The Greatest Feuds In Modern Football
We're football fans! We love to hate!!
Transcript
00:00If there's one thing that really boils my LucasAid sport, it's when football commentators
00:08sit awkwardly silent during a massive on-pitch bust-up and then just tut and say, nobody
00:13wants to see this.
00:14Er, wrong, nerds.
00:17NERD!
00:19Everybody wants to see this, it's one of the best things about the game.
00:22You see, being a football fan means feeding your own brain a constant diet of misplaced
00:26hope and even more misplaced petty grudges.
00:29So the few flashpoints where the players themselves indulge in their own juvenile aggression is
00:33just brilliant.
00:34Anyway, let's take a look at the really juicy ones.
00:37I'm Adam Cleary, this is 442, and these are the 10 Greatest Feuds in Modern Football.
00:4210.
00:43Karim Benzema vs. Didier Deschamps During his six years out of the French national
00:47team, Benzema won three Champions Leagues, three Club World Cups, two UEFA Super Cups,
00:52and a La Liga title.
00:54Meaning that whatever manager decided to leave him out must have had a really good reason?
00:58Well, in the case of Didier Deschamps, he decided that Benzema's arrest in November
01:022015 for allegedly blackmailing international colleague Mathieu Balbuena over a sex tape
01:09was probably justification enough, and despite getting back into the squad, it's rumbled
01:13on ever since.
01:14Benzema even recently labelling Deschamps a clown for sending him home from the World
01:18Cup with an injury, which is great fun.
01:219.
01:22Arsene Wenger vs. Jose Mourinho One of the great managerial rivalries of Premier
01:26League history, the ill feeling between the French and Portuguese bosses also produced
01:30some fantastic quotes.
01:31Mourinho called Wenger a voyeur in 2006, and two years later, the Frenchman called his
01:36counterpart disconnected with reality and very disrespectful.
01:40And if you are watching, Arsene, I am genuinely quite sorry about that impression.
01:44Now, they both claim to have squashed the beef these days, but a recent punditry team-up
01:48for the Champions League final gave us some television tension that you could have cut
01:53with a spoon.
01:548.
01:55Keane vs. Patrick Vieira Nothing, not the managers, not the fans, nothing
01:59better encapsulated the bitter rivalry between Manchester United and Arsenal at the turn
02:04of the millennium than Keane vs. Vieira.
02:07It's woven into the very fabric of Premier League folklore.
02:11You know the story, tensions peaked at Highbury in February 2005 when the Irishman took exception
02:16to comments by Vieira, who he later revealed he thought was bullying teammate Gary Neville.
02:21Despite how he feels about watching Jamie Carragher practically throw his magic little
02:25pen at them on Monday Night Football, remains to be seen.
02:27Anyway, back to the tunnel, and referee Graeme Paul had to step in as Keane made a beeline
02:32for the Gunners midfielder while shouting, we'll see you out there.
02:35This rumbled on in every fixture between the two during their time in the league, and they
02:39both now preach what great respect they have for each other.
02:42But come on, we all saw the ITV World Cup coverage, yeah?
02:46I've seen better masked resentment in divorce hearings, although not any of the ones I've
02:50been personally involved in.
02:51The pictures of Gareth Bale's beaming face behind
03:00a flag carrying that message after the Welsh secured Euro 2020 qualification further soured
03:05his already-tetchy relationship with the Bernabeu faithful.
03:08The winger was booed, yeah, relatively loudly at his next home game, while a banner was
03:13revealed in response that read, Rodrigo, Vinny, Lucas, Bale, in that order.
03:19He was promptly loaned back to Tottenham in the hope that absence would make the heart
03:22grow fonder, but, upon returning the following season, managed only seven games as he quietly
03:27saw out his contract.
03:28However, in what was, quite literally, getting the last word, Bale signed for Los Angeles
03:33FC in 2022, and immediately sent a message to the club's not inconsiderable Hispanic
03:39supporter base in fluent Spanish, something the Madrid press had repeatedly said he was
03:45incapable of doing because he didn't care about the club.
03:496.
03:50VAR vs… itself
03:53Prior to its major introduction in 2017, football fans were united in their assessment of modern
03:58refereeing.
03:59It's inconsistent, the margins are too fine, and if technology can help officials, then
04:03they should probably just use it.
04:05Okay, said VAR, which for the purposes of this video I'm treating as if it's a sentient
04:08entity, we'll review all these decisions.
04:11And it did, to the point where games were routinely being paused for ten minutes while
04:15some nerd in a truck frantically tried to draw lines on a pitch using an Etch-A-Sketch,
04:19which was, yeah, quite bad.
04:21In the years since, it's been a constant battle of streamlining the process and rewriting
04:25the rules to the point now where nobody has any idea what it's actually checking and
04:30what power it actually has.
04:32All the while the officials charged with implementing it get dragged further into the spotlight
04:36it was supposed to spare them from in the first place.
04:39Just let f***ing robots do it or something, anything would be better than this.
04:435.
