You wouldn’t believe the fight I got into last weekend. It was over something totally pointless, as always—football history. Specifically, who has been better in El Clásico over the last few years. My mate, Leo (massive Barca fan, naturally), kept banging on about their dominance since that one time they smashed us 5-0 years ago. I knew that was rubbish, but my memory is spotty. I needed facts, not feelings.
I said, “Alright, smart guy, let’s settle this. We don’t need the whole history, that’s a lifetime of work. We’ll just look at the most recent history. We’re going to find the precise resultados de los últimos 30 clásicos real madrid vs barcelona and see who’s actually winning lately. Loser buys the next round of expensive imported beer, which means Leo is paying.”
Phase 1: Defining the Problem and Scoping the Work
My first move was the classic quick search. I chucked phrases like “last 30 clasico results” into the search box. And man, you wouldn’t believe the mess. You get lists that skip games, lists that include friendlies (which absolutely do not count!), and lists that just stop at 20 games because some site got lazy. It was a proper pain in the butt.
I realized I wasn’t just going to find a nice, clean spreadsheet ready to copy-paste. I had to manually dig up, cross-reference, and verify every single fixture. This turned from a quick fact-check into a full-blown weekend project. I decided on the 30-match threshold because it’s a big enough sample size—it spans several seasons, multiple managers, and ensures we capture the most recent, relevant history without going back to the pre-Zidane era when the game changed entirely.
The whole exercise became about proving a point, and honestly, I love these little data-gathering missions. It’s like being a detective, except the crime is historical inaccuracy shouted across a pub table.
Phase 2: The Grinding Process of Data Acquisition
Once I defined the scope—the 30 consecutive competitive matches leading up to today—I had to start the hard work. I knew if I used just one source, Leo would just claim bias. So I didn’t use any fancy API or scraper; I went full manual effort, clicking through archived season data on about four different major sports databases and Wikipedia’s match history, which is usually decent if you check the footnotes.
I had to verify three key pieces of data for each game:
- The Date: Crucial for ensuring I was grabbing the right sequence.
- The Score: The official result, of course.
- The Competition: Making sure I wasn’t grabbing some random pre-season friendly in Texas (those don’t count for bragging rights). We only wanted La Liga, Copa del Rey, Champions League, and the Supercopa.
I started with the most recent match and had to scroll backwards. It was tedious work, transcribing every date, venue, and final score into a very basic spreadsheet I knocked up in about two minutes. The biggest headache was ensuring the Supercopa fixtures were counted properly, as those two-leg affairs sometimes confuse the standard “last 30” lists you find online.
I spent a solid chunk of Saturday morning just on this verification process. I’d pull up Source A, check the date and score, then jump to Source B to confirm, and then punch it into my spreadsheet. I even had to discard one match on a list because it was mislabeled as a league game when it was clearly a meaningless friendly.
Phase 3: Crunching the Numbers and Presenting the Findings
Once I had my clean list of 30 games, the final step was simple arithmetic. I totaled up the wins, losses, and draws from Real Madrid’s perspective. I was confident my gut was right, but the actual data always tells the definitive story. I wanted to have the exact numbers ready to throw in Leo’s face the next time we met up.
Here’s exactly what the count revealed across those last 30 competitive fixtures:
My practice proved that recent history is far tighter than Leo was trying to claim. When you look at the last 30 matches, Real Madrid has definitely edged it out, showing that perceived dominance isn’t always reflected in the scoreboard.
- Total Matches Played: 30
- Real Madrid Wins: 13
- Barcelona Wins: 11
- Draws: 6
Thirteen wins to eleven wins. That’s the reality. Not a massive gap, but a gap nonetheless. That’s a clear advantage to Los Blancos in the most relevant history.
I also tracked the total goals scored, just for extra ammo. Madrid scored 51 goals in those 30 games, and Barcelona scored 48. Again, a slight edge, confirming the overall advantage.
Now, I’ve got this data locked down. I even formatted it nicely so it looks official, even though I manually scraped it all myself over a coffee table. Next time Leo tries to pull that “Barca dominance” routine, I won’t just argue, I will pull out the documented, cross-referenced, thirty-game record. I did the hard work. I verified the data. And I am ready to collect my expensive beer. Mission accomplished.