International football results from 1872 to 2024

### Context

Well, what happened was that I was looking for a semi-definite easy-to-read list of international football matches and couldn't find anything decent. So I took it upon myself to collect it for my own use. I might as well share it.

### Content

This dataset includes **47,917** results of international football matches starting from the very first official match in 1872 up to 2024. The matches range from FIFA World Cup to FIFI Wild Cup to regular friendly matches. The matches are strictly men's full internationals and the data does not include Olympic Games or matches where at least one of the teams was the nation's B-team, U-23 or a league select team.

`results.csv` includes the following columns:

- `date` - date of the match
- `home_team` - the name of the home team
- `away_team` - the name of the away team
- `home_score` - full-time home team score including extra time, not including penalty-shootouts
- `away_score` - full-time away team score including extra time, not including penalty-shootouts
- `tournament` - the name of the tournament
- `city` - the name of the city/town/administrative unit where the match was played
- `country` - the name of the country where the match was played
- `neutral` - TRUE/FALSE column indicating whether the match was played at a neutral venue

`shootouts.csv` includes the following columns:

- `date` - date of the match
- `home_team` - the name of the home team
- `away_team` - the name of the away team
- `winner` - winner of the penalty-shootout
- `first_shooter` - the team that went first in the shootout

`goalscorers.csv` includes the following columns:

- `date` - date of the match
- `home_team` - the name of the home team
- `away_team` - the name of the away team
- `team` - name of the team scoring the goal
- `scorer` - name of the player scoring the goal
- `own_goal` - whether the goal was an own-goal
- `penalty` - whether the goal was a penalty

Note on team and country names: For home and away teams the *current* name of the team has been used. For example, when in 1882 a team who called themselves Ireland played against England, in this dataset, it is called Northern Ireland because the current team of Northern Ireland is the successor of the 1882 Ireland team. This is done so it is easier to track the history and statistics of teams.

For country names, the name of the country *at the time of the match* is used. So when Ghana played in Accra, Gold Coast in the 1950s, even though the names of the home team and the country don't match, it was a home match for Ghana. This is indicated by the neutral column, which says FALSE for those matches, meaning it was **not** at a neutral venue.

### Acknowledgements

The data is gathered from several sources including but not limited to Wikipedia, rsssf.com, and individual football associations' websites.

### Inspiration

Some directions to take when exploring the data:

- Who is the best team of all time
- Which teams dominated different eras of football
- What trends have there been in international football throughout the ages - home advantage, total goals scored, distribution of teams' strength etc
- Can we say anything about geopolitics from football fixtures - how has the number of countries changed, which teams like to play each other
- Which countries host the most matches where they themselves are not participating in
- How much, if at all, does hosting a major tournament help a country's chances in the tournament
- Which teams are the most active in playing friendlies and friendly tournaments - does it help or hurt them

The world's your oyster, my friend.

### Contribute

If you notice a mistake or the results are not updated fast enough for your liking, you can fix that by submitting a pull request on Github: https://github.com/martj42/international_results

### 背景
然而，所发生的事情是，我在寻找一份易于阅读的、半确定的国际足球比赛列表，却未能找到任何令人满意的内容。因此，我决定自行收集以供个人使用。既然如此，我决定与他人分享。

### 内容
本数据集涵盖了自1872年首场官方比赛以来至2024年为止的**47,917**场国际足球比赛的结果。比赛范围从FIFA世界杯到FIFI野性杯，再到常规友谊赛不等。这些比赛均为男子完全国际比赛，数据中不包括奥运会比赛或至少有一支球队为国家B队、U-23队或联赛选拔队的比赛。
`results.csv`文件包含以下列：
- `date` - 比赛日期
- `home_team` - 主队名称
- `away_team` - 客队名称
- `home_score` - 包括加时赛但不包括点球大战的最终主队得分
- `away_score` - 包括加时赛但不包括点球大战的最终客队得分
- `tournament` - 赛事名称
- `city` - 比赛的城市/镇/行政单位名称
- `country` - 比赛的国家名称
- `neutral` - 表示比赛是否在中立场举行的布尔值列（TRUE/FALSE）
`shootouts.csv`文件包含以下列：
- `date` - 比赛日期
- `home_team` - 主队名称
- `away_team` - 客队名称
- `winner` - 点球大战的胜者
- `first_shooter` - 在点球大战中先射的球队
`goalscorers.csv`文件包含以下列：
- `date` - 比赛日期
- `home_team` - 主队名称
- `away_team` - 客队名称
- `team` - 进球球队名称
- `scorer` - 进球球员姓名
- `own_goal` - 是否为乌龙球
- `penalty` - 是否为点球

关于队伍和国家名称的说明：对于主队和客队，使用了*当前*的队伍名称。例如，当1882年自称爱尔兰的队伍与英格兰比赛时，在本数据集中被称为北爱尔兰，因为北爱尔兰队是1882年爱尔兰队的继承者。这样做是为了更容易追踪队伍的历史和统计数据。
对于国家名称，使用了比赛时的国家名称。因此，当加纳在20世纪50年代在阿克拉比赛时，尽管主队名称和国家名称不匹配，但对于加纳来说，这是一场主场比赛。这由中立列表示，这些比赛的中立列为FALSE，意味着比赛**不是**在中立场地进行的。

### 致谢
数据来自多个来源，包括但不限于维基百科、rsssf.com以及各个足球协会的网站。

### 灵感
在探索数据时，可以参考以下方向：
- 历史上哪支队伍是最优秀的
- 哪些队伍在不同足球时代占据主导地位
- 国际足球在各个时代的发展趋势——主场优势、总进球数、队伍实力分布等
- 我们能否从足球赛程中得出关于地缘政治的结论——国家的数量如何变化，哪些队伍喜欢相互对抗
- 哪些国家举办的不参与自己比赛的比赛最多
- 举办一项重大赛事对主办国在赛事中的机会有多大帮助
- 哪些队伍在友谊赛和友谊赛中最为活跃——这有助于他们还是有害于他们

朋友，世界尽在你的掌握。

### 贡献
如果你注意到错误或结果更新速度不够快，你可以通过在GitHub上提交拉取请求来修复：https://github.com/martj42/international_results