Alright let me walk you through how I dug into the Athletic Club versus Rangers head-to-head stats mess today. Woke up thinking this should be simple, just two clubs, right? Yeah, famous last words.
Grabbing the Basic Numbers First
Started like always, firing up my old spreadsheet. Thought I’d get the head-to-head record sorted quick. Typed in “Athletic Club vs Rangers” into my usual stats sites. Immediately hit a wall. See, problem is these two barely ever play each other. It’s not like Real vs Barca where data overflows. Nah. Finding a straight list of competitive matches? Like pulling teeth.
I found stuff about friendlies, testimonials, even some ancient tournament from decades ago nobody remembers. Kept digging anyway. Eventually pieced together that their serious clashes usually happen in Europe. UEFA competitions, specifically. That became my anchor point.
- Got the overall counts: X wins for Athletic, Y wins for Rangers, Z draws.
- Scrambled to find the total goals. Took forever cause some sources listed different figures!
- Separated home and away results, cause that always matters. Excel was groaning.
- Most painful? Pinpointing the specific tournaments each match happened in. Europa League qualifiers one year? Group stages another?
The Frustrating Holes and Headaches
Right, so I thought adding “key numbers” would be the easy part. Goals per match, common scorelines. Sounds straightforward. Nope. Here’s where it got ugly:
- Couldn’t find reliable possession stats for older matches. Stats companies barely tracked that consistently back then.
- Shots on target? Forget it. Half the sources just didn’t record it for these specific games.
- Tried finding disciplinary stuff – yellow cards, red cards. Massive gaps. Like, whole games missing that data.
Felt like trying to rebuild a dinosaur from a tooth and a toenail. Kept cross-referencing match reports from dodgy old forums and sketchy archives. Pretty sure I saw the same match listed with two different referees on different sites. Who do you trust? Ended up using the official UEFA archive mostly, but even that felt thin sometimes.
Why This Stuff Bugs Me (Besides the Obvious)
It’s like digging a ditch only to find more rocks. You go in for a simple stat check, and suddenly you’re down a rabbit hole questioning every number you see. Makes me think, why is it so hard to have one clean database for this historical stuff?
And you know what? While I was neck-deep in this, I remembered something stupid. Years ago, visiting Bilbao, argued with some local in a bar about Iribar. Total legend there. Made a passing comment about Rangers… and got the facts completely wrong back then. Guy schooled me. Got roasted. The shame! That old embarrassment popped into my head today while double-checking those early 70s results. Funny how these projects drag up random nonsense.
Finally Nailing Down What Actually Matters
After the dust settled, focused on what’s actually useful:
- The overall picture: Who generally edges it? Rangers? Athletic? Or incredibly tight?
- The venue swing: Dramatic difference home vs away?
- Recent form matters more: What happened last time they met? That carries weight.
- The actual competitive meetings filtered out the noise from friendlies.
Had to accept the gaps. Wrote it down as it was: “Data incomplete for certain metrics like possession and shots for earlier meetings.” Better honest than pretending, I reckon. Wrapped it up feeling like I’d wrestled a bear. Head-to-head stats sound simple. Rarely ever are. Especially for teams who meet about as often as Halley’s Comet swings by.
