The meeting of La Liga’s two biggest teams is always a massive occasion, but how big is it compared to similar clashes in other leagues? We did the maths…
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FC Barcelona versus Real Madrid. The biggest club fixture in world football. At least that’s how we think of El Clásico.
But many claim that games like Celtic v Rangers, Boca v River, Al Ahly v Zamalek and others are just as big. So we thought we’d do some investigating and find out how much the rivalry, grandeur, importance and sheer quality of our Clásico stand up against similar fixtures around the world.
Clásico … not a derby
Barça v Madrid has only been called ‘El Clásico’ since around the turn of the century, when the term was imported from Latin America.
It’s important to note that it is not the same thing as a ‘derby’. Newcastle v Sunderland, Sevilla v Betis, San Lorenzo v Huracan … and indeed Barça v Espanyol and Real Madrid v Atlético … are all great fixtures in their right, but that’s not what a ‘Clásico’ is all about. It’s not about local rivalries; it refers to a meeting between the two ‘giants’ of a given championship.
The Big Two?
There is absolutely no question that that is the case with FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Between them, the two clubs have won 20 of the last 25 editions (80%) of La Liga.
So how does that duopoly compare with other leagues? We took the two most successful sides in the last 25 editions of every one of the world’s domestic leagues to see how they measure up to Barça and Madrid in terms of dominance.
As many countries have a single club that wins the league more often than not, we found the most accurate representation of a ‘big two’ was to rank them by the number of leagues won by the second most successful club. Note that in Latin American countries that have an ‘opening’ and ‘closing’ championship, we counted each title as a half
