The Greatest Feuds In Modern Football

FourFourTwo

22/05/2024

We're football fans! We love to hate!!

Transcript

00:00 If there's one thing that really boils my LucasAid sport, it's when football commentators

00:08 sit awkwardly silent during a massive on-pitch bust-up and then just tut and say "Nobody

00:13 wants to see this".

00:14 Err, wrong, nerds.

00:16 Everybody wants to see this, it's one of the best things about the game.

00:34 Anyway, let's take a look at the really juicy ones.

00:37 I'm Adam Cleary, this is 442, and these are the 10 greatest feuds in modern football.

00:42 During his six years out of the French national team, Benzema won three Champions Leagues,

00:50 three Club World Cups, two UEFA Super Cups and a La Liga title.

00:54 Meaning that whatever manager decided to leave him out must have had a really good reason.

00:58 Well, in the case of Didier Deschamps, he decided that Benzema's arrest in November

01:02 2015 for "allegedly blackmailing international colleague Matthew Balbuena over a sex tape"

01:09 was probably justification enough.

01:11 And despite getting back into the squad, it's rumbled on ever since.

01:15 Benzema even recently labelling Deschamps a "clown" for sending him home from the

01:18 World Cup with an injury.

01:19 Which is great fun.

01:21 9.

01:22 Arsene Wenger vs Jose Mourinho One of the great managerial rivalries of Premier

01:26 League history, the ill-feeling between the French and Portuguese bosses also produced

01:30 some fantastic quotes.

01:32 Mourinho called Wenger a "voyeur" in 2006 and two years later, the Frenchman called

01:36 his counterpart "disconnected with reality and very disrespectful".

01:40 And if you are watching, Arsene, I am genuinely quite sorry about that impression.

01:44 Now, they both claim to have squashed the beef these days, but a recent punditry team-up

01:48 for the Champions League final gave us some television tension that you could have cut

01:53 with a spoon.

01:54 8.

01:55 Roy Keane vs Patrick Vieira Nothing, not the managers, not the fans, nothing

01:59 better encapsulated the bitter rivalry between Manchester United and Arsenal at the turn

02:04 of the millennium than Keane vs Vieira.

02:07 And woven into the very fabric of Premier League folklore.

02:11 You know the story, tensions peaked at Highbury in February 2005 when the Irishman took exception

02:16 to comments by Vieira, who he later revealed he thought was bullying team-mate Gary Neville.

02:21 Quite how he feels about watching Jamie Carragher practically throw his magic little pen at

02:25 them on Monday Night Football remains to be seen.

02:27 Anyway, back to the tunnel and referee Graeme Pohl had to step in as Keane made a beeline

02:32 for the Gunners midfielder while shouting "We'll see you out there!"

02:35 This rumbled on in every fixture between the two during their time in the league and they

02:39 both now preach what great respect they have for each other.

02:42 But come on, we all saw the ITV World Cup coverage, yeah?

02:46 I've seen better masked resentment in divorce hearings.

02:49 Although not any of the ones I've been personally involved in.

02:51 7.

02:52 Gareth Bale vs Real Madrid Wales, golf, Madrid, in that order.

02:58 The pictures of Gareth Bale's beaming face behind a flag carrying that message after

03:01 the Welsh secured Euro 2020 qualification further soured his already-tetchy relationship

03:07 with the Bernabeu faithful.

03:08 The winger was booed, yeah, relatively loudly at his next home game while a banner was revealed

03:13 in response that read "Rodrigo, Vinnie, Lucas, Bale" in that order.

03:19 He was promptly loaned back to Tottenham in the hope that absence would make the heart

03:22 grow fonder, but upon returning the following season, managed only seven games as he quietly

03:27 saw out his contract.

03:28 However, in what was, quite literally, getting the last word, Bale signed for Los Angeles

03:33 FC in 2022 and immediately sent a message to the club's not inconsiderable Hispanic

03:39 supporter base in fluent Spanish.

03:42 Something the Madrid press had repeatedly said he was incapable of doing because he

03:46 didn't care about the club.

03:48 Madre deus.

03:50 6.

03:51 VAR vs… itself.

03:53 Prior to its major introduction in 2017, football fans were united in their assessment of modern

03:58 refereeing.

03:59 It's inconsistent, the margins are too fine, and if technology can help officials, then

04:03 they should probably just use it.

04:05 "Okay," said VAR, which for the purposes of this video I'm treating as if it's

04:08 a sentient entity, "we'll review all these decisions."

04:11 And it did, to the point where games were routinely being paused for ten minutes while

04:15 some nerd in a truck frantically tried to draw lines on a pitch using an Etch-a-Sketch,

04:19 which was, yeah, quite bad.

04:21 In the years since, it's been a constant battle of streamlining the process and rewriting

04:25 the rules to the point now where nobody has any idea what it's actually checking and

04:30 what power it actually has.

04:32 All the while the officials charged with implementing it get dragged further into the spotlight

04:36 it was supposed to spare them from in the first place.

04:39 Just let f***ing robots do it or something.

04:42 Anything would be better than this.

04:43 5.

