Psychology of a derby: Insight from other rivalries around the world | OneFootball

Local derbies are the lifeblood of football.

For fans all over the world, there is little sweeter than getting one over your neighbours.

Derbies can also be about so much more than just what happens on the pitch.

Fans co-exist in daily life throughout the year, with bragging rights often only earned on two occasions across a 10-month season.

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And when it comes to cross-city rivalries, there are few places that can match up to Manchester for the sheer magnitude of the two Clubs involved.

In fact, Manchester is one of only two cities to be home to two teams that have won the European Cup or Champions League.

City have dominated English football in recent years, with Pep Guardiola guiding us to six Premier League titles in the last seven seasons.

As well as the ability to show off our magnificent trophy haul, we’ve also had the upper hand in direct contests with United.

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Since Guardiola’s arrival, we have beaten the Old Trafford team 12 times and lost on seven occasions.

For the second time in two seasons, City will this Saturday meet United at Wembley with the FA Cup on the line.

We were 2-1 winners last year on the way to an historic Treble, with Ilkay Gundogan’s brace already immortalised amongst the blue half of Manchester.

WATCH: City 2-1 Manchester United: Extended FA Cup final highlights

A home derby is one thing, with the whole stadium decked out in your colours, while an away match feels like venturing behind enemy lines.

However, a final or major occasion on neutral territory such as Wembley is a different day entirely, with both sides attending in large numbers and facing up to each other from opposite ends of the stadium.

It’s inextricably linked to history and the beginnings of Clubs, with City forming in our current guise in 1894 after initially beginning life representing St. Mark's Church in West Gorton and United from a railway worker’s team in Newton Heath.

Saturday’s meeting in the FA Cup final will be the 193rd competitive edition of the Manchester derby, with each match adding to the fixture’s rich history.

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The Manchester derby is fierce and passionate, but it can be comforting in those nervy times ahead of kick-off to know that fans all over the world experience similar emotions when they come up against their nearest adversaries.

We spoke to experts on some of the biggest derbies in Europe, South America and Africa to find out why these matches evoke such emotion and how they differ across cultures and continents.

Brazil and Argentina

When most football fans think of derbies, their mind instantly takes them to South America.

It could be Buenos Aires and the iconic shots of La Bombonera or El Monumental, with toilet roll streaming down the stands, as the blue and yellow of Boca Juniors comes up against the red and white of River Plate.

In Rio de Janeiro, Flamengo and Fluminense is just as colourful and chaotic, with beautiful, brutal football a staple in Brazil.

As Rupert Fryer, a writer who specialises in South American football, articulates, these games are often mean so much to more people than just the local population split down the middle.

“Derbies are not only for bragging rights at school, work or over the dinner table, but often about how we see ourselves,” he starts.

“They strike at the heart of our identities, likely more so in South America than England. Football played a major role across continent as postcolonial populations sought to discover their sense of self and define their national identities.

“Moreover, much of South America has centralised footballing makeup, with clubs clustered heavily in major cities, often leaving supporters with the option of aligning themselves to the clubs that best represents them.

“And so many clubs were founded based on nationality, religion, social class. Your club is more than just who you support, it’s who you are, and the continent’s obsession with the game means everyone has to have one.

“As Eduardo Galeano put it, football is the ‘the only religion without atheists.’”

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Speaking about the ‘Superclasico’ of Boca v River specifically, Fryer outlines how the identities of the two clubs shaped that rivalry in the early years.

“Both teams began life in the working class area of La Boca before heading in different directions,” he says.

“A common misconception is that River Plate are referred to as ‘the Millionaires’ because they left La Boca for the snooty suburbs of Nunez. However, they in fact earned that nickname due to the club’s early outlay on large transfer fees.

“Regardless, that move certainly brought about an initial class divide and shaped the identities of the two clubs: River became known for their expansive, enchanting football – winning well, rather
than just winning – while 
Boca were built on blood, guts and desire as a ‘team of the people’.

“That has now long been transcended, however, as both have significant support from a wide range of social demographics.”

It’s a similar story over in Rio, where two names recognised all over the world battle it out.

“Fla-Flu is one of football’s great historic rivalries, with the rivalry traced back to the very beginnings of organised sports clubs in Brazil,” says Fryer.

“Flamengo was initially founded as a rowing club whose football division was actually founded by a group of disgruntled Fluminense members who defected to their cross-town neighbours.

“Much like the Superclasico, there is an historical class divide - Fluminense, founded by British aristocrats, was seen as ‘the club of the elite’, while Flamengo, the best supported team in the country, was the ‘team of the people’.

“While that, too, has totally transcended the class divide in modern Brazil, it still carries significance, with even the country’s political split being ‘dubbed the Fla-Flu divide’.”

The 2018 Copa Libertadores final remains perhaps the most globally renowned iteration of the Superclasico, with River and Boca playing off for the continent’s biggest club prize over two legs.

The first leg finished 2-2 at Boca’s home but safety concerns saw the second match taken out of Buenos Aires and moved to Madrid instead.

Fryer reflects: “For the general population, the build-up to this tie brought two weeks of complete hysteria and culminated in the inevitable: An event so big that the country simply couldn’t handle it - and so we ended in Madrid.

“River fans, of course, still lord the victory over their rivals. Boca fans respond by suggesting that title should come with an asterisk after the Boca team bus was attacked and the final moved to the other side of the world.”

