Man, sometimes you just get obsessed with some totally useless crap. I was sitting here this past weekend, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out why my old man keeps betting against Almería. He lost fifty quid last month on some random LaLiga 2 game. I told him he needed actual data, not just some gut feeling he picked up twenty years ago. So I figured, alright, I’m gonna prove him wrong. I’m going to nail down the full, ugly, chronological history between Almería and Elche C.F.
I didn’t try to use some slick Python script or anything. That’s too much work for a Sunday. I decided to go straight-up manual. My goal was simple: dig up every single head-to-head result, date it properly, and see who truly owned this rivalry over the years. This meant I was opening tabs like crazy. I started by Googling the Spanish names for the clubs and their fixtures. Total chaos, let me tell you.
Grabbing the Data: It Was a Mess
I first hit up the usual spots—Wikipedia for the quick summary. That gave me maybe the last ten years, which was a nice start, but it was missing the gritty details from the earlier matchups when both teams were floating around the second division, swapping leagues every other season. Wikipedia is decent, but it always sanitizes the facts.
So, I dove deep into the Spanish sports archives. I pulled up some old, clunky sites that looked like they hadn’t been updated since 2005. I had to sift through pages of poorly translated Spanish game summaries. I was looking for dates, scores, and the competition type. Was it Copa del Rey? Was it the league? This stuff matters.
I found three major sources that often conflicted on the exact dates of the really old fixtures, especially the friendlies or early season tournaments. What I ended up doing was setting up a quick text file and just dumping everything in. I didn’t bother with a proper database; just lines of text:
- Date – Competition – Home Team – Score – Away Team
- 1999-03-21 – Seg. Div. – Almería – 1-0 – Elche
- 2003-11-09 – Seg. Div. – Elche – 2-2 – Almería
- …and so on.
The sheer amount of data I had to cross-reference to ensure accuracy was insane. If two reliable sources agreed on a result, I kept it. If there was a disagreement, I usually tossed that match out, unless I could find a photo of the original newspaper clipping—yeah, I went that far just for twenty bucks worth of bragging rights against my dad.
The Ugly Truth Revealed
After a good three hours of pulling, cleaning, and sorting this history, I finally had a usable spreadsheet—well, more like a glorified text document I forced into columns. I sorted it all chronologically, from the very first recorded match I could confirm (which was way back in the late 90s) right up to their last fixture.
What did the full history tell me? It screamed “inconsistency.”
Elche had a psychological edge early on. In the early 2000s, Elche consistently held Almería down. They knew how to beat them. But once both teams started bouncing into the top flight (LaLiga), things got messy. When Almería was good, they were great. When Elche was good, they were just okay.
I tallied the total wins. Elche slightly edged out Almería overall. Maybe by three or four wins across the entire history. But then I looked at the recent trend. This is where the old man’s betting logic totally falls apart.
Over the last five years, since 2018, Almería has massively stepped up. They have controlled the narrative. They learned how to score against Elche’s defense, especially when playing at home. Their recent form is just hotter.
Here’s the breakdown I finally settled on:
- Total Confirmed Matches (League + Cup): 32
- Elche Wins: 13
- Almería Wins: 10
- Draws: 9
See? Elche is ahead in the overall history. That’s what my dad sees. But I had to dig deeper and isolate the last eight matchups—the crucial modern era. In those eight games, Almería had four wins, Elche had two, and two were draws. The shift is clear. Momentum is everything in football, and Almería has been building it.
The Prediction: Who Takes the Next One?
I took that full, massive historical record, ran it through my simple brain, and focused only on the current reality. Elche still struggles with consistency, especially on the road. Almería, when they are motivated and playing at home in front of their fans, just performs better against this particular rival lately. The old history is nice for trivia, but the last five years dictate the future.
Based on the sheer weight of recent victories, coupled with the pattern that when these two meet, the home team usually takes the point unless there is a massive skill gap (and there isn’t one right now), my money is settled.
I went ahead and placed my little hypothetical bet just to seal the deal and prove the data works. My final prediction, pulled directly from sifting through twenty years of messy match records, is crystal clear:
Almería wins. They’ve found the key to this rivalry recently, and unless Elche pulls off a totally defensive masterclass, Almería will scrape a victory, probably a tight 1-0 or 2-1 result. I’ll be calling my old man when the final whistle blows. Data always beats gut feeling, every single time.