Best European rivalry?

rwo power wrote:

AltoZ wrote:International national team rivalries(national teams from the rest of the world also count here):

1. Germany - England
2. England - Argentina
3. Germany - Italy

England-Germany is only a rivalry for the English. We prefer the Netherlands (aka "Holland") as rivals, even though it isn't as vitriolic nowadays than it was some decades before.

It was just a few months ago that I received an e-mail from a fellow journalist in London that included, more as an aside, this passage: "Don't know if you watch BBC programmes over there, but a recent episode of the Steven Fry vehicle QI was dedicated to Germany. He caused outrage among the panellists by insisting Germans didn't give a rap about Wembley 1966 or any rivalry with England. Very amusing."

Which has led me to presume that we must outline the state of affairs in the most recent past for the benefit of some people again, before we can discuss the potential Van Gaal/Robben effect. Of course I could simply tell people about how I spent September 1, 2001. That, you may recall, was the day Germany played a certain World Cup qualifier against England at home, in Munich.

I spent that day as a reporter for an English monthly, trying to find German fans who would tell me that this game meant really so much to them because there was this huge rivalry with England. I didn't meet any. The English writer David Buckley, who was there with me, didn't either.

Then I watched the game together with hundreds of other Germans in the Muffat Hall in central Munich. Germany were beaten 5-1, so I conducted my post-match interviews with the tact of a mortician - when suddenly an almighty cheer went up and people started singing.

As I turned around, I saw highlights of the Republic of Ireland versus the Netherlands game on the giant screen. The Irish had won and people were singing "We're going to the World Cup without Holland."

(...)

You can read about the rest of the story on Wikipedia. (Yes, the Dutch-German football rivalry has its own Wikipedia entry. Tellingly, the entry for the English-German rivalry doesn't have a German-language version.)

Source: http://espnfc.com/world-cup/columns/story?id=790038&cc=5739&ver=global

juveman17 wrote:

aleumdance wrote:USA vs mexico kinda gets annoying cuz there are more mexicans in the stadium than americans, even when its played in the US

thats why the concacaf cup got useless to me

That's because they always play the games on the West Coast, which has many Mexican immigrants and traveling fans. If you had the game at say The Meadowlands you would have a majority American supporters.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:In Spanish the Netherlands and Germany are Holanda and Alemania respectively. We don't stand for that politically correct bullshit

VivaStPauli wrote:Sure there is. It seems to infuriate you. People from Holland always can use a good infuriatin'.

Doesn't have to do jack shit with 'politically correct' bullshit, BC. It's like calling Spain Catalonia or Argentina Córdoba. It's just not correct, no 'politics' necessarily involved.

Oh and Viva, you just don't get it. There is a correct word for the country in both languages (The Netherlands/Niederlande) so there is absolutely no reason not to use the correct word.

Toffer Harley wrote:

arjun.123 wrote:Chelsea are the only team in the world whom Barcelona have so much trouble with.