not sure if this has been posted anywhere else but in this months World Soccer they've listed what they believe to be the top 50 derbies in the world. their contributors were - Peterjohn Cresswell Tim Vickery Mark Gleeson Sid Lowe Martin del Palacio Langer John Holmesdale here's the full list - 50) Gremio - Internacional 49) Tenerife - Las Palmas 48) Mohun Bagan - East Bengal 47) Sarajevo - Zeljeznicar 46) ASEC Abidjan - Africa Sports 45) Anderlecht - Club Brugge 44) FC Copenhagen - Brondby 43) Allianza Lima - Universitario 42) Arsenal - Tottenham 41) Beitar Jerusalem - Hapoel Tel Aviv 40) Hadjuk Split - Dinamo Zagreb 39) Barcelona - Emelec 38) Rapid Wien - Austria Wien 37) Basle - Zurich 36) Raja Casablanca - Wydad Casablanca 35) America - Deportivo Cali 34) Genoa - Sampdoria 33) CSKA Sofia - Levski Sofia 32) AIK Stockholm - Djurgardens 31) Ferencvaros - Ujpest 30) Cerro Porteno - Olimpia 29) Rosario Central - Newell's Old Boys 28) Liverpool - Manchester United 27) Corinthians - Santos 26) Slavia Prague - Sparta Prague 25) Kaizer Chiefs - Orlando Pirates 24) Steaua Bucharest - Dinamo Bucharest 23) Spartak Moscow - CSKA Moscow 22) Pirouzi - Esteghlal 21) Nacional - Penarol 20) America - Guadalajara 19) Racing Club - Independiente 18) Corinthians - Sao Paulo 17) Benfica - Porto 16) Athletic Bilbao - Real Sociedad 15) Milan - Internazionale 14) Olympiakos - Panathinaikos 13) Flamengo - Vasco Da Gama 12) Juventus - Fiorentina 11) Marseille - Paris Saint-Germain 10) Partizan Belgrade - Red Star Belgrade 9) Betis - Sevilla 8) Al Ahly - Zamalek 7) Schalke - Borussia Dortmund 6) Lazio - Roma 5) Ajax - Feyenoord 4) Galatasaray - Fenerbahce 3) Celtic - Rangers 2) Boca Juniors - River Plate 1) Real Madrid - Barcelona obviously these are only their opinions but it seems highly unusual to omit the Merseyside derby in favour of Liverpool - Man Utd. i suppose they only wanted to include a team once. a derby to me should be a game against your nearest and fiercest rival. not born out of the success of both clubs in their country. i'm going to read up on it a bit more. thoughts?
How do they define a Derby? There a number of match ups that a lot of people would not consider as such (including their number 1 pick).
i agree. it's headlined as The Worlds Greatest Derbies. below that it says - "In a special feature we profile football's most important club rivalries. We examine what makes these 50 matches the most anticipated, the most exciting and the most talked about in the world game." The Worlds Greatest Rivalries would have been a far better heading than derbies.
That article was an utter crock of shit, and I say that as a big fan of WS. Juve-Fiorentina is a bigger "derby" (or rivalry for that matter) than Spurs-Arsenal? Absolute load of rubbish designed to fill an issue in which there is no football to talk about (Euro review aside). I read the issue in about 15 minutes on the train.
hmm.. i was late buying it. have been buying WS for 20yrs and haven't read either that or the EURO 08 review yet. i thought i'd add it on here for views on it. as i was typing the list out it did look like it had a lot of inconsistencies in it.
Liverpool - United is a much bigger game than Liverpool - Everton. It's just that you can only really call it a "derby" if you significantly loosen your definition of the term. Let's just say that Everton fans will be a lot more upset that the Merseyside derby isn't on the list than Liverpool fans will be. On which note, I wonder how Manchester City fans feel when they see this list?
It's probably impossible to compare rivalries and not piss everybody off, but I think for the most part they got the Argentine top rivalries right. Boca vs River, I think should be the first, but from a European Magazine I can understand it being placed 2nd. Racing vs Independiente (Avellaneda) and Rosario Central vs Newells (Rosario) also belong. They qualify as both fierce rivalries and traditional neighborhood derbies. Probably they could have added Estudiantes vs Gimnasia (La Plata). Do they cover some of these rivalries in depth? If so, it should be an interesting read. I'll have to get a hold of a copy of World Soccer.
yep. there is a section on why they chose each one. if you want, i can PM you the write up on the Argentinian derbies/rivalries or any others you wish.
