Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/National teams/Referencing templates

There are now a small set of templates that can be used to generate links to national football teams plus their associated flags:

Template:fb — renders a flag icon (using the same underlying mechanism as Template:flagicon) plus a link to the national football team for the specified nation
Template:fb-rt — same usage as {{fb}}, but puts the flag on the right
Template:fb-big — same usage as {{fb}}, but renders a larger flag image and places the linked team name beneath the flag. This version is useful for tournament history tables.

An identical set of templates is also available for women's national football teams:

Usage

In all cases, template usage follows the following format:

{{fb|team|variant|name=optional}}

where:

team = the name of the nation (e.g. Brazil) or the FIFA trigramme of the nation (e.g. BRA)
variant = a label to specify an alternate (usu. historical) flag variant instead of the current flag. This parameter is optional.
name = an optional name that can be used to over-ride the display name of the wikilink.

Examples

{{fb|ITA}} = {{fb|Italy}} = Italy

Note that using the FIFA country code (see List of FIFA country codes for the full set) or the name of the nation has the same result. Your choice of what to use will depend on whether you prefer brevity or clarity. Large lists of teams may benefit from using the full name; input arguments to tournament bracket templates may be easier to read with country codes.

{{fb|CHN}} = {{fb|China}} = China
{{fb|MKD}} = {{fb|Republic of Macedonia}} = North Macedonia

Note that the display name may differ from the wikilink. These names are automatically selected by the internal template mechanism. In each case, the FIFA name of the team is used for the display name, but the common country name is used for the article link.

{{fb|USA}} = {{fb|United States}} = United States
{{fb|AUS}} = {{fb|Australia}} = Australia
{{fb|CAN}} = {{fb|Canada}} = Canada

In these examples, you can see that the wikilink is different from the normal "Nation national football team" format. The correct article name is also automatically selected from the internal template mechanism.

{{fb|KOR}} = {{fb|South Korea}} = South Korea
{{fb|COD}} = {{fb|Democratic Republic of the Congo}} = DR Congo

In these examples, both the wikilink name and the display name are different, and again, this is all handled automatically by the template.

Non-FIFA teams

These templates work perfectly well for teams that do not have FIFA country codes:

{{fb|Martinique}} = Martinique
{{fb|Greenland}} = Greenland
{{fb|Palau}} = Palau
{{fb|Mayotte}} = Mayotte
{{fb|Basque Country}} = Basque Country

Historical flags

Many nations have had different flags at different times in their history. Alternate flags can be selected by specifying an additional argument to the templates.

{{fb|ITA|1861}} = Italy
{{fb|ARG|alt}} = Argentina
{{fb|GER|empire}} = Germany
{{fb|ROU|1965}} = Romania
{{fb|BUL|1971}} = Bulgaria
{{fb|HKG|colonial}} = Hong Kong
{{fb|MEX|1934}} = Mexico
{{fb|KEN|colonial}} = Kenya
{{fb|AFG|1974}} = Afghanistan

Since these football templates are built on the same mechanism as the familiar {{flag}} and {{flagicon}} templates, the flag variant argument is the same. For example {{flagicon|ITA|1861}} produces , so the "1861" variant has the same effect in both sets of templates.

To find the complete list of historical flag variants available for each nation, please look at the template documentation for the individual flag template, as found in Category:Country data templates. For example, the documentation for Template:Country data Hungary lists four different flag variants (in addition to the current flag).

Historical nations

Many nations were known by different names in their history. These flag templates can be used with historical nation names (and in some cases, historical country codes), and will generate a wikilink to the modern successor national team article. Note which article the wikilink points to for each of the following examples:

{{fb|FRG}} = {{fb|West Germany}} = West Germany
{{fb|SCG}} = Serbia and Montenegro
{{fb|Ceylon}} = Ceylon
{{fb|United Arab Republic}} = United Arab Republic
{{fb|Dutch East Indies}} = Dutch East Indies
{{fb|Republic of China}} = Republic of China
{{fb|British Guiana}} = British Guiana
{{fb|British Honduras}} = British Honduras
{{fb|Dutch Guiana}} = Suriname
{{fb|Zaire}} = Zaire
{{fb|Burma}} = Burma
{{fb|Dahomey}} = Dahomey
{{fb|Gold Coast}} = Gold Coast
{{fb|Upper Volta}} = Upper Volta
{{fb|Northern Rhodesia}} = Northern Rhodesia
{{fb|Southern Rhodesia}} = Southern Rhodesia
{{fb|New Hebrides}} = New Hebrides
{{fb|North Vietnam}} = North Vietnam
{{fb|North Yemen}} = North Yemen
{{fb|Bohemia}} = Bohemia

Some historical nations still have individual team articles, and again, work with these templates:

{{fb|URS}} = {{fb|USSR}} = Soviet Union
{{fb|GDR}} = {{fb|East Germany}} = East Germany
{{fb|TCH}} = {{fb|Czechoslovakia}} = Czechoslovakia
{{fb|YUG}} = {{fb|Yugoslavia}} = Yugoslavia
{{fb|CIS}} = CIS
{{fb|Curaçao}} = Curaçao
{{fb|Saar}} = Saar
{{fb|South Vietnam}} = South Vietnam
{{fb|South Yemen}} = South Yemen

In some instances, use of the name parameter may be useful for historical team names:

{{fb|CAM|1970|name=Khmer Republic}} = Khmer Republic
{{fb|COD|1966|name=Congo-Kinshasa}} = Congo-Kinshasa
{{fb|IRL|name=Irish Free State}} = Irish Free State
{{fb|SAM|name=Western Samoa}} = Western Samoa

Ireland

{{fb|IRL}} = {{fb|Republic of Ireland}} = Republic of Ireland
{{fb|NIR}} = {{fb|Northern Ireland}} = Northern Ireland
{{fb|IRE}} = {{fb|Ireland}} = Ireland

Note that "Ireland" and the non-standard country code "IRE" are used for the old all-Ireland national football team (IFA). You must spell out "Republic of Ireland" (or use the standard "IRL" country code) for the current FAI team.