Alright, so yesterday I figured it’d be cool to dig into Sao Paulo and Flamengo’s rivalry since folks kept askin’ about their match history. Grabbed my laptop, cracked open a cold one, and just dove straight into football databases around 7 PM.
The Hunt for Raw Stats
First thing I did was punch in “Sao Paulo vs Flamengo historical results” like ten times into Google. Real messy at first – tons of sites poppin’ up with partial stats or clickbait headlines. Finally landed on this Brazilian football archive I bookmarked ages ago. Spent hours filterin’ seasons manually from 2000 onward ’cause their search function sucks. Noticed my eyes crossin’ around midnight when I finally exported the CSV.
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Key challenges while compiling:
- Found 3 matches with conflicting scores between sources – had to cross-check old newspaper reports
- Pre-2010 data missing attendance figures for smaller tournaments
- Almost threw my mouse when a spreadsheet formula erased half my data – lesson learned: SAVE OFTEN
Crunchin’ the Numbers
Opened Excel next morning still in pajamas. Started groupin’ games by decade first. Almost choked on coffee seein’ the 2006 Copa Libertadores semi-final stats – Flamengo’s 3 red cards in one match! Then made pivot tables for home/away performance. Wild how Sao Paulo’s Morumbi stadium gives ’em such an edge even now. Drew simple bar graphs comparing goals per season since that’s easier on eyes than raw tables.
The real shocker? Their last 10 clashes:
- Sao Paulo wins: 4
- Flamengo wins: 3
- Draws: 3
- Avg. goals per game: 2.8
Finalizing the Summary
Took screenshots of the cleanest charts around lunchtime. Wrote bullet points highlighting stuff like that crazy 4-3 comeback by Flamengo in 2019 or how Derlei still holds the record for fastest derby goal (17 seconds – insane!). Triple-checked everything ’cause football fans’ll roast you for errors. Posted it just before dinner feelin’ like I’d wrestled with stats demons. Might need a beer after this!
