The most robbed team in Europe goes to the Bernabéu and shoots for half a goal

This was the match we had circled on the calendar. On one side Real Madrid, on the other the team that over seven matchdays had produced more than anyone and collected almost nothing: 8 points from 13.33 expected, the biggest credit in Europe, and 109 balls carried into the opposition box, more than Real and Barcelona.

On Saturday night at the Bernabéu, Villarreal shot for 0.53 expected goals in ninety minutes.

No account was settled. It went much worse: they simply never played the match in which the account could have been settled.

Nothing, measured

Fifteen shots, zero chances. That works out at three and a half hundredths of a goal per shot: the average of a team shooting because shooting is what you do. The most dangerous one is a Mikautadze effort in the 87th minute, worth 0.081: one time in twelve. Take that away, and the second best chance of the whole night is worth 0.076.

Six entries into the box against Real's thirteen. For a team that in the previous seven matchdays was making more than fifteen per game, that is less than half.

And the name that weighs heaviest is the one we were waiting for: Ayoze Pérez, the player with the biggest credit in the five leagues, 1 goal from 4.26 expected goals before Saturday, finished the night with one shot. A looping header from a corner in the 79th minute, worth 0.042. Whoever was waiting for the payout is still waiting.

Real won without overdoing it, and that was enough

1.43 expected goals against 0.53, and it is the kind of win that makes no headlines in Madrid and yet says quite a lot.

Mbappé hit the post in the 6th minute from a chance worth 0.448, the biggest of the match, and in the 77th minute had a shot worth 0.279 saved. In between, in the 62nd minute, Yan Diomande decided it from 0.254: the second biggest chance of the night, converted.

Vinícius, who remains one of the biggest credits in Europe with 1 goal from 3.57 expected goals over eight matchdays, shot once: 0.024, a header from a corner. He is waiting too.

Real move up to 18 points and sit fourth: Barcelona are on 24, Betis and Atlético on 19. The Catalans the day before had dispatched Getafe 3-0 with 2.91 expected goals against 0.14 and a PPDA of 3.0, the most suffocating pressing of the entire Liga matchday.

The lesson, which applies to Cagliari and Monaco too

There is something here worth saying clearly, because it concerns the way we all read these numbers.

A credit is not a promise. When we write that a team has 8 points and deserved 13, we are not saying those five points will arrive: we are saying that, if they keep playing like this, they will. Villarreal on Saturday did not keep playing like this. They played at the Bernabéu against Real Madrid, which is a place where 109 balls into the box turn into six, and the account stayed exactly where it was.

Gaps almost always close. But they close by playing, not by waiting, and that is the difference between a statistic and a horoscope.

Next Saturday Villarreal host Elche. There, the balls into the box should go back to being fifteen.

T.L.

The match by match verdict is in the Meritometro. For those who want models and not headlines, there is the Nerd Zone.