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Hi! I will be reviewing this article. Check back for further comments. ♥Nici♥Vampire♥Heart♥ 17:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1. Has reliable sources
2. Is written neutrally
3. No valid cleanup tags
4. Is relatively stable with no edit wars
5. Not specifically concerned with a rapidly unfolding current event with a definite endpoint

The article passes quick fail criteria. A more detailed review will follow. ♥Nici♥Vampire♥Heart♥ 23:18, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Criterion 1a - prose

• Lead: "He made his La Liga debut at Zaragoza and the following two seasons were successful ones, scoring 31 goals in 73 appearances and winning the Copa del Rey and Supercopa de España, his first senior honours. --> "He made his La Liga debut at Zaragoza and scored 31 goals in 73 appearances in the next two seasons, winning the Copa del Rey and Supercopa de España, his first senior honours."
• Lead: "He was the second highest scorer in La Liga season 2005–06 with 25 goals" --> "He was the second highest scorer in the 2005-06 season with 25 goals"
• There's no need to keep repearting his first name throughout the article; once you've said it once you can just say Villa.
• Childhood and early career section: "The son of a miner, his professional career was put in jeopardy at the age of nine when he was left with a limp after suffering a severe fracture to his femur, but thanks to a non-invasive approach he was able to make a complete recovery" is too long, please break it up into two sentences. Additionally, the "son of a miner" has no relevance to the rest of the sentence. Can you add it to the previous sentence instead?
• Sporting de Gijón and Real Zaragoza section: "where the team got defeated 1-0 away from home at the hands of Galician side Deportivo de La Coruña" --> "where the team were defeated 1-0 away from home at the hands of Galician side Deportivo de La Coruña"
• Sporting de Gijón and Real Zaragoza section: What's a brace? Is it possible to wikilink this?
• Sporting de Gijón and Real Zaragoza section: "this would be David Villa's first taste of European football" --> "this was Villa's first time playing in a European league"
• Sporting de Gijón and Real Zaragoza section: "The first leg ended 1-1, Villa put Zaragoza up 2-1 in the second leg, however, the team from Vienna pulled one back and went through on the away goals rule." This was a little confusing to me, can it be reworded?
• 2005–06 season: "Villa's success at Zaragoza caused many high profile teams to be after his signature" --> "Villa's success at Zaragoza meant that numerous clubs were trying to sign him"
  • Note