Thanks, I appreciate it. Actually I've seen 'World Soccer' before at some of the larger book stores in SoCal, so I should be able to find it. 'FourFourTwo' as well. But I think they usually gets to the US a bit late. Which magazine covers football worldwide better, 'World Soccer' or 'FourFourTwo'?
No mention of 1860 Munich versus Bayern Munich, or Torino versus Juventus, or Venezia versus Verona, or Chelsea versus Arsenal???!??!?! Idiots.
I know i may be way ahead of myself but soon Chivas USA vs La galaxy will be on this list! I would probably place it 51...
Arf ... yeah. If we're defining "soon" in epochal terms. Given what's already been discussed here about some of the derbies that are missing (I've just noticed the Tyne/Wear derby is missing, as is Portsmouth - Southampton and Millwall - West Ham), I think the chances of anything from MLS making it anywhere near this list, let alone on to it, are fairly remote for the time being.
World Soccer has better coverage of the global game. It has interviews with major stars, a worldwide results service (which normally includes all the line-ups as well) and it has a bit in each issue about pretty much every league in the world. Britain is given no more coverage than say Italy, Spain or any other league. FourFourTwo does look at the world game, but primarily it has a British focus. So for instance this month's feature is about British players abroad. It also has a focus on lower league football to some extent.
They listed the Juventus - Fiorentina derby as number 1 in Italy. And at # 16, they got Athletic Bilbao-Real Sociedad. It seemed to be a rival in making.... a team named "Real" vs a team that stood for Basque independence. But this is the most friendly derby in the world. The fans actually sat togather and sang. You don't even see that in a regular match between any team in the world. They are as an anti-derby as it could have been.
This list is retarded. Boca - River is 1st and Celtic - Rangers is 2nd. Also Racing - Independiente, Chivas - Club America, America - Deportivo Cali and Dinamo Zagreb - Hajduk all got placed waaaay too low on the list. How about Lyon - St. Etienne? How about Benfica - Sporting? How about Besiktas - Fenerbahce?
For me the best derby is River-Boca followed by Galatasaray Fenerbace. And how come Colo Colo - Universidad de Chile isn't on the list...I mean our league is the 9 best in the world right!
i don't think you read well, it said these are just opinions, and dude, i think more than 50% would agree Real madrid and barcelona is the biggest derby in the world, i agree with boca - river, and now i a not mexican but i honestly thing Chivas - America is probably the 3rd biggest, it's huge not just in mexico but in the USA as well...
It's all silly anyway because no one is defining what "huge" means. Is it the amount of attention it garners regionally? Nationally? Globally? Is it the significance to the league it occurs in? Is it the bitterness of rivalry between fans? Is it the nature of the respective clubs (a big derby is always bigger if it involves big clubs). For global viewership, it's routinely claimed that United - Liverpool is the most watched game on the planet. But does that make it the "hugest" derby? Real Madrid - Barcelona probably attracts similar figures, but it's not a derby unless you view it through the prism of rivalry and significance. Celtic - Rangers is a massively passionate, intense derby, but its broader significance is miserable. They play each other four times a year in the league alone and at the end of the season one of them wins the league. Whoopdeedoo. If a derby's "hugeness" is determined by its broader significance, then Celtic - Rangers isn't in the top 50, let alone second on the list. Likewise, Boca - River is a massive game, a close local rivarly, a passionate affair and it is of significant interest beyond the borders of Argentina. But it's not more massive than any other game, not a closer local rivalry than any other, not any more passionate than the Glasgow derby and certainly not as universally watched as games like United - Liverpool and Real - Barca. So again ... what's the ultimate benchmark? It's a meaningless list, in other words. A bit of fun for the readership and it's clearly good for some debate (as this thread proves), but still ultimately meaningless.
I'd suspect also that there's been a conscious effort to avoid being anglo-centric in their choices. It would take quite a leap of imagination to place the Vienna derby ahead of the traditional North London one, for example. I've been to a Vienna derby and there was about 8000 there and it was pay-on-the-day, and very civilised and docile. So it's just a list of derbies (or just games between two rivals in many cases) with probably very little thought put into it beyond the first four or five.
Junk. Newcastle vs. Sunderland Hibs vs. Hearts Bayern Munich vs. 1860 Munich Stuttgart vs. Karlsruhe Give me a break