Manchester United and Arsenal. They meet again.
The two teams, which share one of the longest-running and most passionate rivalries in the sport, were drawn to play each other in the fifth round of the FA Cup when the selections came out last Monday.
There are no ties, so only one of them will move on to the quarterfinals. The collective blood pressure of Man U and Arsenal fans will once again reach a boiling point as the top two teams in the Premier League meet on Feb. 16 in Manchester.
The match is the third one of its kind in the last 10 years. The first was in 1998 when the teams played in the semifinal of the FA Cup in a game that went into overtime, stayed level and had to be replayed. (The replay in a Cup semifinal has since been abolished.)
In the replay, Man U's Ryan Giggs scored what is often referred to as the greatest goal in the FA Cup history, giving his team the win and eventually the title. In 2005, the teams met in the final and again stayed level through overtime before Patrick Vierra gave Arsenal the victory in the penalty shootout.
Man U and Arsenal are among the top four main contenders for the title every year, along with Liverpool and Chelsea. The situation is not unlike the Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees phenomenon doubled - a fan of any one of these four must automatically hate the others, and the hatred is returned. In the past, the teams' fans might have sympathized with Liverpool because it's played amazing games, but the Reds have consistently finished third or fourth in recent years.
Any game combining two of these teams is always worth watching, although the end result - often a tie - disappoints more often than not. This is the draw of any game in the FA Cup: One of the Goliaths will have to lose.
Since England's First Division became the Premier League in 1992, Manchester United has won seven times, Arsenal three times and Chelsea twice. Liverpool has never won the Premier League (but won the First Division 18 times before the switch, the most of any club) and Blackburn is the only team not in "The Big Four"to win the Cup.
Any discussion of the Premier League rivalries prompts a foray into the broader world of who-hates-who in European soccer. Man U-Arsenal is among the most vitriolic rivalries in the game, but it is not the only one, and fans of any of the following four teams might disagree.
FC Barcelona and Real Madrid is one of the few rivalries that most Americans know about. The two teams dominate the Spanish Primera Liga every year and almost always provide the other's stiffest competition.
A unique feature of the Spanish league is the way it decides the winner if the top teams are tied. England's Premier League, as well as most others, takes goal differential into account. If two teams are tied, the one with a higher goal total wins. In Spain, however, the winner is decided by a head-to-head comparison, giving the edge to the winner of their regular-season game. Last year, Barcelona and Real Madrid were tied in number of points scored, but Real Madrid's regular-season edge - the teams had tied once and Real Madrid had won once - gave Real Madrid the championship.
Last year in England, Arsenal defeated Man U twice but had substantially fewer overall points. Man U won the title and Arsenal dropped to third behind Chelsea. But the weight of head-to-head competition in La Liga adds even more heat to the regular-season games. Bar?§a and Real Madrid hate each other because each game between them can decide whether they'll finish first or second.
There is also an added element of nationalism to this rivalry. Madrid, the nation's capital, is geographically and culturally the center of the Spanish state. Barcelona is the capital of Catalua, a semi-autonomous region along the French border that has historically been an area of insurrection and separatism. During the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, Bar?§a games were one of the only public places where Catalan, the regional language, could be spoken. FC Barcelona has come to embody much of the pride and even anti-Spanish sentiments of Catalan nationalists, which has added a twist to the rivalry.
This year, however, the Bar?§a-Real Madrid pressure cooker lost some of its steam. Real Madrid is dominating the entire league and is six points ahead of Barcelona.
Another rivalry, though less well-popularized in America, is that of Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique de Marseille. The French league is not as popular overseas as its Spanish and English counterparts, but its fans, like those of the clubs mentioned above, would sooner die than support the other team.
In a recent poll, the French were voted the rudest people in Europe - even by themselves - and non-Parisians always attribute classic French rudeness to Parisians. The rivalry between Paris and Marseilles, then, is much like that between Barcelona and Madrid - not just a game, but pride in one's city playing out on the field. And that might make these two rivalries even more entertaining than the one between the top two teams in the Premier League.
