McManaman: No bigger game than Clasico

5 October 2012 16:53

Steve McManaman believes Spain's El Clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona is the biggest game in football.

Barca and Real lock horns in La Liga for the first time this season on Sunday, with Jose Mourinho's reigning champions sitting eight points behind their rivals.

McManaman, who spent four years at Real Madrid, played in numerous derby encounters in his time in Spain, and said that the rivalry is unlike any other he has encounteres.

"When you play at Camp Nou, certainly from when you play at home, everyone knows it's two factions within Spain – the Catalans against the Madridistas, Catalunya against Spain – their instant dislike for each other, their rivalry, their religion," McManaman told Goal.com.

"It's a very strange match; fuelled by a long, long, centuries old divisive aim where, generally they dislike each other so much.

"There's a lot of rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester United, certainly, and Liverpool and Everton, but I've never seen rivalry of this standard because of the nature of the political factions within Spain."