So I was thinking about the whole Real Madrid vs Atletico Madrid rivalry today, especially who’s actually been better in La Liga over the years. I figured instead of just guessing, I’d actually dig into the numbers myself.
Getting Started
First thing I did was fire up my laptop and open a few tabs. I knew I needed to find reliable stats, so I started searching for historical La Liga data. I wasn’t looking for just one season; I wanted the long-term picture.
The Search for Numbers
I spent a good hour just jumping from one site to another, copying numbers into a spreadsheet. I was looking for total wins, losses, draws, goals scored, and goals conceded for each team. My browser was a mess of tabs. I had to be careful because some sites had slightly different numbers, so I stuck with a couple that seemed most consistent.
Crunching the Data
Once I had a decent set of numbers, I started comparing. I made a simple list for each team.
- Real Madrid: Total titles, total points over the years, head-to-head wins.
- Atletico Madrid: Same thing, but I noticed their numbers really picked up in the last decade or so.
It was interesting to see how Atletico has closed the gap recently. I even made a little chart on a piece of paper to visualize it better. Real Madrid clearly has more titles overall, that’s a fact. But when you look at the head-to-head matches in the league, it’s a lot tighter than I thought.
Putting It All Together
After staring at the numbers, I wrote down my main takeaways. Real Madrid’s record is bigger, no doubt. But Atletico’s record, especially since Diego Simeone took over, is seriously impressive. They’ve become a real pain for Real Madrid, and the stats show it. The rivalry is way more balanced now than it was 20 years ago.
So that was my little project. It was kinda fun to go through the numbers myself instead of just reading someone else’s summary. Makes you appreciate the rivalry even more.