Talk:Harald Nielsen

Latest comment: 14 years ago by Poulsen in topic International debut

International debut edit

His international debut was an Olympic Games qualifier. It's not a full international therefore it wouldn't count towards his CAPS count and wouldn't count as his official debut. Banana Fingers (talk) 09:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

The Olympics have been an under-23 national team competition only since 1992. In Nielsen's time the Danish Football Association counted all olympic games as full internationals. Please see Nielsen's official Danish FA statistics page for the source of his national team game tally. Poulsen (talk) 10:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)Reply
OK but even if the Danish FA counted it as a full international, FIFA only recognizes Olympic football matches only until the 1948 edition. Does that still make it a full international and therefore count towards caps and goals? Banana Fingers (talk) 07:54, 28 February 2010 (UTC)Reply
As the official Danish FA source counts the Olympic qualifiers as full internationals, and the authoritative source of RSSSF does the same all the way to 1988 (see Peter Schmeichel, Michael Laudrup, Björn Nordqvist (Swedish), and fx. FIFA likewise disputes one of Billy Wright's caps, though the English FA upholds his statistics). I think it would take at least an authoritative source to challenge the international tally of the Danish FA in any way. I note that Ladislau Bölöni has had four caps removed due to FIFA rules, which leads me to think the FIFA rules are not gospel, as they are implemented differently by the different national FAs - and the Danish FA counts the 29 Olympic qualifiers from 1959 to 1988 as official senior caps. Poulsen (talk) 09:07, 28 February 2010 (UTC)Reply