I reworded it a bit differently

• 2005–06 season: "Villa came on as a late substitute for Rubén Baraja and would waste no time in making his former club regret their loss by scoring the equalizer within the space of a minute, earning Valencia a point as the game ended 2-2." I don't like that it says "making his former club regret their loss" - it sounds like a fansite, promtoing a bit of a pov. Please remove it.
• There's an over-reliance on the word "would" - "Villa would once again save", "Villa would score", etc. Change these to "Villa once again saved", "Villa scored", etc to avoid the repetitiveness currently in the article.
• 2005–06 season section: “On October 23, 2005, Villa would score the winning goal against another Spanish giant, this time Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium and would once again score against Barcelona, on February 12, 2006, however, this time his one goal would prove enough to secure all three points in front of an ecstatic Mestalla crowd as the match ended 1-0.” is too long. Please cut this into two sentences.
• 2005–06 season section: “Villa scored a remarkable goal against Deportivo La Coruna at the Riazor on February 4, 2006, hitting the ball from the half way line it sailed over the keepers head and into the net” --> Villa scored a goal against Deportivo La Coruna at the Riazor on February 4, 2006, from the half way line”. Also, if you can, a quote from him or someone else about the goal, just saying it was excellent or something, would be a nice addition.
• 2006–07 season section: “Together, Villa and Morientes” --> “Between them, Villa and Morientes”
• 2006–07 season section: “That year also saw Villa debut in the UEFA Champions League, his first match would be in a qualifying match as a late substitute in a 1-0 first leg loss against FC Red Bull Salzburg, however, his next match would be the second leg where he would score the second and third goals in a 3-0 win qualifying Valencia for the Champions League group stages” is far too long. Please split it up into smaller sentences.
• 2006–07 season section: ”Crucial goals against Roma and Shakhtar Donetsk helped Valencia qualify for the knock out stages where they face Inter Milan where he scored a free kick goal in the second leg” --> “Crucial goals against Roma and Shakhtar Donetsk helped Valencia qualify for the knock out stages where they faced Inter Milan, and Villa scored a free kick goal in the second leg”.
• 2006–07 season section: Why should the “game which was more famous for the events after the match rather than what happened during the 90 minutes” be included in this article? What’s the relevance to Villa?
• 2007–08 season section: “Early in the season, their manager, Quique Sánchez Flores, was fired and replaced by Ronald Koeman who, on December 20, 2007, axed Valencia captain David Albelda, along with other teammates Santiago Cañizares and Miguel Ángel Angulo from the Valencia squad, furthermore, despite Valencia's ample choice of players to play down the flanks, he chose not to utilise any wingers”. Again, sentence is too long. Break it up into two at least.
• 2007–08 season section: “Despite such a pessimistic and injury-ridden season” – this is the first mention of injury you’ve made for this season, so this sentence doesn’t make sense. Either add in the injury he sustained (assuming he did suffer one) or remove this line.
• 2007–08 season section: “He signed a new six-year contract at the Mestalla. The 26-year-old ended speculation over his future by putting pen to paper on a deal which ties him to Valencia until 2014” --> “He signed a new six-year contract with Valencia, committing his future to the club until 2004”
• 2008–09 season section: “After finishing top scorer at Euro 2008,” --> “After finishing as the top scorer at Euro 2008,”
• 2008–09 season section: “Hitting an excellent form during mid season” --> “Hitting excellent form during mid season”
• 2008–09 season section: “he scored against Deportivo de la Coruña, however, he received a red card during the match” --> “he scored against Deportivo de la Coruña; however, he received a red card during the match”. Aloso, please link "red card".
• 2008–09 season section: why did he receive a red card against Deportivo de la Coruña?
• Euro 2008 section: “In the next match, he secured a 2-1 win against Sweden with a goal in the 92nd minute, rested for the next match against Greece, he started once again in the quarter finals where Spain beat Italy 4-2 on penalties, Villa took the first penalty and scored” is again way too long for one sentence. Split it up please.
• Euro 2008 section: “Reaching their first semi-final in 24 years, Spain would face Russia for the second time during the tournement, however, during the early stages of the match, Villa sustained a thigh injury after taking a free kick and, as a result, could not participate the final where Spain beat Germany 1-0 to claim their second win at the European Football Championships.” Needs tobe split up into smaller sentences.
• World Cup 2010 qualification and 2009 Confederations Cup section: “while the next game” is missing the word “in”, i.e. should be “while in the next game”.
• World Cup 2010 qualification and 2009 Confederations Cup section: misspelling – “firendly” should be “friendly”
• Personal life section: is there really a need to have a separate section for the David Villa camp? It’s very short, and seems unnecessary to me.

Criterion 1b - MoS

• For the majority of the article you have references after punctuation but there are some exeptions, make sure this is applied consistently throughout the entire article.
• You have a lot of short paragraphs throughout the article, most of them could be merged to form larger paragraphs. For example in the Childhood and early career and Sporting de Gijón and Real Zaragoza sections there are some paragraphs that are two sentences long, which is too short.
• There is a disambiguation link in the article [1] It should be fixed so it goes to the correct article.
• You have separate months and years linked, e.g. October and 2006. I know date linking is a bit up in the air at the moment, but it’s always been my understanding that only full dates should be linked if at all, and certainly not just separate year links. Additionally, you occasionally have full dates linked, and other times you don’t. Consistency is needed.
• Personal life section: why is “Centro Regional de Deportes de La Morgal” bolded?

Criterion 2a - references

• The references should be formatted consistently; some are just bare urls, some have publishers or accessdates when others don't, etc. I'd recommend using Template:Cite web and filling in all the information you can.
• There are some deadlinks that need to be replaced, see [2]
  • Note

Done, however, when I click the UEFA Euro 2008 links on the site you gave, some don't work but when I try click them on the wiki page there's no problem so I decided to leave them.