04:44 Nicolas Anelka vs. Raymond Domenech.

04:45 Le Sulc, and I mean, come on, let's face it, if you get a nickname like that, chances

04:49 are you might be the problem, fell out big time with the then-manager of France in 2010.

04:55 Apparently he aired some, ooh, I don't speak French, unsavoury, let's say, remarks at his

05:00 coach during a 2-0 defeat to Mexico, and was promptly sent home from the tournament as

05:05 a result.

05:06 And just to pour even more gasoline on this, the French Football Federation gave him an

05:09 18-game international ban, effectively ending his national career in the process.

05:14 Never the type to just let that go though, Domenech would later say about an emerging

05:17 Kylian Mbappe that he has the choice of being Ronaldo or Anelka.

05:22 Meow.

05:23 Anelka responded with his own assessment, saying Mbappe could "also be a Domenech,

05:27 a small player and a coach who hasn't won any trophies for 10 years."

05:31 Also meow.

05:32 4.

05:33 Roy Keane vs. Mick McCarthy.

05:34 The public fallout between Ireland's manager and captain quickly became one of the most

05:38 memorable incidents of the 2002 World Cup.

05:41 Keane, somehow 30 here despite looking like an uncle who your parents repeatedly remind

05:45 you not to wind up under any circumstances, gave an explosive interview on the eve of

05:50 the tournament.

05:51 In it, he criticised the team's preparation and this culminated in that now infamous head-to-head

05:56 with McCarthy himself, in which the Manchester United midfielder pulled no punches.

06:01 And by pulled no punches, I mean he literally told him "you can stick your World Cup up

06:05 your bollocks."

06:06 Sorry, sorry, sorry.

06:07 "You can stick your World Cup up your bollocks."

06:11 It was really more Northern Irish that, wasn't it?

06:13 Should probably delete that.

06:14 Anyway, moving on, I'm not a doctor or anything, but unless there is something dramatically

06:18 wrong with my own bollocks, I've got no idea how sticking a World Cup up them would

06:22 work in practice.

06:24 Like at all.

06:25 Neither did McCarthy, apparently, as unsurprisingly Keane was sent home and didn't ever play

06:29 for Ireland again.

06:30 3.

06:31 Maxi Lopez vs. Mara Riccardi.

06:33 And wow, this one.

06:34 Okay, I'm going to make this incredibly short because with just a few key facts, I

06:38 think you can easily fill the rest in for yourself.

06:41 Maxi Lopez and Mara Riccardi were best buddies at Sampdoria.

06:46 Mara Riccardi then married this woman, Wanda Nara.

06:49 Wanda Nara is Maxi Lopez's ex-wife.

06:52 Mara Riccardi then got this tattoo.

06:54 This tattoo is of Maxi Lopez's own children from the aforementioned marriage to Wanda

07:00 Nara.

07:01 How Lopez hasn't been spotted in an unzipped tracksuit screaming "Ella ha vuelto a los

07:07 niños contra mí" is frankly beyond me.

07:12 2.

07:13 Marco Manzana vs. Marco Materazzi.

07:15 Yeah, you absolutely don't need me to paint the picture for you here, do you?

07:19 You know the game, you know the players, you know the occasion, you know the outcome.

07:24 All we can do at this stage, some 15 years plus removed, is consider the question.

07:29 If someone you barely know said they'd rather have your sister than your shirt, what would

07:35 you do?

07:36 Well, you'd headbutt them, square in the chest, in the closing stages of the final

07:39 game of your career, on the biggest possible stage, condemning your entire nation to penalty

07:44 shootout heartbreak in the process, wouldn't you?

07:47 Which means it was perfectly normal.

07:48 I mean, not for me, of course.

07:49 I don't have a sister.

07:51 If Materazzi had said that to me, I'd have just been like, "What?"

07:54 Then probably, I don't know, gone and scored the winner.

07:56 Oh well, funny old life.

07:58 1.

07:59 Arsene Wenger vs. Sir Alex Ferguson.

08:01 Look up "footballing feud" in the dictionary and what will you find?

08:05 Well, nothing, because dictionaries don't have symbolic phrases, but if they did, you'd

08:09 see a picture of these two.

08:11 Now I know I said nothing symbolised the rivalry quite like Roy Keane vs. Patrick Vieira, but

08:15 the difference is, this was the rivalry, not merely a neat visual representation of it.

08:21 A nine-year battle for the highest honours in the game between Man United and Arsenal

08:26 took from 1996 to 2005 and was at times as thrilling on the touchline as it was on the

08:32 pitch.

08:33 From the Battle of Old Trafford to Pizzagate to John O'Shea somehow scoring the most composed

08:38 chip you've ever seen in your life, it was a time of massive confrontation between the

08:42 two teams and their managers, each iconic as the clubs themselves, were at the forefront.

08:48 They exchanged barbs in the press, they rattled each other on TV, they gave football fans

08:52 the petty squabbles that all petty squabble sins have had to live up to.

08:57 And again, they speak of their respect for each other these days, but we know, we know

09:02 what's really going on there, we know.

The Greatest Feuds In Modern Football

Category

Transcript

Recommended