WATCH: The Manchester Derby: A brief history

Portugal

Tom Kundert, editor of Portugoal, says the Lisbon derby is about more than just the context of the particular season or competition in which Sporting and Benfica are meeting.

“Although the Porto-Benfica matchup has become the most important game in terms of deciding the title in recent years, the Lisbon derby has historically been the biggest game in Portuguese football,” he says.

“It is known as the "eternal derby", and has lost none of its lustre, excitement or sense of occasion, even in times when one or both clubs may be in the doldrums.

“It remains a huge moment in the sporting calendar. Families and groups of friends in the city are split down the middle in terms of their allegiances, but the rivalry is no less fierce for that.

“The stadiums are located just three kilometres apart, and part of the pre-match ritual involves the away fans congregating at their home stadium to be escorted by police to the venue of the game in a "march to the enemy territory".

“The Portuguese capital comes to something of a standstill on derby day, and no matter how well or how badly each team is doing, the result is unpredictable.”

As we saw in Argentina, Brazil and England, the Lisbon derby has the power to stop the country in its tracks and attract the attention of a global audience.

“Portugal is a football-obsessed country, so when the Lisbon derby comes around the whole nation and the ex-pat community abroad tends to tune in, especially if a trophy is at stake,” says Kundert.

“The fact there is less tradition of supporting your local football team than in other countries means that in Portugal, and among its millions of emigrants all around the world, almost everyone is a fan of either Benfica, Sporting or Porto.

“As such, more than a simple football match, this game is something of a ‘national event’ with highlights, summaries and any controversies surrounding it usually opening news programmes in the immediate aftermath of the match.”

WATCH: 30 in 30: Remembering City’s last Manchester derby at Maine Road

Serbia

In the Serbian Superliga, there’s one match that draws eyes from fans all over Europe.

As Kristijan Plazonja, known as @SerbFootyScout on X, attests, the Belgrade rivalry between Red Star (Crvena zvezda) and Partizan splits the nation in two.

As we’ve already seen, it all comes down to the identities of the clubs and the fans that support them.

“It was always loaded, but with the fall of Yugoslavia, it's become even more important,” he says.

“Serbia is not like most countries when it comes to football, with strong local support. Instead, most of the country is split between these two teams.

“There's also not a strong national team support, as the majority of these fans support their club first.

“The atmosphere is as heated as is possible in Europe. From the walk-up to the stadium with riot police on every corner, to the flare shows during the match and the constant, and incredibly loud signing, all 90 minutes long.

“For a long time, the quality on the pitch didn't even come close to that in the stands, but in recent years, there has been improvement.

“Even when coaches win titles, they're also judged on the fact whether they were able to beat the main rival.”

While players moving between rivals in rare most of the world over, it’s particularly so in Belgrade.

However, there have been examples.

“The most famous recent case was Vladimir Stojkovic, the goalkeeper, which made him the most hated player in red and white circles,” says Plazonja.

“Especially as he once said in a TV interview that it's the last thing he'd ever do. Zvezda's most fanatic fans on the other hand have vetoed any move involving a player who has played senior minutes for Partizan.”

WATCH: Watch: How the derby was won

Egypt

In Egypt, fans are split between Cairo’s two leading clubs; Al Ahly and Zamalek.

Again, the history of each side has a major impact on the identities they have carved for themselves.

While that has subsided over the years, the intensity of the rivalry and its impact on Egypt as a whole has not, says Egyptian football journalist and KingFut.com editor, Ahmad Yousef.

“Both were founded over a 100 years ago in the early 1900s and that’s given them a strong, rich history as part of Egyptian society,” he said.

“Zamalek were founded slightly earlier by a Belgian and Al Ahly, which translates as ‘internationalism’, founded by an Egyptian.

“Some say that Al Ahly are a national club and Zamalek are a foreign-based club, but that didn’t really stick that long. In the first derby, the majority of the players were Egyptian.

“Over time, as Egypt’s population has grown and more and more people have moved to Cairo, they are the two biggest clubs. Even people who live outside of Cairo support one of these two teams now. Al Ahly are the most popular given their success and they were named Club of the Century in Africa.

“The rivalry has grown significantly over the years, with fan violence at these matches seeing games and even seasons abandoned.

“In the last 10 or 15 years, that has dropped but there are still the jokes about weddings, where you don’t marry someone from the other team.

“The games themselves would be electric, always sold out and deafeningly loud. Prior to 2006, all the games were played at the Cairo International Stadium with a rumoured 100,000 people at each match.

“Since the 1990s, all the referees have had to be foreign to prevent any sort of bias! No one in the country is impartial.”

Just like fans in England, no supporters want to see their rivals succeed.

However, when they do come together for showpiece occasions it creates matches that live on.

“The rivalry exists all year round and fans just can’t stand the other team winning any matches at all” states Yousef.

“There have been amazing games in the CAF Champions League. In 2020, they played in the final.

“It was one of the most intense matches, especially given it was hosted in Cairo. Al Ahly won that 2-1 and Zamalek fans are still bitter about that game.

“This season, Zamalek have won Africa’s equivalent of the Europa League while Al Ahly are in the final of the Champions League. No Zamalek fans wants Al Ahly to succeed. However, if they do win there would a Super Cup match which would be an amazing spectacle.”

The opinions published here are personal to the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the views of Manchester City Football Club.