The Greatest Feuds In Modern Football
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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 mÃ" 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.