On Saturday morning, a piece published by talkSPORT, ranked the biggest derbies in world football.
The ranking system is apparently based on two main criteria: ‘passion and ferocity.’
You would think that in the grand scheme of things, the Old Firm would feature very close to the top of any such rankings.
After all, Glasgow, as a city, is famous for the rivalry.
Yet, it seems talkSPORT see it otherwise.
Old Firm ranked twelfth
The list counts down the top 20, with Partizan Belgrade vs Red Star Belgrade, the first entry.
Clubs in Bolivia, Russia and Holland feature, before Celtic vs Rangers are slotted into twelfth position.
Therefore, they find themselves behind the likes of Benfica vs Sporting Lisbon, Everton vs Liverpool and Arsenal vs Tottenham.
Surely that’s inaccurate.
What’s worse though, are the reasons given for the ranking.
First, the summary references Rangers’s stint away from the top flight as reducing the number of matches between the clubs.
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Obviously, that’s a very dated notion, as derbies come thick and fast once again.
Even less informed explanations were to come, though.
“Yet their meltdown isn’t the only reason for an Old Firm being outside the top 10. This was a derby fairly recently graced by the likes of Paul Gascoigne, Brian Laudrup and Henrik Larsson. The competition for Celtic just isn’t there right now”, read the summary.
Ridiculous.
Clearly, talkSPORT didn’t hear about December’s result, nor the dominant nature of Rangers’s display on the day.
In fact, by the looks of this summary, they haven’t seen any Scottish football at all, for several years.
