It’s not only about Real and Barca

Sociedad - Athletic

All Spanish football fans know how big the clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Valencia are. Their matches are always labeled as big derbies out of which the most interesting are between first three mentioned clubs. Partly because of the number of titles won, partly because of the huge army of fans, Real, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid are considered the biggest clubs.  On the other hand, these facts should be taken as relative since the history of Spanish football saw Valencia move slightly ahead of red-white from Madrid after the more successful last decade. Few people know that third most successful club in Spain is the namesake of Madrid colchoneros, Athletic from Bilbao. Spain is a big country with a lot of big cities and many very old clubs. Many of them have lasted a century already so we will use this opportunity to fill our readers in with some less known details about football clubs in Spain. When talking about the great rivalries between the clubs in Spain, you must know that they often have social-political background.

Actually, Spain as the country with long football tradition and as the country where this sport found very fertile soil, has for a long time been the battlefield of class and social clashes between the traditionally very rich aristocracy and bourgeois on one hand, and extremely poor working class on the other. Football was a way of organizing youth that strived for a better life and modern country. Similar to Italy, France and even pre-war Yugoslavia, football clubs were often the refugee for the „cast-aways” of the society and a way out for promoting new ideas. Spanish civil war (1936-1939), a tragic event that has very much determined the harsh destiny of the country in the last forty years, only added up to some rivalries.

If we tried to categorize derbies according to the motives we could find political, class, regional and national derbies. The special case is with city derbies, the most famous out of which are Real – Atletico, Sevilla – Betis and Barcelona -Espanyol. However, our aim is to turn your attention to some recently forgotten matches between the clubs whose importance is not so big anymore due to the globalization and the inability of the clubs to keep up with the financial power of the biggest cities.

San Sebastian

In the times while football was still „pure“, And the clubs were more or less the representatives of their regions and home towns, while the most of the player were from the club alone or the region itself, while the transfers were not as high paid as today, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid didn’t get their titles so easy, although all of these three have changed places on the top during the 60s, 70s and 80s. Two clubs that gave them hard time and heroically put an end to the domination of the clubs from two biggest cities were Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad, both Basque clubs, from Bilbao and San Sebastian that are only 90 kilometres away from each other. In three seasons from 1980 to 1982, they won three straight championships, Athletic Bilbao won two and Real Sociedad one. The rivalry of these two clubs is the best in Spain as it is the only one with friendly character. Is it because of the similar destiny, the Basque ethnical identity that was oppressed during Franco’s clerofascist dictatorship. Both last and this year Primera were denied of wonderful games, these derbies that are among five greatest. There have never been seen some serious incidents between the fans as these two clubs actually don’t have fanatic and radical fans. The fans are housewives and high school kids, students and pensioners. It is well-known that whole families go to see these derbies and it often happens that a family is divided between two clubs. That is what makes football wonderful and it is truly amazing to see armies of red-white fans of Athletic and blue-white fans of Real Sociedad meeting in bars before the game. We should mention that there is no fanatic cheering; there are always verbal clashes but nothing more. The self-control is incredible and it can only be the example to many radical groups that often come to the stands as if they are coming to medieval duels where football is often put aside.

Gijon old town

A similar thing can be said for the rivalry of two historic clubs from the north of Spain. Sporting Gijon that are back in Primera after ten years have great rivalry with their neighbours from Oviedo. Real Oviedo are now in the second league and these two clubs have gone eleven years without playing against each other. Gijon and Oviedo are only 34 kilometres apart but the difference between these two cities is huge. Oviedo is an old medieval town, political and historical centre of Asturia, the region that has special historical significance for Spain. Oviedo is the centre of an archdiocese and a strong University centre and generally speaking is a place of tradition and somewhat conservative views. On the other hand, Gijon have for centuries been a small fisherman’s place that started to grow from the mid-90s and it became one of the biggest industry centres in Northern Spain. As a seaside city, it is the centre of shipbuilding and Gijon became known in Europe for their great music rock festivals, beautiful and huge beach. This town is a traditional left-wing stronghold in Spain, something like Bologna or Livorno in Italy. When Sporting and Oviedo play, it is actually a clash of two political options, conservatives and the leftists, workers and the priests, young rebellions and traditional order. Of course these distinctions shouldn’t be taken literally, but whoever had the chance to visit both if these towns or meet their inhabitants, knows what we are talking about.

This would in short be some of the less famous derbies that marked the history of Spanish football. Many excellent raised in Athletic, Real Sociedad, Sporting or Oviedo spent their best days with the arch-rivals. They also deserve some attention, as they show the beautiful side of football thus being the alternative to the ever winners.

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