While rivalries are a staple of literally every sport, a solid argument can be made that no group of fans has embraced them quite like soccer. There are, of course, plenty of local “derbies” around the globe, but what differentiates soccer is how many of the rivalries are international.
In honor of Rivalry Week, we recently assembled some of the greatest soccer minds from around SB Nation to discuss their favorites.
Here is who participated:
Donald Wine II, Stars and Stripes FC
Gill Clark, Barca Blaugranes
Kudzi Musarurwa, Dirty South Soccer
Rob Usry, Dirty South Soccer
Mark Kastner, Sounder at Heart and Liverpool Offside
Eugene Rupinski, FMF State of Mind
Aaron Lerner, The Short Fuse
Tito Kohout, (Viola Nation)
Brent Maximin (The Busby Babe)
El Clásico might be the best rivalry overall but does it ever live up to the hype?
Donald Wine II: The history between Real Madrid and Barcelona is off the charts, and it, to me, is the biggest and best in the world. Each match is epic, features some of the world’s greatest players, and is never short of drama. What other match have people scrambling to find out how to obtain beIN Sports for one day?!
Gill Clark: The thing is it very, very rarely fails to deliver. There are almost always goals (this season’s 0-0 was the first since 2002 — almost 20 years) and usually a red card or two and sometimes even a pig’s head chucked from the stands.
Donald Wine II: When you think about some of the world’s greatest players of all time, many of them have played in this rivalry: Leo Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Figo, Samuel Eto’o. I remember a few weeks ago we were doing that game of name a starting XI with greats that didn’t play for the same club, and Real and Barca blew everyone’s starting XIs up, lol.
