Summary
JohnComonitski/SoccerAPI claims 82,000+ players mapped across API-Football, FBref, Transfermarkt, and Understat. Investigate whether it's worth extracting their mapping data.
What it offers
- 82K players, 4.2K teams, 200 leagues
- Cross-maps: API-Football ↔ FBref ↔ Transfermarkt ↔ Understat
- MIT licensed
Current assessment: low priority
Why we haven't included it:
-
Not a downloadable dataset. It's a Python framework that builds its own Postgres database by scraping providers. There's no CSV/JSON dump to download -- you need to set up Postgres, install the package, and run their scraping pipeline to populate the DB.
-
We already cover these providers. The four providers it maps (API-Football, FBref, Transfermarkt, Understat) are all in our register via:
- Wikidata: Transfermarkt (209K), FBref (106K)
- FPL-ID-Map: Understat (2.3K), WhoScored (2.4K)
- Custom matching: API-Football (101)
-
Scale overlap. Wikidata gives us 386K players globally. SoccerAPI's 82K would mostly be a subset of what we already have.
-
Infrastructure cost. Setting up their Postgres pipeline just to extract a mapping table is disproportionate effort.
When it might be worth revisiting
- If they publish a static dump (CSV/SQLite) of just the ID mapping table
- If we find significant gaps in our API-Football or Understat coverage for non-PL leagues
- If someone extracts and shares the mapping table independently
Action
Defer unless circumstances change. Check back periodically for static data exports.
Summary
JohnComonitski/SoccerAPI claims 82,000+ players mapped across API-Football, FBref, Transfermarkt, and Understat. Investigate whether it's worth extracting their mapping data.
What it offers
Current assessment: low priority
Why we haven't included it:
Not a downloadable dataset. It's a Python framework that builds its own Postgres database by scraping providers. There's no CSV/JSON dump to download -- you need to set up Postgres, install the package, and run their scraping pipeline to populate the DB.
We already cover these providers. The four providers it maps (API-Football, FBref, Transfermarkt, Understat) are all in our register via:
Scale overlap. Wikidata gives us 386K players globally. SoccerAPI's 82K would mostly be a subset of what we already have.
Infrastructure cost. Setting up their Postgres pipeline just to extract a mapping table is disproportionate effort.
When it might be worth revisiting
Action
Defer unless circumstances change. Check back periodically for static data exports.