We're football fans! We love to hate!!
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00:00If there's one thing that really boils my LucasAid sport, it's when football commentators sit awkwardly silent during a massive on-pitch bust-up and then just tut and say,
00:12Nobody wants to see this.
00:14Er, wrong, nerds.
00:17Nerds!
00:18Everybody 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 hope and even more misplaced petty grudges.
00:29So the few flashpoints where the players themselves indulge in their own juvenile aggression is just 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.
00:42Number 10, Karim Benzema vs Didier Deschamps.
00:45During his six years out of the French national team, Benzema won three Champions Leagues, three Club World Cups, two UEFA Super Cups and 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 2015 for allegedly blackmailing international colleague Matthew Valbuena over a sex tape was probably justification enough.
01:11And despite getting back into the squad, it's rumbled on ever since.
01:15Benzema even recently labelling Deschamps a clown for sending him home from the World Cup with an injury, which is great fun.
01:21Number 9, Arsene Wenger vs Jose Mourinho.
01:23One of the great managerial rivalries of Premier League history, the ill feeling between the French and Portuguese bosses also produced some fantastic quotes.
01:32Mourinho called Wenger a voyeur in 2006 and two years later, the Frenchman called his counterpart 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 for the Champions League final gave us some television tension that you could have cut with a spoon.
01:54Number 8, Roy Keane vs Patrick Vieira.
01:56Nothing, not the managers, not the fans, nothing better encapsulated the bitter rivalry between Manchester United and Arsenal at the turn of 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 to comments by Vieira, who he later revealed he thought was bullying team-mate Gary Neville.
02:21Quite how he feels about watching Jamie Carragher practically throw his magic little pen at him on Monday Night Football remains to be seen.
02:28Anyway, back to the tunnel and referee Graeme Pohl had to step in as Keane made a beeline for the Gunners midfielder while shouting,
02:34We'll see out there. This rumbled on in every fixture between the two during their time in the league, and they both 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 been personally involved in.
02:52Number 7, Gareth Bale vs Real Madrid.
02:54Wales, Golf, Madrid, in that order.
02:57The pictures of Gareth Bale's beaming face behind a flag carrying that message after the Welsh-secured Euro 2020 qualification further soured his already-tetchy relationship with the Bernabeu faithful.
03:08The winger was booed, yeah, relatively loudly at his next home game, while a banner was revealed in response that read,
03:15Rodrigo, Vinny, Lucas, Bale, in that order.
03:18He was promptly loaned back to Tottenham in the hope that absence would make the heart grow fonder, but, upon returning the following season, managed only seven games as he quietly saw out his contract.
03:28However, in what was, quite literally, getting the last word, Bale signed for Los Angeles FC in 2022,
03:35and immediately sent a message to the club's not inconsiderable Hispanic supporter base,
03:40in fluent Spanish, something the Madrid press had repeatedly said he was incapable of doing because he didn't care about the club.
03:48Madre Dios.
03:50Number 6, VAR vs Itself.
03:53Prior to its major introduction in 2017, football fans were united in their assessment of modern refereeing.
03:59It's inconsistent, the margins are too fine, and if technology can help officials, then they should probably just use it.
04:04Okay, said VAR, which for the purposes of this video I'm treating as if it's a sentient entity, we'll review all these decisions.
04:11And it did, to the point where games were routinely being paused for 10 minutes while some nerd in a truck frantically tried to draw lines on a pitch using an Etch-a-sketch, which was, yeah, quite bad.
04:21In the years since, it's been a constant battle of streamlining the process and rewriting the rules, to the point now where nobody has any idea what it's actually checking and what power it actually has.
04:32All the while, the officials charged with implementing it get dragged further into the spotlight it was supposed to spare them from in the first place.
04:38Just let f***ing robots do it or something, anything be better than this.
04:43Number 5, Nicolas Anelka vs Raymond Dominic.
04:46Le Sulk, and I mean come on, let's face it, if you get a nickname like that, chances are you might be the problem, fell out big time with the then-manager of France in 2010.
04:54Apparently, he aired some, ooh, I don't speak French, unsavory, let's say, remarks at his coach during a 2-0 defeat to Mexico and was promptly sent home from the tournament as a result.
