England's top ten football rivalries — but where do Scotland rank?
Football fans do not struggle to make enemies. Some England fans’ habit of re-arranging the world's plastic furniture has astonishingly failed to win many friends.
The football team they support have rarely been quite as provocative, because to do that you need to be consistently good.
That’s not to say England don’t enjoy football dominion over the British Isles teams. Indeed, fixtures against the home nations (and Ireland) in the last 20 years have been almost entirely draws or England wins.
At the other end of the scale some of the teams most hated by England fans disappeared over the horizon many years ago. It may take a century before England can put as many stars on the front of their shirts as Germany have now.
The true evenly-matched rivals are thin on the ground. Does that mean we should shop local for burning hatred? Geography clearly plays a crucial role in football feuds, but if was the only factor the most volatile game in the domestic football match would be rare League Cup ties between Nottingham Forest and Notts County.
Hatred springs eternal for a multitude of other reasons. Defeats in big games hurt more and linger for longer than the odd embarrassment in qualifiers. A proper target is needed, someone who typifies a perceived difference between cultures, a representative of traits we would like to define ourselves against (but secretly would love to possess).
Off-pitch matters clearly stir things further, as does when and how often the games have taken place. Scotland, England’s opponents on Friday, are often thought as the natural number one in any list. Are they really the ultimate enemies of the England football team or is that load of auld cobblers?
10. FRANCE
A mere 21 miles between our cliffs and their reasonably-priced booze warehouses but not a lot in the football history to stand out. France’s 2-1 victory in Euro 2004 was mildly spicy and certainly harsh on England, but they will always have Le Tournoi. Could be one to watch this summer but until now it's been fairly cordial, in football at least. Relationship is on safer ground with sport than it is over, to pick an example completely at random, fisheries.
Frequency of meetings: 5/10
Exits suffered in major tournaments: 0/10
Villains: 2/10
Non-football history: 8/10
Recency bias: 3/10
Overall score: 18/50
9. URUGUAY
Not much gnashing fury here, unless you count Luis Suarez. Had he not bitten Chiellini in 2014 but Gary Cahill things might have been different. Still, Uruguay are forever remembered as the nasty boys from 1966. Broke England's hearts by being better than them in 2014, also knocked them out of the 1954 World Cup. Still hurts. Flag and location easily confused for Argentina, which will stir any England fans with a poor knowledge of South American borders.
Frequency of meetings: 1/10
Exits suffered in major tournaments: 6/10
Villains: 8/10
Non-football history: 0/10
Recency bias: 4/10
Overall score: 19/50
8. WALES
Not a great deal of vitriol for such a close neighbour, at least not travelling in a north westerly direction over the Severn Bridge. Wales’s last win came in a 1984 home international, then we had to wait 20 years before another fixture. England’s undeserved Euro 2016 group game win felt like a relief rather than anything to crow about. Meanwhile in rugby, with better-matched teams, there’s a Six Nations game every year to stoke the flames. Swansea, Cardiff and Wrexham playing English teams every week and hearing the same hilarious jokes about sheep is where to find proper Anglo-Welsh football friction.
Frequency of meetings: 9/10
Exits suffered in major tournaments: 0/10
Villains: 2/10
Non-football history: 7/10
Recency bias: 2/10
Overall score: 20/50
7. REPUBLIC OF IRELAND
Plenty of England fans happily throw their support behind the Republic of Ireland at major tournaments which England aren’t involved in. Not sure that works both ways. Actually, scrub that, very sure it doesn’t. Been a while since we’ve had a World Cup 94 scenario, which may leave space for some new anger to spring up. Six draws between the countries after Ireland won in the 1988 Euros groups, but there were no games for 18 years after the aggro got all too real at Lansdowne Road in 1995.
