If no matches are found, then **match == []** and you could avoid the else statement and just return **matches**. If an object is an empty [] then it evaluates to false:

```python
In [1]: matches = [x for x in [1,2,3,4] if x == 5]

In [2]: print matches
[]

In [3]: if matches:
   ...:     print "Got it!"
   ...: else:
   ...:     print "No soup for you!"
   ...:
No soup for you!
```