Criterion 2c - original research

• Source for "Starting out at the team's youth ranks he made his first-team debut in the 2000–01 season after scoring 25 goals in two seasons and by the next season he became a first team regular, scoring 18 league goals, and 20 the next season."? (Sporting de Gijón and Real Zaragoza)
• Source for “15 goals in the 30 games he played that season gave him a goal ratio of 1 goal every 2 games.”? (Sporting de Gijón and Real Zaragoza)
• Source for “Villa's success at Zaragoza caused many high profile teams to be after his signature.”? (2005–06 season)
• Source for “see him come 6th in La Liga's top scorer list that season, scoring the same amount of goals as fellow international Raúl Tamudo and would also see him help Valencia finish 4th in the league.”? (2006–07 season
• Source for “on January 12, 2009, Villa was announced as the joint 9th best player of 2008 alongside international team mate and Barcelona player Andrés Iniesta, according to the 2008 FIFA World Player of the Year awards.”? (2008–09 season)
• The last two paragraphs of the 2008–09 season section are completely unreferenced.
• Source for “Proving vital in Spain's qualification for Euro 2008, he scored six goals including an infamous bicycle kick against Liechtenstein, he was subsequently called up for the tournament where he formed a great striking relationship with Fernando Torres, with whom he would often celebrate his goals. He scored a hat-trick in Spain's 4-1 win over Russia, making him the first player to do so at a UEFA European Championship since Patrick Kluivert in 2000, and only the seventh overall.”? (Euro 2008)
• Source for “In a friendly match before the tournament, Villa scored his second international hat-trick against Azerbaijan, nearly exactly a year after his hat-trick against Russia at Euro 2008”? ( World Cup 2010 qualification and 2009 Confederations Cup)
• Source for “Although he prefers to keep his personal life out of the spotlight due to his discreet and introverted personality, it was still publicised that in 2003 Villa married his childhood sweetheart Patricia (who had also been a footballer in her teenage years).”? (Personal life)

Criterion 4 – neutrality

• 2005–06 season section: “remarkable goal” is pov.
• 2006–07 season section: “prolific partnership” seems like pov, unless it’s a quote from a reference.
• 2008–09 season section: “Hitting an excellent form during mid season” is pov.
• World Cup 2006 section: “Brilliant form” is pov
• Euro 2008 section: “great striking relationship”
• World Cup 2010 qualification and 2009 Confederations Cup section: “tough Iraqi team”

Overall comments

• First of all, my apologies for taking so long to complete this review. Unforunately real-life caught up with me in the past two weeks or so.
• I am placing this article on hold to allow you to fix the problems listed. If no attempts are made to correct the problems, I will fail the article is seven days. If I see progress is being made, I will extend the hold period to allow you to finish.
• Feel free request clarification on anything listed here; you can leave comments on my talk page or here, as I have this page watchlisted.
• Please either strike each comment when the problem has been fixed or post a note saying each item is completed to make it easier for me to see what has been done. and what hasn't.

  Thanks, ♥Nici♥Vampire♥Heart♥ 21:11, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Replies

• 1A
  • Lead  Done Rewritten. Paper Back Writer 23 (talk) 18:01, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lead  Done Rewritten. Paper Back Writer 23 (talk) 18:01, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• 1B
  • Point 1, 3 and 5  Done Paper Back Writer 23 (talk) 18:01, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• 4
  •  Done All the non neutral words either replaced or removed Paper Back Writer 23 (talk) 18:01, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Looking good so far. Keep going. ♥Nici♥Vampire♥Heart♥ 13:45, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note, brace used to have a wiki page but it does not seem to exist anymore. A brace = 2 goals. Paper Back Writer 23 (talk) 16:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can you say that in the article then? At the first instance where brace is mentioned, put "(2 goals)" immediately afterwards just to clarify what it actually means. ♥Nici♥Vampire♥Heart♥ 13:45, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done, gonna get round to finishing off the article, kinda hoping someone will help :D Paper Back Writer 23 (talk) 22:03, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I did some minor things like n dashes and date formatting Spiderone 17:16, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Saw that, great work Paper Back Writer 23 (talk) 22:03, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

<--I don't ind you taking a little bit of time to get the article done. A normal hold period is a week, but I have no problem extending that as long as the article is being actively improved. Keep going, you're getting there. :) By the way, you could try asking for some extra help at WT:FOOTY if you'd like someone else to pitch in. ♥Nici♥Vampire♥Heart♥ 23:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I'd recommend asking there too. There are people there with many GAs who can help with copy editing and references, they might take some credit though. Spiderone 16:18, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Replies

• 1A
  •  Done Addressed every issue now Paper Back Writer 23 (talk) 20:26, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• 1B
  •  Done Addressed every issue now Paper Back Writer 23 (talk) 21:32, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• 2A
  • Mostly all done, just got to sort out the whole "bare URL" issue... (boring) Paper Back Writer 23 (talk) 21:32, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• 2C
  •  Done Addressed every issue now Paper Back Writer 23 (talk) 21:32, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I think the lead should have a short summary of his personal life too. Spiderone 17:15, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Does that mean his current personal life (having a long term girlfriend, children etc) or his early life (career threatening injury, son of a miner etc)? Paper Back Writer 23 (talk) 22:16, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yeah just a brief summary. One or two sentences. Spiderone 08:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