Frequency of meetings: 7/10
Exits suffered in major tournaments: 0/10
Villains: 3/10
Non-football history: 9/10
Recency bias: 2/10
Overall score: 21/50
6. NORTHERN IRELAND
Have played England nine more times than Ireland (pre-1920) and ROI, but Northern Ireland have beaten England as many times, five. The memory of David Healy’s shock winner in a 2005 World Cup qualifier lingers, because it’s still the most recent meeting between the two countries. Football relationship somewhere between tolerant and mildly mistrustful, having never matched the intensity of non-sporting issues. For the best.
Frequency of meetings: 8/10
Exits suffered in major tournaments: 0/10
Villains: 3/10
Non-football history: 9/10
Recency bias: 2/10
Overall score: 22/50
5. HOLLAND
Surprisingly high placement for a nation which it was last easy for English people to truly hate in 1702. These days it’s hard to find much about Holland to make you angry, unless you’ve gone there in search of some good mountain biking. The World Cup qualifying campaign of 1992/93 is doing the heavy lifting here, especially the anger provoked by Ronald Koeman (jammy free kick! Should have been off! “The referee’s got me the sack!”). Euro 96 4-1 was sweet, the one win from nine games since less so. A major tournament meeting could get this going again.
Frequency of meetings: 3/10
Exits suffered in major tournaments: 0/10
Villains: 6/10
Non-football history: 7/10
Recency bias: 7/10
Overall score: 23/50
4. PORTUGAL
Flew up the charts after ending England’s stay at Euro 2004 then the World Cup two years later. Payback perhaps for depriving Eusebio of a World Cup final in 1966? Tough to know if this nascent rivalry will outlast the Cristiano Ronaldo era but he seems determined to play well into his sixties, so we could yet enjoy a few new chapters. If he winks at the bench again after getting Phil Foden sent off it may cause civil disobedience.
Frequency of meetings: 4/10
Exits suffered in major tournaments: 8/10
Villains: 8/10
Non-football history: 4/10
Recency bias: 8/10
Overall score: 32/50
3. SCOTLAND
Off-pitch enmity stretches back beyond the birth of football, although the sporting rivalry is thought to have originated when William Wallace kicked a pig’s bladder over Hadrian’s Wall and the English peasant on the other side refused to give it back. Rivalry probably peaked in 1977, broken crossbars and all. A sense the fans are the main thing each dislikes about the other, more than any particular player. A little too one-sided in recent years to clinch the top spot, but that could change on Friday. Have never really stopped playing one another, 114 games in total, which keeps hostility ticking over.
Frequency of meetings: 10/10
Exits suffered in major tournaments: 0/10
Villains: 6/10
Non-football history: 10/10
Recency bias: 8/10
Overall score: 34/50
2. ARGENTINA
A rivalry so feisty that England rarely play Argentina in friendly matches, presumably because they’d be anything but. Last meeting had to be held on neutral ground in a neutral country, Geneva the venue for a 3-2 England win which took John Motston to excitable new heights. Three words at the centre of the grudge: Falklands, Diego and Maradona. England have a mild edge in the footballing record, although Argentina have knocked them out of tournament contention twice to England’s once. Maradona may never be beaten as an English football antagonist.
Frequency of meetings: 2/10
Exits suffered in major tournaments: 8/10
Villains: 10/10
Non-football history: 8/10
Recency bias: 8/10
Overall score: 36/50
1. GERMANY
There’s a slightly lighter tone these days when England play Germany. Enough Wasser under the Brücke, enough time since the very bad things happened, a sense that despite our differing attitudes towards union memberships we’re not so different, du and I. But Germany have dumped England out of major tournaments four times, each more upsettingly than the last. Andreas Moller’s pompous celebration after the Euro 96 final, then having the temerity to nick Three Lions as their victory song ensure this one will run and run. The 2001 5-1 felt like an exorcism, the 4-1 World cup defeat in 2010 a reassertion of the natural order. Comfortably England’s most hated rivals. Unfortunately they may not feel the same way.
Frequency of meetings: 6/10
Exits suffered in major tournaments: 10/10
Villains: 8/10
Non-football history: 10/10
Recency bias: 9/10
Overall score: 43/50
