert Patenaude's claim to being the first hat-trick scorer" - "Patenaude's" on second reference, unlinked.
"Paraguay beat Belgium by a narrow 1–0 margin." - Delete "narrow"?

Semi-finals

The first paragraph lacks a source even though it contains information that is not common knowledge.
"The American management made their anger felt to Jean Langenus but without appeal." - Why were they angry? Also, would it be good to make clear here that Jean Langenus was the referee?
"a controversial offside decision" - Wikilink offside ?

Final

"The final was played at the Estadio Centenario on July 30. Feelings ran high around the La Plata basin, dispelling any uncertainty as to whether the tournament had captured the imagination of the public. The ten chartered boats earmarked to carry Argentine fans from Buenos Aires to Montevideo proved woefully insufficient." - Not to put too fine a point on it, but the language in this passage makes me want to check it against the source. I can't do that because I don't have the Glanville book, but you might check to make sure the encyclopedia language doesn't too closely resemble the source language.
Wikilink La Plata Basin?
"many did not even make landfall before kick-off" - Wikilink kick-off?
"at noon the ground was full" - Wikilink ground?
"Carlos Peucelle latched onto a Ferreira through-ball, beat his marker and equalised." - Too much jargon for readers unfamiliar with the sport. "Through-ball", "marker", and "equalised" all need to be linked or explained. "Latched onto" is slang; "intercepted" perhaps?
"Jules Rimet presented the World Cup Trophy" - Rimet.
"Yugoslavia and the United States all undertook friendlies in South America" - Wikilink or explain "friendlies"?

Venues

"it was the primary stadium for the tournament, referred to by Jules Rimet as a "temple of football"." - Rimet.

Notes"

The date formatting needs to be either yyyy-mm-dd or d-m-y consistently in the citations, not a mixture of the two.
The abbreviation for a single page is "p" and the abbreviation for multiple pages is "pp". They are not interchangeable.
It might help to simplify a bit by combining some of the references to book pages that are close together. The references to Freddi, for example, might be to Freddi, pp. 5–13. That would reduce the Freddi refs to a single ref with several superscripts generated by the ref = name device.

Images

The images should all have alt text, and the alt text should precede the caption and should be preceded by the alt= parameter. WP:ALT has details.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 17:42, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for a wonderfully detailed review. I have implemented the vast majority of the suggestions. A couple of explanations:

On the "suspicious" text (no offence taken), the first part is very different - a common theme between Glanville, Freddi and Goldblatt, made at relative length. is that the reaction of the public was a vindication of the decision to create the tournament and host it in Uruguay. That sentence is an attempt to sum up the tone the authors on the subject in one gulp. The second sentence is perhaps a little closer than ideal to the source - "ten", "boats", "chartered" "Buenos Aires", "Montevideo" and "insufficient" are all present in both. But then numbers and place names cannot be paraphrased or reworded, and I suspect a quote would be fragmentary.
"Ejected" is pretty much never used in football vernacular, I've inserted a wikilink which ought to help.
I think the Games in Olympic Games is always used in the manner of a proper noun, but I may well be wrong. Oldelpaso (talk) 09:52, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]