Man, today was all about crunching those Real Madrid versus Rayo Vallecano stats. Grabbed my usual morning coffee, fired up the laptop, and got right into it.
Where I Started
First thing? Hit up my go-to stats website – you know the one I always mention. Took forever to find the specific match data since it wasn’t labeled clearly. Finally spotted it buried in La Liga’s results section. Downloaded the raw CSV file, opened it straight into my messy spreadsheet software.
The Clean-Up Struggle
Man, the data was a mess! Player names had random symbols and positions were abbreviated weirdly like “FW” instead of “Forward.” Took me like 45 minutes just to:
- Fix player names: Had to manually delete extra dashes and accents
- Standardize positions: Changed all those confusing abbreviations into full words
- Separate stats: Goals and assists were lumped together in one crazy column
Burnt through half my coffee doing that tedious cleanup job.
What Got My Attention
After plugging in the basic calculations – you know, adding up goals, assists per player – the differences just jumped out:
- The Big Guns: Madrid’s top scorer had like triple the shots on target compared to Rayo’s best. No surprise who dominated possession.
- The Assist King: One Madrid midfielder had crazy numbers. Seriously, almost every dangerous play went through him.
- Rayo’s Solo Effort: Their lone goal came from some scrappy corner chaos. Stats showed zero real build-up involvement from their forwards on that one. Pure hustle.
Spent ages staring at those gaps. It wasn’t just skill, the sheer weight of numbers favoured Madrid big time. You see it written about, but seeing those columns side-by-side? Different story.
Wrapping It Up
Honestly, doing this stuff always reminds me why I bother tracking data. Sometimes it just confirms what you saw live – Madrid walked this one quietly. But seeing how the goals came, who was truly involved beyond the obvious names? That’s the gold. Makes you appreciate those quiet playmakers more. Anyway, spreadsheet’s saved under “Clasicos Done Dirty” for laughs later. Coffee cup’s empty, time for a refill!