Match of The Week: The Old Firm Derby - Celtic vs Rangers

There are many great derby games in the world of football. In Portugal, Benfica and Sporting Lisbon. In Italy, it's AS Roma and Lazio. Argentina's Boca Juniors against River Plate is always a fiery encounter, and there's no love lost between Rio's Flamengo en Fluminense, or for that matter, between the two giants of Turkish football, Galatasaray and Fenerbahce. In Holland, they even have a klassieker, literally a 'classic' between the top two sides, Feyenoord and Ajax.

But it is in Glasgow that you'll find one of the oldest, and most fiercely contested games derby games in world football today. The two teams involved are no longer the power they once where in world football, when, in the sixties and seventies Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers won European silverware as well as added to their already heady collection of domestic honours, but the rivalry that was created in the earlier part of the century has certainly not abated.

What makes the Glasgow derby stand out from the others is that the rivalry is based not just on economics (such as the Flamengo and Fluminense derby) or political (right-wing Lazio against left-wing Roma) or cultural (CSKA Sofia, the team of the intellectuals against Levski, the team of the working man), but a combination of some of those, with a dash of religion thrown in. Celtic, the team with the poor Irish, Catholic and republican background, against the rich Scots of Rangers, proudly protestant and nationalistic. East Glasgow against West Glasgow. Two successful teams in a large city, in a league they dominate alternately make for an extra bit of tension: getting one over the other side.

Its hard to believe that from the very first fixture, played in 1888 in such good spirit that one commentator at the time was inspired to write that the teams "got on so well that you would believe that they were old firm friends", the game has somehow mutated into the game it is now. The teams certainly started out with quite a close relationship playing many friendlies in front of huge gates. But like all good things, this relationship came to an end as the games became bitter, hard-fought encounters with pitch invasions, mass brawls, arrests and even deaths. An activist group that monitors sectarian activity in Glasgow has reported that on Old Firm weekends, admissions to hospital emergency rooms increase nine-fold over normal levels, and journalist Franklin Foer* noted that in the period from 1996 to 2003, eight deaths in Glasgow were directly linked to Old Firm matches.

With both of the sides back on top of the table, it's business as usual. Celtic won 3:0 last week against Falkirk while Rangers where unlucky to come away with only 1 point against Aberdeen on Saturday. Neither team is playing particularly well - Celtic's season only really got of to a start last week, while Rangers are grinding out results against teams they'd normally not have had too much bother with last season. Today's game is the 380th game between the two sides. Overall, Rangers have more wins (151) than Celtic (136), and last seasons games ended with two wins and two losses each with the wins coming for the home side on each occasion.

There's always something to make each game unique, and this one is no exception. In tomorrows game there will be two players on the pitch will be sure to get both sets of fans going. For Rangers, striker Kenny Miller will be expecting a tough time from the Celtic fans. Miller, a former Celtic as well as Rangers player is back in his second spell at the Gers. He is the first player to play for both sides of the Old Firm. Celtic will have Glenn Loovens playing for them today, a player that Rangers had been courting as a replacement for the departed Carlos Cuellar, but the 21-year-old Dutch defender decided to sign for Celtic in the aftermath of Rangers' exit from Europe, much to the annoyance of Walter Smith.

Old Firm games are not really noted for the quality of the football - rather, the games are physical and scrappy, with hard tackling and end-to-end excitement. Expect the usual flurry of yellow (and possibly the odd red) cards. It's hard to predict a winner, so we'll leave that to you. Leave a comment with your score prediction; we'll have a full review of the game on Monday.

Celtic vs Rangers
Celtic Park, Glasgow
Sunday, 31 August Kick-off: 1230

* Source: Wikipedia