Non-football oval-shaped thread

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Newport County are a perfect example of that. City fans tend to watch out for their score and root for them and applaud them when they do well like giant killing in the cup and presently in the league, yet their supporters hate City.
So you're right, that isn't rivalry but I don't know what the heel it is.

Describing us and England as having a "rivalry" in football is a bit embarrassing because they couldn't care less about us. During Euro 2016 a lot of my English friends were genuinely surprised at how much we wanted them to lose when they were rooting for us to do well.

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Describing us and England as having a "rivalry" in football is a bit embarrassing because they couldn't care less about us. During Euro 2016 a lot of my English friends were genuinely surprised at how much we wanted them to lose when they were rooting for us to do well.

I have heard that Germany feel the same way and consider their rivalry with the Dutch. Is it really a rivalry if one team is so much more successful than the other?

On the other hand, people in England generally know so little about relationship with Wales (Scotland/Northern Ireland/Ireland) whereas we know a bit more about it, although not always seeing as our media is still mostly from an English perspective and apathy or self-negativity is too often a national trait. How many know for example that time our anthem was banned at Wembley?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wal...t-12351782.amp

Do things like that mean we have a different view on it whereas lots of them didn't know we existed before 2016? Still, Southgate used the Welsh corner routine in Russian World Cup and credited spending time scouting rugby and basketball without mentioning us and English pundits always quick to point out English born Welsh players whereas they don't do similar for their stars so maybe there is something coming back from that side? Them not wanting us to win isn't the only way it can manifest itself.

Let's be honest though I) the English FA's job is to make England successful and they're quite alright pretending Wales (or a anyone else) doesn't exist if that improves their odds and that can include overriding any thoughts of any potential rivalry and ii) sports rivalry is slowly changing so now more about us winning more trophies rather than having an empty fixture against a neighbour which is a cup final in emotion only. That might change again in a political climate where some Welsh/non-Welsh who don't want Wales to exist in any real way and those who want it be more confident and defined and these smaller things might become more important.