Talk:Alsace national football team

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[edit] Unreliable

I don't believe there was ever an Alsace "national" team. Most likely there was a representative team from the fr:Ligue d'Alsace de football. The English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish Leagues used to compete in inter-League exhibition matches, which at on time were quite noteworthy, but never classed as internationals. Other national and subnational leagues did likewise; no doubt some still do. The one external site linked (which I doubt is reliable: it's maintained by one Mark Cruickshank) lists the Games in 1974 as being in the "Coupe des Regions", which AFAIK is just such an inter-league tournament; the opponents would be the Ligue de football de la Martinique, which overlaps with but is conceptually distinct from the Martinique national football team. jnestorius^(talk) 23:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I think whoever is naming these articles is causing the problems. The Alsace team is probably a league selection, but this is as close to a representative team as Alsace will get. However, it certainly can't be called a national team - unless all the best players with Alsace links are selected (similarly to the Spanish regions nowadays). If the majority of the best Alsace players played in the Alsace league, then we could definitely consider this team a representative team for Alsace.

As for the Ligue de football de la Martinique team - it is likely that the national side in the 1970s would have been drawn almost exclusively from the Martinican league anyway, so the difference between the league XI and the national team would be pretty insignificant (conceptual differences mean little here). 172.200.71.19 (talk) 03:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)