05:05And just to pour even more gasoline on this, the French Football Federation gave him an 18-game international ban, effectively ending his national career in the process.
05:14Never the type to just let that go, though, Dominic would later say about an emerging Kylian Mbappe that he has the choice of being Ronaldo or Anelka.
05:22Meow. Anelka responded with his own assessment, saying Mbappe could also be a Dominic, a small player and a coach who hasn't won any trophies for 10 years. Also, meow.
05:32Number 4, Roy Keane vs Mick McCarthy.
05:34The public fallout between Ireland's manager and captain quickly became one of the most memorable incidents of the 2002 World Cup.
05:41Keane, somehow 30-year despite looking like an uncle who your parents repeatedly remind you not to wind up under any circumstances, gave an explosive interview on the eve of the tournament.
05:51In it, he criticised the team's preparation, and this culminated in that now infamous head-to-head with 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 your bollocks.
06:06I'm sorry, sorry, sorry.
06:08You can stick your World Cup up your bollocks.
06:11It was really more Northern Irish, that, wasn't it?
06:13Should probably delete that.
06:13Anyway, moving on, I'm not a doctor or anything, but unless there is something dramatically wrong with my own bollocks, I've got no idea how sticking a World Cup up them would work in practice.
06:24Like, at all.
06:25Neither did McCarthy, apparently, as unsurprisingly, Keane was sent home and didn't ever play for Ireland again.
06:30Number 3, Maxi Lopez vs Maro Riccardi.
06:33And, wow, this one.
06:35Okay, I'm going to make this incredibly short, because with just a few key facts, I think you can easily fill the rest in for yourself.
06:40Maxi Lopez and Maro Riccardi were best buddies at Sampdoria.
06:44Oh, friend.
06:46Maro Riccardi then married this woman, Wanda Nara.
06:49Wanda Nara is Maxi Lopez's ex-wife.
06:52Maro Riccardi then got this tattoo.
06:54This tattoo is of Maxi Lopez's own children, from the aforementioned marriage to Wanda Nara.
07:01How Lopez hasn't been spotted in an unzipped tracksuit, screaming,
07:05Ella ha el vuelto a los ninos contra mi.
07:09She stopped the race against us.
07:11Is, frankly, beyond me.
07:12Number 2, Zinedine Zidane vs Marco Materatti.
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 would you do?
07:35Well, you'd headbutt them, square in the chest, in the closing stages of the final game of your career,
07:40on the biggest possible stage, condemning your entire nation to penalty shootout heartbreak at the process.
07:46Wouldn't you?
07:46Which means it was perfectly normal.
07:48I mean, not for me, of course.
07:50I don't have a sister.
07:50If Materatti had said that to me, I'd have just been like, what?
07:54Then probably, I don't know, gone and scored the winner.
07:57Oh well, funny old life.
07:58Number one, Arsene Wenger versus Sir Alex Ferguson.
08:01Look up, footballing feud in the dictionary, and what will you find?
08:05Well, nothing, because dictionaries don't have symbolic phrases, but if they did, you'd see a picture of these two.
08:11Now, I know I said nothing symbolised the rivalry, quite like Roy Keane versus Patrick Vieira,
08:15but the 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 Utd and Arsenal took from 1996 to 2005 and was at times as thrilling on the touchline as it was on the pitch.
08:33From the Battle of Old Trafford to Pizzagate to John O'Shea somehow scoring the most composed chip you've ever seen in your life,
08:39I don't know what was going on there.
08:40It was a time of massive confrontation between the two teams and their managers, each iconic as the clubs themselves, were at the forefront.
08:48They exchanged barbs in the press, they rattled each other on TV, they gave football fans the 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 what's really going on there.
09:05We know.
09:05And that's it, that's the video, thank you so very much for watching and making it all the way till the end.
09:11Somebody's keen.
09:12While you're here, please do consider subscribing to the 442 YouTube channel, we've got loads of awesome football content dropping all through the week,
09:18as well as an amazing library of documentaries, player interviews and performance guides as well.
09:23Until next time though, thank you once again for watching, I do hope you enjoyed yourself and I'll see you soon.
09:28Goodbye.