• I am still waiting for the references to be formatted consistently before I begin my final read-through. Can this be speeded up any? We're approaching three weeks on hold, which is a little long for my tastes, although excellent work has been done so far. Looking at the references section, about half the references now have accessdates and publishers, and the rest don't. Consistency is needed. ♥Nici♥Vampire♥Heart♥ 14:24, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I think this has been addressed now. I made a couple of other corrections while reading through. Spiderone 17:01, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Excellent work. I'll get to the final read-through either later tonight or tomorrow morning. ♥Nici♥Vampire♥Heart♥ 21:06, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Childhood and early career: "and ultimately became an ambidextrous footballer" --> either "and he ultimately became an ambidextrous footballer" or "and ultimately he became an ambidextrous footballer".
• Sporting de Gijón and Real Zaragoza: "Sporting were desperate for cash" - not very encyclopedic. Reword please.
• Sporting de Gijón and Real Zaragoza: the translation of maravilla is a little awkward. I'd sugeest rewording it to something like "and "maravilla" which can be translated as wonderful or great." (not all the definitions need to given)
• Sporting de Gijón and Real Zaragoza: "After Zaragoza's triumph in the Copa del Rey, they were granted a place in the 2004–05 UEFA Cup, this was Villa's first time playing in a European competition." a) needs a source, and b) it should be a semi-colon (;) after EUFA Cup, not a comma.
• 2005–06 season: "poor clearance" is pov.
• 2005–06 season: hat-trick is linked in this section, although hat-trick is in the 2nd paragraph of the Sporting de Gijón and Real Zaragoza section. Words should be linked on the 1st occurance. Also, ensure consistency of the spelling of hat-trick - you use both hat-trick and hat trick; pick one and stick with it.
• 2006–07 season: should be a semi-colon (;) after UEFA Champions League, not a comma.
• 2007–08 season: "Early in the season, their manager, Quique Sánchez Flores, was fired and replaced by Ronald Koeman. Valencia finished 10th under his reign and was subsequently sacked and replaced by the highly rated UD Almería coach, Unai Emery. Under the new manager,". This isn't clear at all. When was Emery replaced by Flores? Which new manager are you talking about?
• 2007–08 season: "He also won his first, and as of yet, only professional trophy with Valencia, winning the Copa del Rey for the second time" (emphasis mine). This doesn't add up. Why is the Copa del Rey his first professional trophy, when it's the second time he's won it? Also, you shouldn't say "as of yet", it should be "as of 2009" or leave it out.

• I hope these two are a bit clearer now Spiderone 08:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• 2007–08 season: there shouldn't be a space between "Schalke 04" and the reference.
• 2009–10 season: "On 13th September 2009 Villa opened his La Liga account for the season with a double in a 4-2 win against Real Valladolid." - unsourced; doesn't need to be it's own paragraph; LA Liga doesn't need to be linked; it should be "13 September" not "13th September".
• World Cup 2006: "He and Fernando Torres finished as Spain's top scorers with three goals each." - source?
• Euro 2008: "Proving vital in Spain's qualification for Euro 2008, he scored six goals,[26] including an infamous bicycle kick against Liechtenstein,[65] he was subsequently called up for the tournament where he formed a striking relationship with Fernando Torres, with whom he would often celebrate his goals." - is too long a sentence. Split into two please. The second sentence should start at "He was subsequently".
• Personal life: "On 18 August 2009, his second child was born, another girl, she was named Olaya" --> "On 18 August 2009, his second child was born, a daughter later named Olaya".
• Personal life: "On 15 December 2008, Alongside Valencia" - alonside shouldn't be capitalised.
• Personal life: "From the summer of 2008, there is now a "David Villa Camp" being held every first week of July in the "Centro Regional de Deportes de La Morgal" (Llanera, Asturias). Around 150 participants, between the ages of 6 and 14 can enter and be trained by professionals. They will also be offered a training session with Villa himself." read like an advertisement. Suggest rewording it along the lines of "Beginning in the July 2008, a "David Villa Camp" is held annually, where children receive training from professional footballers. Villa also participates in a training session with the children."

• Excellent work. Once the last issues are resolved I'll pass the article. ♥Nici♥Vampire♥Heart♥ 14:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Addressed them all. I also corrected some overlinking but might have missed some. Spiderone 08:57, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Fabulous job, and thank you for completing these points.
• This article is now a good article. Please consider helping WP:GAN by reviewing another good article nomination. Help and advice on how to do so is available at Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles, and you can ask for the help of a GAN mentor if you wish. Congratulations, ♥Nici♥Vampire♥Heart♥ 15:26, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes! :D! Thanks, and big thanks to Spiderone, great work! Paper Back Writer 23 (talk) 16:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]