Alright folks, today I actually dug into the stats for Strikers FC. Wanted to see who’s really carrying the team lately. Heard a lot of chatter in the fan group chat, figured I’d just pull the numbers myself.
Getting My Hands Dirty
First thing, I needed the raw data. Emailed the club’s stats guy – shoutout Dave, you’re a legend. He sent over this massive Excel file. Thing was huge.
Couldn’t make heads or tails of it at first glance. Columns everywhere. “Minutes Played,” “Shots On Target,” “Pass Completion %”… you name it. Looked like alphabet soup. Honestly, gave me a headache just opening it.
Sat down with a strong coffee, fired up LibreOffice Calc. Tried sorting by total goals scored first. Instant reality check. Only like three guys were even on the scoresheet for the last five games.
The Slog Through Numbers
Tried filtering by position. Wanted to compare strikers first, obviously. Ben Johnson popped right up. Kid’s been on fire recently. Scored in three straight matches.
Then looked at midfielders. Needed to see who’s actually creating chances. Pulled up the “Key Passes” and “Assists” columns. Miguel Santos’ name kept jumping out. Seriously high numbers. Had no idea he was that productive.
Dave also tracks distance covered. Found myself looking at that. Some guys run their lungs out, others conserve energy. Interesting stuff.
The Frustration (Oh Boy)
Here’s the kicker. Tried making a pivot table to see the top performers across multiple stats like goals, assists, pass completion… LibroOffice froze solid. Twice. Lost progress. Classic.
Just printed the damn sheets out instead. Grabbed a highlighter and my trusty calculator. Old school felt better anyway.
Manually added up contributions over the past month. Goals, assists, big chances created… assigned rough points. Took ages. Realized halfway my coffee was ice cold.
Finally Spotted The Standouts
Ben Johnson (Striker): No shocker there. Top scorer easily. Goals win games. Period.
- 4 Goals (last 5 games)
- Shooting Accuracy: 60%
- Barely gets dispossessed
Miguel Santos (Midfielder): This surprised me more. The engine room.
- 3 Assists (top of the pile)
- 85% Pass Completion (solid)
- Led Key Passes AND distance covered
Sam Lee (Defender): Got highlighted for tackles and interceptions. Guy’s a wall back there. Also won nearly all his aerial duels. Crazy important.
Shared these snippets in the fan forum. They loved it. Dave confirmed I wasn’t far off with my manual tallies. Feels good to cut through the noise and see who’s actually putting the work in week after week.
Wasted most of my morning proving what everyone kinda already suspected, but hey, the numbers don’t lie. Mostly. Unless LibreOffice crashes again!
