Nerve Endings Firing Away

In hullabaloo of the Red Sox staging an impressive comeback against the mighty Yankees, the media (American) was quick to declare the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry as the “greatest ever in sports”. In the same spirit as they forget how insignificant the World Series is outside of continental USA, they conveniently forgot other rivalries in other sports.

For example, Manchester United-Liverpool two regular season games in the English Premier League attract a viewership of almost 800 million. The rowdyism of English soccer fans is only too well known to dispute their passion for the sport. When their favorite team loses, the fans go on a rampage and wreck the town. The media fills reams, citing statistics and tarot card predictions for the next game. Cryuff’s Holland and Beckenbauer’s Germany had a great thing going in the early 70s and the 1974 World Cup final is still considered as one of the best football matches ever played. Argentina and Brazil, on the other side of the Atlantic did give the Europeans a run for their money. It was evidently clear that they played a notch above their abilities when they played each other whether it was a World Cup match or insignificant pre-season game.

Of course, and how can we forget the mother of all rivalries in terms of sheer fan following: India-Pakistan. People who care little about cricket land themselves in front of the TV every time these two unpredictable teams play each other. India tries to shake off that last-ball six every time they take the field, whether they are playing in Toronto or Colombo. Pakistan somehow can never get it right in the World Cup. They have won the Cup sure, but still they lost to India in that tournament. Who can forget the banner in Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore in 1996: “<i>We don’t want the World Cup, we want this match</i>”. It completely embodies the passion of the rivalry and only a crazed cricket fan can see the sense in that statement. Billion-plus prayers go up either to Ram or Allah when these two teams clash on the field. All nasty references are considered fair game.

Rivalries bring a sense of purpose to the game. Although it can sometimes cross limits of decency, the passion and fervor that goes into it makes it worth remembering. I remember our neighborhood rivalries when we played cricket. There was this particular team from New English High School that we loved to beat and hated to lose to. The team composition strangely resembled India-Pakistan; we even had our own Azharuddin (but he didn’t sell out). Later in college, our class would have accepted losing to the second-yearites but losing to the third-yearites was considered disgraceful. Six years have passed but I still remember the intense competition, be it a design competition or a volleyball match. Clawing back from being down match-point and fighting a 10 point deficit to win the volleyball inter-class final was a definite high. Nerdy architecture students crazily jumping over each other must have made any onlooker smile in amusement. I remember a certain crazed guy in college wanting to go back to play football after we fixed his dislocated shoulder. Rivalries can make you do that.

Any other rivalries that you can think of?