So yesterday I was watching the Valencia vs Real Madrid match replay, right? Total nail-biter until the final minutes. Afterwards, I just had to know why the result went down like that, beyond just the goals. Stats, man, they tell the real story sometimes. So I rolled up my sleeves and decided to dig in properly.
Starting Point: Finding the Raw Data
First things first, I needed the numbers. Forget fancy analysis tools right away – gotta get the basics. I hit up a couple of the big football stats sites everyone uses. Finding consistent data across them? Yeah, that was harder than I thought. One site listed shots, but not shots on target specifically for Valencia, while another had possession down differently. Ugh. Took me a good thirty minutes just cross-checking the basic stuff: possession, total shots, shots on target, passes, tackles. Ended up building my own little spreadsheet, copy-pasting like mad, trying to make sure the sources weren’t telling completely different tales.
The Headache: Cleaning it Up
Alright, spreadsheet open. Now, the numbers looked like total garbage at first glance. Formats all over the place! Some percentages, some raw numbers, commas here, decimals there. Had to manually go through each stat line – possession, shots, fouls, cards – and standardize it all. Made damn sure Valencia’s numbers were on one side, Real Madrid’s on the other. You wouldn’t believe how messy it gets pulling from different places. This part? Pure grunt work. Essential, but boring as hell.
Spotting the Patterns: Where the Game Turned
With everything finally neat in my spreadsheet, I started just… staring at it. Looking for what jumped out.
- Possession wasn’t king: Madrid had more ball, sure, like 60%-ish. Valencia sat lower, around 40%. But get this – Valencia actually had more shots! Not much more, like 14 vs 12, but way more shots on target – 7 to Madrid’s 4. That blew my mind a bit. Valencia were making their chances count better when they got near the goal.
- Yellow cards galore: The foul count stacked up massively for Valencia. Like, double what Madrid committed. And the yellows? Valencia got slapped with 5 yellows! Madrid only got 2. That tells me Valencia were under the cosh constantly, having to foul to stop attacks, probably getting stretched. Must have been frantic defending at times.
- Passing under pressure: Madrid’s passing accuracy was way higher – comfortably in the high 80%s. Valencia? Struggling down in the low 70%s. Kinda expected with the possession split, but seeing the gap so wide really showed how Madrid controlled the tempo, and how often Valencia were forced into bad passes just trying to clear their lines.
Putting it Together: Why Madrid Nicked It
So, looking at this basic data dump, here’s what screamed at me:
Valencia weren’t getting rolled over. They defended stubbornly, kept Madrid’s shots down, and took their own chances well when they got forward. But holding off that much pressure is exhausting. All those fouls and yellow cards? That points to a defence under constant strain, trying desperately to hold the door shut. They managed it for ages, seriously impressive. Madrid, though, they just kept plugging away with that metronomic passing, waiting for a crack. That crack finally came super late with the penalty. One moment of fatigue or concentration lapse under that siege mentality – BAM, penalty, game over. The stats kinda backed up that narrative perfectly: Valencia battling hard but eventually buckling under the sheer volume and sustained quality pressure.
Honestly? This simple look was super satisfying. Didn’t need super deep “expected goals” nonsense this time. Just some basic digging confirmed what the tension in the game felt like. Stats don’t lie about the weight of pressure. Madrid just wore them down, plain and simple. Job done.