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fans into Rio’s iconic Maracana stadium, while on the other side of the world the game in Kolkata in India between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal was watched by 131,000 supporters in 1997.
What makes the so-called ‘Derby of the Eternal Enemies’ in Greece between Olympiakos and Panathinaikos stand out is that no away fans are allowed in but Fourfourtwo says that there are “still plenty of riot police, fireworks and tear gas”.
The magazine’s Top 50 includes other well-known derbies like the ones between AC Milan and Inter Milan in Italy, Marseille and Paris St Germain in France, Borussia Dortmund and Schalke in Germany and Real Madrid v Barcelona in Spain along with Galatasaray and Fenerbahce, whose former manager Graeme Souness triggered a riot after he planted his club’s flag in the opposition’s pitch during an away game in 1996.
Souness, of course, experienced the red-hot atmosphere of two British derby games in his time with Rangers against Celtic and with Liverpool against Manchester United, matches which feature at No.3 No.7 respectively on the FourFourtwo top 50.
The other British derbies to figure are Spurs v Arsenal at No.20 and Portsmouth and Southampton at No.14, while the Sheffield United v Sheffield Wednesday scrapes in at 50.
But by far the most bizarre English derby included is the Newcastle v Sunderland game which ranks at No.24.
The magazine traces the hostility all the way back to pre-football times at the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 which was supported by people in Sunderland and opposed by loyalists in Newcastle.
Fourfourtwo says: “The footballing rivalry has veered from the banal to the barbaric. Some fans boycott bacon because it’s red and white or Sugar Puffs because Kevin Keegan advertised it, while others make the mutual hatred known more viscerally — and not just by the infamous 2013 punching of a police horse.”