Alright, so today I wanted to dig into that Madrid vs Espanyol matchup history everyone keeps mentioning. You know how it is, people chatting, making claims, and you’re like, “Wait, really? When did that even happen?” Needed to check the facts myself, properly.
The Big Plan (That Sounded Easy)
Step 1 was simple, or so I thought. Figure out the exact timeline of matches between Real Madrid and Espanyol. Sounds straightforward, right? Just find dates and scores. How hard could finding football scores be? Famous last words.
I headed straight to the usual online places – club websites, big football stats databases. Figured it’d be quick. Boom, loaded them up.
Hitting the Brick Wall
Reality check time. Searched for “Real Madrid vs Espanyol”. The results? A total mess. Modern games everywhere, the last decade slammed in your face, but anything older? Forget about it. Pages flooded with recent gossip, transfers, news articles about their rivalry, but finding a simple, clean list of past matches? Nope.
Clicked around forever. Most sites only had recent seasons detailed, maybe a year or two back. Anything before like 2010? Drowned in ads and unrelated junk. I was loosing it! How do you properly check old matches if you can’t even find a simple list? Thought about giving up right then.
Digging Deeper (Getting My Hands Dirty)
Gave myself a little pep talk. “Okay, if easy’s not working, go manual.” Time for Plan B. Went down the rabbit hole:
- Found some super old forum posts mentioning random games – like a 7-0 or something? Had to check if that was real.
- Smashed terms into niche football sites I’d bookmarked ages ago – the ones with clunky designs but maybe held hidden data.
- Started building a list myself. Got a notebook. Made columns: Season Date Venue Score Goal Scorers (if lucky).
- Slowly, painfully, started finding info piece by piece. Season 92/93 here, season 05/06 there. Found info buried deep. Often just had the final score, no scorers.
- The biggest headache? Verifying the goal scorers. Conflicting reports everywhere! One site says Raúl scored two, another says it was Ronaldo? Who do you trust? Needed multiple sources to confirm anything before writing it down.
- Ended up with pages scribbled full. Highlighted bits I was pretty sure about, put big question marks next to others, especially goal details. Felt like doing archaeology!
The Ugly Spreadsheet & Question Marks
Had to organize this mess. Threw it all into a spreadsheet. Dates, scores, locations. The scorers column? Ugh. Half yellow highlight meaning “probably right”, others red with “???” because the sources just wouldn’t agree. It looked awful but it was mine.
You start noticing patterns though. Some seasons they met twice, sometimes only once, sometimes not at all. Found some crazy high-scoring games way back! Also realized how often Espanyol actually won at the Bernabéu back in certain eras – more than people remember! That was kinda funny.
So… Done? Sorta?
Am I 100% done? No way. There are gaps, especially before the 90s. Finding reliable, detailed scorer info for all those old games? Maybe impossible unless I live in a library basement. But, I’ve got a decent chunk verified, a timeline I trust mostly up to modern times, and some wild matches documented. Enough to shut up some noisy folks online at least!
Biggest takeaways? Never trust a single source for old football data. Double, triple check. And be prepared to spend hours, not minutes. Also, why doesn’t someone just make a simple, complete website for this stuff? Would save us all a headache!
Think I’ll post the spreadsheet I’ve got, warts and all, with big fat warnings about the gaps. At least it’s something better than vague memories and internet myths. My head hurts. Time for coffee. Seriously, I even missed half my neighbour’s party doing this. They were mad!