04:44LeSulc vs Raymond Domenech
04:45LeSulc, and, I mean, come on, let's face it, if you get a nickname like that, chances
04:49are you might be the problem, fell out big time with the then-manager of France in 2010.
04:55Apparently he aired some, ooh, I don't speak French, unsavoury, let's say, remarks at
05:00his coach during a 2-0 defeat to Mexico, and was promptly sent home from the tournament
05:05as a result.
05:06And just to pour even more gasoline on this, the French Football Federation gave him an
05:0918-game international ban, effectively ending his national career in the process.
05:14Never the type to just let that go though, Domenech would later say about an emerging
05:17Kylian Mbappe that he has the choice of being Ronaldo or Anelka.
05:22Meow.
05:23Anelka responded with his own assessment saying Mbappe could also be a Domenech, a small player
05:28and a coach who hasn't won any trophies for ten years.
05:31Also meow.
05:324.
05:33Roy Keane vs Mick McCarthy
05:34The public fallout between Ireland's manager and captain quickly became one of the most
05:38memorable incidents of the 2002 World Cup.
05:41Keane, somehow 30 here despite looking like an uncle who your parents repeatedly remind
05:45you not to wind up under any circumstances, gave an explosive interview on the eve of
05:50the tournament.
05:51In it he criticised the team's preparation, and this culminated in that now infamous head-to-head
05:55with McCarthy himself, in which the Manchester United midfielder pulled no punches.
06:01And by pulled no punches, I mean he literally told him, you can stick your World Cup up
06:05your bollocks.
06:06I'm sorry, sorry, sorry.
06:08You can stick your World Cup up your bollocks.
06:11That was really more Northern Irish that, wasn't it?
06:13Should probably delete that.
06:14Anyway, moving on, I'm not a doctor or anything, but unless there is something dramatically
06:18wrong with my own bollocks, I've got no idea how sticking a World Cup up them would
06:22work in practice.
06:24Like at all.
06:25Neither did McCarthy, apparently, as unsurprisingly Keane was sent home and didn't ever play
06:29for Ireland again.
06:303.
06:31Maxi Lopez vs Mauro Ricciardi
06:32And wow, this one.
06:34Okay, I'm going to make this incredibly short because with just a few key facts I
06:38think you can easily fill the rest in for yourself.
06:41Maxi Lopez and Mauro Ricciardi were best buddies at Sampdoria.
06:46Mauro Ricciardi then married this woman, Wanda Nara.
06:49Wanda Nara is Maxi Lopez's ex-wife.
06:52Mauro Ricciardi then got this tattoo.
06:54This tattoo is of Maxi Lopez's own children from the aforementioned marriage to Wanda
07:00Nara.
07:01The fact that Mau Lopez hasn't been spotted in an unzipped tracksuit screaming Ella ha
07:05vuelto a los ninos contra mi is frankly beyond me.
07:122.
07:13Zinedine Zidane vs Marco Materazzi
07:15Yeah, you absolutely don't need me to paint the picture for you here, do you?
07:19You know the game, you know the players, you know the occasion, you know the outcome.
07:24All we can do at this stage, some 15 years plus removed, is consider the question.
07:29If someone you barely know said they'd rather have your sister than your shirt, what
07:35would you do?
07:36Well, you'd headbutt them, square in the chest, in the closing stages of the final
07:40game of your career on the biggest possible stage condemning your entire nation to penalty
07:44shootout heartbreak in the process, wouldn't you?
07:47Which means it was perfectly normal.
07:48I mean, not for me of course, I don't have a sister.
07:51If Materazzi had said that to me, I'd have just been like, what?
07:54Then probably, I don't know, gone and scored the winner.
07:56Oh well, funny old life.
07:581.
07:59Rollinger vs Sir Alex Ferguson Look up footballing feud in the dictionary
08:03and what will you find?
08:05Well, nothing because dictionaries don't have symbolic phrases, but if they did, you'd
08:09see a picture of these two.
08:11Now I know I said nothing symbolised the rivalry quite like Roy Keane vs Patrick Vieira, but
08:15the difference is, this was the rivalry, not merely a neat visual representation of it.
08:21A nine year battle for the highest honours in the game between Man United and Arsenal
08:26took from 1996 to 2005 and was at times as thrilling on the touchline as it was on the
08:32pitch.
08:33From the battle of Old Trafford to Pizzagate to John O'Shea somehow scoring the most composed
08:38chip you've ever seen in your life, I don't know what was going on there, it was a time
08:41of massive confrontation between the two teams and their managers, each iconic as the clubs
08:46themselves, were at the forefront.
08:48They exchanged barbs in the press, they rattled each other on TV, they gave football fans
08:52the petty squabbles that all petty squabble sins have had to live up to.
08:57And again, they speak of their respect for each other these days, but we know, we know
09:02what's really going on there.
09:05We know.
09:06And that's it, that's the video, thank you so very much for watching and making it all
09:10the way till the end.
09:11Somebody's keen.
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09:23Until next time though, thank you once again for watching, I do hope you enjoy yourself
09:27and I'll see you soon.
09:28Goodbye.