It is without question that the history of sports is full of conflicts that have outlined not only the sport in question but sometimes grown beyond it, leading them to constitute elements of cultural and even political phenomena. Here are brief descriptions of the seven greatest sports rivalries of all time:
Overview: This might be the world's most famous rivalry. Real Madrid and FC Barcelona are far beyond just two football clubs. Instead, they symbolize everything that differs between Madrid and Catalonia. Their games have much waiting in them to decide the whole La Liga title race.
Memorable Games: El Clásico has been graced with some of the best ever to tread on the grass-from Alfredo Di Stéfano and Johan Cruyff to, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. One of the games to be in the most memorable would be when Barcelona went on a trashing of Real Madrid 5-0 in 2010-a game which embodied how his team should be under Pep Guardiola.
Summary: Arguably the oldest sporting rivalry of them all, American, this was history over a century long, where momentum began with Babe Ruth leaving the Red Sox to join the Yankees in 1919. It is then said that this went on to lay out the Curse of the Bambino.
Notable among them are the 2004 American League Championship Series, which the Red Sox won after coming back from a 3-0 lead in a series that was against an opponent whom they could not defeat during all those years; it finally ended the most attributable 86-year drought of World Series championship laurels.
Overview Perhaps the most storied rivalry in the NBA is between the Celtics and Lakers. Two of the leagues' most successful franchises much of that history specific to the 1980s, when, of course, the Magic Johnson-led Lakers and Larry Bird-led Celtics were probably the two faces of the league.
Highlight: It had finally peaked in the 1980s when these two teams clashed thrice in that decade's NBA Finals. The years were 1984, 1985, and 1987. That is one of the greatest rivalries that can be played on the cricket field or on the basketball court.
Overview Of all sporting rivalries perhaps few can match in politics and emotional muscle the India-Pakistan rivalry in cricket. The matches between the two countries evoke a colossal world-wide audience, and most often these are played out against a backdrop of historical or contemporary tensions between the two nations.
Exceptional Moments: Amongst the top games of this category are the final of the 2007 T20 World Cup and the semi-final of the 2011 World Cup, where the stakes are so high that pressure reaches impossibly high levels.
Summary: Whether it's for some Grand Slams finals or otherwise, the Federer v. Nadal rivalry is best contested under whatever circumstances are, to say the least. Indeed, their contrasting playing styles have at times been served to provide some of the most thrilling tennis that fans have ever witnessed.
Notable Moments: Obviously the 2008 Wimbledon final stands as the greatest tennis match ever played; here, it was Nadal who outlasted the other man in a five-set epic.
Summary: The head-on contest of Manchester United and Liverpool over the most successful clubs of England creates the most recognizable rivalry in the history of football.
Rivalry: Basically, the rivalry between them is the result of history and local pride and the fact that matches are really hard.
Memorable Moments : This event includes matches like the domination of the 1970s and 1980s, Liverpool, and the renaissance and victory of Sir Alex Ferguson for Manchester United.
This was the most notorious and powerful rivalry that had been brewing inside two of the brightest talent boxers of all time, and the Joe Frazier-Muhammad Ali rivalry had stories to tell. There were three fights and matches set between these two phenomenal rivalries that are rated as some of the greatest matches by many sports historians.
The fights; the "Battle of the Century" was the 1971 bout in which Frazier gave Ali his first defeat at professional level, besides, this omits not the quite bloody last battle in 1975.
Rivalries produced unwriteable moments, passionate fans and a permanent legacy in the sporting world: something much more than a showdown, they are cultural references.
