Friday, April 27, 2007

10. Turkey vs. Greece

Background
Part religious, part regional, part national, part irrational - whatever the reasons may be, the final outcome is always the same - Turks and Greeks just straight up hate each other. I'm sure there are hundreds of historical reasons why they can't stand each other, but I'm too lazy to research them all (I need an assistant) - so it's enough for our purposes here just to say they hate each other. Perhaps that's being a little too general, not every Turk hates every Greek and vice versa, but by in large, this hating on one another seems to be true. And when you add soccer to this mix it's like gas on a fire.

Why This is a Great Rivalry
As in the case of Rangers and Celtic, it always makes for a great rivalry when opposing fans and players not only dislike one another but absolutely loathe each other. And when national pride, determined on a soccer pitch, is on the line everything gets ratched up another notch or two. Watch this clip and then see if you think the Turkish players who have the bottles, sticks and fireworks thrown at them think this rivalry is pretty intense:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDMCKGXZtKM&mode=related&search=

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