The Greatest Rivalries in Sports

Two states that have fought wars over a border, and a cricket match that stops both of them dead. They first played in 1952. The last full bilateral tour was Pakistan's trip to India in 2007, and since then the fixture has lived at World Cups and Asia Cups, which has somehow made every meeting bigger rather than smaller. Neutral venues, armed escorts, a continent not going to work.

Rugby's oldest heavyweight fight opened in Dunedin in 1921, New Zealand winning 13-5. Six decades on, the 1981 Springbok tour produced the largest mass civil unrest in New Zealand's history, with protesters trying to stop matches in a country that was hosting them. Apartheid turned this fixture into a political act, and the Tests since have never quite shed the weight of it.

Cricket's longest argument started as a joke. After Australia won at The Oval in 1882, a British paper ran a mock obituary for English cricket, and the urn followed. Fifty years later Douglas Jardine turned the 1932-33 tour into Bodyline, and the furor in Australia was such that diplomats had to intervene to prevent serious harm to Anglo-Australian relations. A sport got a government involved.

Colonial history sits under every pitch: Japan occupied the Korean peninsula until it was expelled after the Second World War, and Korea took the occupier's game and got very good at it. At the 2006 World Baseball Classic, Korean pitcher Jae Weong Seo planted two Korean flags on the mound while a visibly angry Ichiro looked on. Three years later Ichiro drove in the winning runs.

Since international play began, the gold medal game in this sport has almost always been these two, which is a strange kind of privilege and a worse kind of pressure. They first met on 21 April 1987, Canada winning 2-1, and at Nagano in 1998 the Americans took the Olympic gold medal game 3-1. The dislike is real and it stays on the ice.

Africa's biggest fixture is also its most flammable. Al Ahly and Zamalek first met on 9 February 1917, and a century later non-Egyptian referees are still flown in to officiate so that nobody can accuse anybody of anything. It has been staged behind closed doors and away from home. One meeting in Cairo drew a crowd of 120,000 people.

Boca Juniors and River Plate first met officially on 24 August 1913. In 2018 their Copa Libertadores final could not be finished in Buenos Aires at all: the second leg was moved to the Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid, where River won 3-1 after extra time. One English writer reckoned derby day in Buenos Aires makes the Old Firm look like a primary school kick-about. He was not exaggerating.

Glasgow's split is older than the football played over it. Celtic and Rangers met competitively in the 1888-89 Glasgow Cup, and the fixture has reflected and fed Scotland's religious and political division ever since. Hundreds of fans fought a pitched battle on the Hampden turf after Celtic won the 1980 Scottish Cup final 1-0, armed with cans and bottles. Mounted police clearing a national stadium is not a normal Saturday.

Istanbul shuts down for this. Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray first played a friendly on 17 January 1909, and the fixture later produced Turkish football's most provocative gesture: Galatasaray manager Graeme Souness taking a giant club flag after the win and planting it in the middle of his opponents' pitch. In 2012 fans tore out stadium seats and the fighting spread into Kadikoy.

Barcelona and Real Madrid have been at this since 1902, and the fixture carries the Catalan independence question with it. When Luis Figo came back to the Camp Nou in Madrid colors in 2002, coins, a knife and a whisky bottle rained down on him, and somebody threw a pig's head. There is a political argument underneath it, and the football is almost incidental.

College football's meanest week runs through Columbus. The series opened on 16 October 1897, and its best decade was the Ten Year War, 1969 to 1978, Woody Hayes against Bo Schembechler. In 2024 Michigan players ran to midfield and planted their flag on the Ohio State logo; the Buckeyes chased them, and it ended with players bloodied and several of them pepper-sprayed by police.

Money, a century of being reminded about Babe Ruth's 1919 sale to New York, and a standing habit of throwing punches. Game 3 of the 2003 ALCS cleared both benches twice, and Aaron Boone finished the series in Game 7 with an eleventh-inning home run off Tim Wakefield. The following July, Jason Varitek shoved his glove into Alex Rodriguez's face and they went again.

Philippine basketball's biggest draw is Barangay Ginebra against the Magnolia Hotshots, and it has always been played with elbows out. On 8 November 1990 Robert Jaworski threw an elbow at Robert Paul Rose in a game already won, and was fined and suspended. Game 7 of the 2013-14 PBA Philippine Cup semi-finals pulled 24,883 people, a Philippine basketball attendance record.

Kevin McHale clotheslining Kurt Rambis in the 1984 NBA Finals is where the temperature changed, and a Lakers fan threw a beer at M.L. Carr as he walked off. Boston took that series four games to three. Twelve Finals meetings between the two, a league record, going back to 1959, and Bird against Magic dragged a sport off tape delay and into prime time.

Adelaide is a one-team town twice over, and twice a year South Australia finds out which. Port Adelaide won the first AFL meeting on 20 April 1997, by 83 points to 72. Showdown 24, in round three of 2008, is the one people still cite as the most physical the two clubs have played. One state, two clubs, no neutral ground anywhere in it.

Kaizer Chiefs exist because Kaizer Motaung, an Orlando Pirates star, left and started his own club, which is the sort of origin story that guarantees a century of needle. First contested on 24 January 1970, it fills grounds far beyond Johannesburg and splits households across the country. Enormous, deafening, and on the record better behaved than most of what sits above it.

A Belgian and a Dutchman who have been beating each other since they were juniors, and who have never bothered pretending to be friends. Mathieu van der Poel took the 2012 junior cyclo-cross world title at Koksijde eight seconds clear of Wout van Aert. Beaten by him again in 2021, van Aert said he would rather have lost to Alaphilippe and spent three nights turning it over.

It began at the 2004 Miami Open, Nadal winning in straight sets, and ran to forty meetings before it stopped. Nadal finished ahead 24-16, including 14-10 in finals, a set of numbers the other man's admirers have spent two decades explaining away. Animosity never entered into it, with families congratulating each other after matches and Nadal watching from the box.