What to expect on a weekend when old rivalries will be reignited across Europe

It will kick off on Friday night with Lazio v Roma. Maybe in more than one sense of those words. No derby in the top European leagues in recent times has been more disorderly than the one in Serie A in the Italian capital between Lazio and Roma.

On Saturday in England in the Premier League there will be a Black Country derby between Wolves and West Bromwich and a west London derby between Fulham and Chelsea.

On Sunday there will be two games between teams who are unusually keen to outdo each other even though they do not come from the same conurbation: Liverpool v Manchester United in the Premier League and what is called the derby d’Italia in Serie A between Inter and Juventus.

So a weekend of rivalries of one sort or another.

What happens in games where passions can spill over? Sometimes they do. Card counts tend to go up. Whether they will rise as high without fans in the stadiums egging players on remains to be seen.

Here are some figures from the last 15 completed seasons, 2005-06 to 2019-20. They tell us what happened in the past and are a starting point for thinking about what might happen in the future – not the end point.

In most bookings markets each yellow counts as ten points and each red as 25 points. The average makeup in Premier League games was 36 points. In Manchester derbies between City and United it was 49, in Merseyside derbies between Everton and Liverpool it was 51, in north London derbies between Arsenal and Tottenham it was 52 and in Tyne-Wear derbies between Newcastle and Sunderland it was 55.

So, roughly speaking, make-ups were between a third and a half higher than in other Premier League games.

When Liverpool played Manchester United the average makeup was 48. There were other, less intense rivalries and for those makeups tended to be lower.

The average make-up in Serie A was 54. When Lazio played Roma it was 83, when Genoa played Sampdoria it was 80, when Inter played Milan it was 68 and when Juventus played Torino it was 61. So in those derbies makeups rose, in round numbers, by up to a half. In the derby d’Italia between Inter and Juventus the average makeup was 61.

Betis v Sevilla in La Liga in Spain was as rowdy as Lazio v Roma. The average make-up was also 83. In the Madrid derby between Atletico and Real it was 72. When Barcelona played city rivals Espanyol it was 68. They will not play in La Liga this season because Espanyol have been relegated but could do so again next season.

Barcelona v Real Madrid is one of those non-local rivalries, maybe the bitterest of them all. When Barcelona played Real Madrid the average makeup was 78. For ordinary La Liga games it was 61.

High-card rivalries are rarer in Germany and France. However the average bookings make-up in the Ruhr derby in Germany between Dortmund and Schalke was 54 and in the French Riviera derby between Monaco and Nice it was 63 (for other games in the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 it was 41).

For some derbies card counts varied with the venue. There was a tendency for make-ups to be highest at the ground of the team to whom it mattered most. Whether this will still be so in grounds without fans also remains to be seen.

Consider the Madrid derby between Atletico and Real. For most of the past 15 seasons it meant more to Atletico and their fans. When Real were at home the average bookings make-up was 64, when Atletico were at home it was 79.

Or the derby between Barcelona and Espanyol. This was more important to Espanyol. When Barcelona played at home the average bookings make up was 63, when Espanyol played at home it was 73.

We can see other examples of this phenomenon in capital cities with multiple derbies.

Atletico and Real are the best-known teams in Madrid, but at times over the past 15 seasons three other lesser-known teams from Madrid have also played in La Liga - Getafe, Leganes and Rayo Vallecano.

Getafe, Leganes and Rayo cared more about playing Atletico and Real than Atletico and Real cared about playing Getafe, Leganes and Rayo. When Getafe, Leganes or Rayo played away to Atletico or Real the average bookings make-up was 61. When they played at home it was 67.

There are even more derbies in the Premier League in London. Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham are the biggest London clubs. Smaller London clubs who played in the Premier League at times over the past 15 seasons are Charlton, Crystal Palace, Fulham and Queens Park Rangers. Somewhere in between come West Ham.

Take the top against the bottom. What happened when Arsenal, Chelsea or Tottenham played against Charlton, Palace, Fulham or QPR? When the bigger club were at home the average bookings make-up was 30. When the smaller club were at home the average bookings mak-eup was 37.

These rivalries are less keenly felt than many others, so card counts overall were lower – but they were as high as they went on the grounds of the teams for whom the match seemed at least to some extent out of the ordinary. West London derbies usually do not provoke high card counts, but make-ups tend to be higher, say, when Fulham host Chelsea than when Chelsea host Fulham.

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