By Kelechi Deca
Football rivalries is as old as football, but it is assuming a newer, worrying dimension especially with the idol worshipping, cult influence of this age which has led to fans temporarily suspending their reasoning capacities and embrace deeply dug-in dogmatic positions that make ‘bomb throwin’ religious fundamentalists look like kindergarten kids.
Whenever the talk of football rivalry takes centre-stage, many people only think about family ingrained feuding battle between Boca Juniors and River Plate of Argentina, Celtic and Rangers in Scotland, Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, Al Ahly and Zamalek in Egypt, and Inter Milan versus AC Milan in Italy.
However, some of the bitterest feuds belong to small clubs such as London’s rivalries between Millwall and West Ham United or Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur. Millwall and West Ham is one of the most historical of all rivalries because they share a fierce, deep-rooted hatred born in the 19th century out of competing East London dockworkers.
There are also irreconcilable individual rivalries that run deeper than the veins and deposited in the bone marrow.
For example, Chelsea legend John Terry and Wayne Bridge. Very close friends that side-by-side for Chelsea and the English national team but their relationship was completely beyond repair when Terry had an affair with Bridge’s ex-fiancée.
Another bitter one is that of Mauro Icardi and Maxi López . Two friends and teammates at Sampdoria, who watched helplessly as their friendship got torn apart when Icardi began a relationship with López’s wife, Wanda Nara. Why na?
What of the “enmity” between Kevin De Bruyne (KDB) and Thibaut Courtois, the Belgian goalkeeper? In 2012, De Bruyne’s girlfriend Caroline Lijnen cheated on him with Courtois. Who would have believed that Courtois who looks so plain like a monk and physically uninteresting like a shepherd would nurse such a deep longing for his pal’s girlfriend? Well David was a shepherd too, and Bathsheba was his friend’s wife.
Despite the explosive off-pitch scandal, they kept a professional relationship to play together for the Belgium national football team for over a decade. But in 2023, their relationship deteriorated when Courtois abruptly left a training camp because De Bruyne was named the team captain. Till date, both avoid speaking personally but remain strictly professional teammates when forced to share the pitch
Football is not ordinary football. Maybe you do not know that El Salvador and Honduras fought a brief war in July 1969 which led to the death of over 2000 people in what is famously called the “Football War”.
Let me help you here. In 1968, thousands of people from El Salvador moved to Honduras in search of greener pastures, and this time, it was just greener pastures because they went in search of farmland. But Honduras passed land laws to kick the Salvadorans out, creating huge anger between the two countries.
So in June 1969, both countries played each other in a series of World Cup qualifying matches, and the games caused intense riots and fan violence. And on July 14, 1969, the El Salvador Army attacked Honduras. The war lasted for only 100 hours, but nearly 2,000 people were killed.
Why am I taking you through this rigmarole?
It appears that the feud between Roy Keane and the Haaland family will end in the grave as there seems to be no thaw to it. This enmity began in 1997 with a match between Leeds United and Manchester United, where Roy Keane, then playing for Manchester United, lunged to tackle Alf-Inge Haaland who was playing for Leeds United.
Keane tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and screamed in agony on the pitch as Aif-Inge Haaland stood over an injured Keane, accused him of faking the injury to avoid a booking, and told him to get up.
Then four years later, in 2001 when baby Erling Haaland was less than a year old, Manchester City was playing Manchester United and Aig-Inge Haaland had moved to City then. Roy Keane, having waited for his opportunity, launched a brutal, knee-high studs-up tackle directly into Haaland’s right leg.
He received a red card and was suspended and fined heavily after confessing in his autobiography that the tackle was completely premeditated as an act of revenge. That was the beginning of a trans-generational feud that started in the pitch.
During this 2026 World Cup Keane ( everyone knows how he is), frequently criticizes Erling Haaland while working as a television pundit, calling him a “spoiled brat” and comparing him to a lower-tier player.
After Norway lost to England in the World Cup Quarter-finals, Alf-Inge Haaland went on social media to claim Norway had been “robbed” by the officials and Keane fired back on his podcast, suggesting that Haaland’s father was intoxicated during the matches. Aif-Inge Haaland responded that a Pri**k would always be a Pri**K.