There are sport events that are quickly forgotten after they are played. Then there are those matches that exceed boundaries of sport itself that are remembered and told over and over again many years after. Rivalry in sport in normal among adversaries, it increase player’s motivation and lifts the atmosphere before the upcoming derby.
Rivalry exists in every sport, and throughout entire sport history we are witnesses of large number of rivals that moved the boundaries of sport. Great rivalry should be mentioned between Spanish first leaguers Real Madrid and Barcelona or the great duel that ruled between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. For those who want to refresh their memory a little bit, we present to you a list of 10 biggest rivals in the world of sport.
10BARCELONA – REAL MADRID
Two teams, two languages, two peoples. Catalonian regionalism makes this an incendiary footabll derby.
09BOBBY FISCHER – BORIS SPASSKY
The 1970s saw the Cold War take on a new dimension – the chess board. Fischer ended Soviet dominance of world chess.
08BOSTON BRUINS – MONTERAL CANADIENS
They have faced each other more than any teams in the NHL. Games have featured fighting, police arrests and caused riots.
07ROGER FEDERER – RAFAEL NADAL
The ultimate tennis showdown – they’ve met in almost 20 finals. Rafael and Roger are the only men to be ranked as the top two players for six consecutive years.
06BOSTON CELTICS – LA AKERS
Boston and LA Lakers are the longest-running rivalry in the NBA. They’ve won 33 of the 65 championships and met in the Finals 12 times.
05NEW YORK YANKEES – BOSTON RED SOX
New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are the heavyweight baseball rivalry back to 1919. The Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees and failed to win a championship for 88 years.
04INDIA – PAKISTAN
They’ve fought three major wars and take their cricket very seriously. Matches between the two have been watched by over a billion people.
03THE NETHERLANDS – GERMANY
Soccer rivalry between Holland and Germany stemming from German occupation of Holland in WWII, made worse by German victory in the 1974 World Cup Final.
02ALAIN PROST – AYRTON SENNA
Senna and Prost were legendary F1 drivers whose rivalry became personal, deliberately rammed each other off the circuit to claim victory.
01JOE FRAIZER – MUHAMMAD ALI
Ali’s racial taunts of Frazier made this an explosive Feud. Ali described their last fight as “being in the waiting room for death”.
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