Okay, so I decided to put together a timeline for that Athletic Bilbao vs RCD Mallorca game the other day. It wasn’t super complicated, but I figured I’d walk you through how I did it, step-by-step.
Getting Started – Finding the Raw Info
First thing I did was just try to gather the basic facts. Where do you get a reliable sequence of events for a football match? I hopped online and looked for reliable sports sites or match trackers. Didn’t need deep analysis, just the play-by-play highlights. I opened a couple of different sources just to cross-reference things, you know, make sure the timing and events matched up mostly.
Jotting Down the Key Moments
I grabbed a simple text file, nothing fancy. As I scanned the reports, I started listing out the main things that happened. My process was pretty basic:
Kick-off time.
Any early yellow cards.
Goals, obviously. Who scored, and importantly, the minute it happened.
Substitutions – who came off, who went on, and when.
Any red cards or major incidents, like penalties or big VAR calls.
Half-time and Full-time whistles.
If it went to extra time or penalties, I’d note those milestones too.
I wasn’t trying to capture every throw-in. Just the stuff that really defined the flow of the match. I made sure to note the minute for each event as accurately as possible. Sometimes sources differ by a minute, so I usually go with the most common time listed or an official source if available.
Organizing the Sequence
Once I had my rough list of events and times, I sorted them strictly chronologically. From the first minute to the last. This sounds obvious, but sometimes when you’re copying and pasting, things get jumbled. So, a quick sort ensures everything is in the right order. I mentally broke it down into first half, second half, and any extra time if needed. Helps keep things tidy.
Putting it into a Readable Format
Then came the part of actually making it look like a timeline people could easily read. I decided to use simple HTML tags for structure. Nothing complex.
I used an `
` tag to maybe mark the different periods like “First Half” and “Second Half”. Then, for the actual events, a `
` (unordered list) seemed best. Each event got its own list item `
`. Inside the list item, I put the minute mark first, often using `` tags to make it stand out, followed by a brief description of what happened.
65′ – Substitution Athletic Bilbao: Player A off, Player B on.
And so on. Pretty straightforward.
Final Check
Lastly, I just read through the whole thing one more time. Checked for any typos, made sure the times made sense in sequence, and confirmed it captured the main narrative of the game. Didn’t need to be fancy, just a clear, simple record of how things unfolded. And that was pretty much it, my timeline was done.
