Alright folks, sit tight, because this one was a proper grind. I meant to just take a quick peek at the Man United vs Athletic Bilbao numbers – you know, see who ran the most, who had a few pops at goal, the usual. But man, did it turn into something else.
Getting Dragged Into The Data
Started simple. Went digging for those match stats straight after the final whistle blew. Figured I’d find one tidy place with everything laid out nice, maybe some fancy official site. Yeah, right. No such luck. Ended up opening like five different tabs – some news site here, some stats site there, even checked the official club pages. Each one had bits and pieces, but none had the full picture I wanted. Felt like putting together a jigsaw puzzle where half the pieces are missing.
The Spreadsheet Struggle
Right, needed somewhere to dump all this mess. Fired up the spreadsheet – good ol’ reliable, or so I thought. Started typing in the basic stuff:
- Who scored? (Yeah, painfully obvious, but gotta start somewhere)
- How many shots each team managed
- Corners won
- Those free-kicks flying everywhere
- How much of the ball each side had
Then it got hairy. Found conflicting numbers! One site said Bilbao had 55% possession, another claimed 58%. Seriously? How hard is it to count who’s touching the ball? Had to go back, cross-reference the sources, made a guess based on which one usually seems less rubbish. Waste of bloody time.
The Nitty Gritty Headache
Dove deeper into the weeds, like a fool. Wanted to see:
- Passing accuracy – especially in each half.
- Tackles won and lost – because United felt soft in the middle again.
- How many times each keeper actually had to do something.
Finding THAT breakdown? Forget it. Took ages. Most sites just give you the big, obvious top-line numbers. Ended up manually watching parts of the match replay, clicking through some play-by-play text thing someone put together online, just ticking off tackles and saves myself. Tedious doesn’t even cover it. Nearly gave up when I saw that dodgy Bilbao goal again.
Trying To Make Sense Of The Chaos
Stared at the ugly spreadsheet. So many numbers, but did they actually tell the whole story? United had more shots overall, sure… but how many were those hopeful punts from miles out? The stats didn’t show that. Bilbao seemed to shut down attacks quickly – the number of times United got blocked felt high. You could kind of see that reflected in the low shots on target for United, but the raw stats about ‘blocks’ were hard to pin down. It felt like the numbers confirmed the frustration of watching it, but didn’t magically explain WHY United looked so disjointed beyond the obvious mistakes.
Giving Up And Writing It Down
Finally threw my hands up. No grand revelation, no magic stat explaining everything. Just a messy picture painted by all these little numbers. Wrote up what I could confirm properly – possession split, shots on/off target, corners, fouls (oh boy, the fouls!), the big chances I remembered. Added a little note about the conflicting numbers being a pain. Hit publish. Felt less like smart analysis and more like just reporting the fog of war.
The Aftermath – Mostly Disappointment
Honestly? After all that scrambling, the most useful thing the stats confirmed was what my eyes saw: Bilbao were more aggressive in winning the ball back, created slightly better openings even if they didn’t have all the possession, and United were wasteful when they did carve out something. The frustration logged in the numbers matched the frustration of the fanbase. Not exactly groundbreaking, is it? Proved the eye test, mostly through a headache-inducing process. Wouldn’t recommend trying it on a Monday morning after a bad loss.
