Steve McManaman believes there is no rivalry in world football to match that between Barcelona and Real Madrid in El Clasico.
The winger spent four years on the white half of the duel and speaking this week, revealed a belief that the games between Spain’s top two cannot be bettered for passion.
“When you play at the Camp Nou, certainly from when you play at home, everyone knows it is two factions within Spain – the Catalans against the Madridistas, Cataluna against Spain – their instant dislike for each other, their rivalry, their religion,” he told Goal.com this week.
“It’s a very strange match – fuelled by a long, long, centuries old divisive aim where, generally they dislike each other so much.
“There’s a lot of rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester United, certainly, and Liverpool and Everton, but I’ve never seen rivalry of this standard because of the nature of the political factions within Spain.”
