The matches worth a trip.

Barcelona are back-to-back champions, and they clinched last season's title by beating Real Madrid. Madrid's reply was to bring José Mourinho back to the Bernabéu: the biggest rivalry in football, with its most combustible manager back in the middle of it.

Hamburg, 'der Dino,' ever-present in the Bundesliga until 2018, clawed back to the top flight last season after seven years down, restoring one of Germany's oldest, angriest rivalries. The Nordderby is a fixture again, and it lost none of its venom.

Schalke won promotion, so the Revierderby is back in the Bundesliga for the first time since 2023: the most feverish rivalry in German football, thirty miles of the Ruhr that stop speaking to each other for a week. Don't miss anything else here before you miss this.

Two clubs heading opposite ways. City open the post-Guardiola era under Enzo Maresca, while United arrive resurgent under Michael Carrick and back in the Champions League. Telling that neither is champion: Arsenal ended a 22-year wait for that.

Celtic won a fifth straight title and the double with 74-year-old Martin O'Neill coaxed out of retirement. Rangers finished third, behind Hearts, and hired Hearts' own Derek McInnes to close the gap. Britain's fiercest derby, as raw as ever.

Roma didn't just beat Lazio twice last season, they humiliated them, winning the first derby against ten men and closing the year with a Mancini brace. Gasperini has Roma back in the Champions League while Lazio try to prove the derby is still a contest.

Porto are champions again. Benfica watched them lift it, then lost José Mourinho to Real Madrid. O Clássico, Portugal's biggest match, both giants recalibrating.

Both Lisbon giants spent last season chasing the Porto team that took their crown, and both are rebuilding, Benfica after Mourinho's exit to Madrid. O Dérbi still splits the capital.

The pecking order flipped last season: Manchester United did the double over Liverpool, Kobbie Mainoo's late winner sealing their Champions League return. England's grandest rivalry, with United resurgent for the first time in years.

PSV ran off with the Eredivisie while Ajax endured a season to forget and scraped into Europe through a playoff. De Topper, with the balance of Dutch power tilted hard toward Eindhoven.

A reset Klassieker. Ajax were humbled to fifth and are rebuilding under a brand-new manager, while Feyenoord finished as the strongest challenger to champions PSV. An early referendum on which neighbour is actually going somewhere.

The derby has a new home. After 130 years and 120 meetings at Goodison Park, Everton now host Liverpool at their dock-side stadium. A mile apart, a fixture as tense as any in England, moved to fresh ground.

Derek McInnes won Aberdeen the League Cup across eight years as their manager, and now walks back into Pittodrie in the away dugout, as the Rangers boss. His new side won all three meetings last season. Aberdeen have every reason to make the reunion hostile.

Sunderland's return ended a near-decade exile for the Tyne-Wear derby, and in their first season back they did the double over Newcastle, 1-0 then 2-1. Now the Magpies want the city back. No fixture in England runs on more raw contempt.

The old Clásico with a new-old face: José Mourinho is back in the Real Madrid dugout for the first time in over a decade. Across the pitch, an Athletic side that just returned to the Champions League and, pointedly, kept Nico Williams out of Barcelona's hands. Madrid did the double at San Mamés and the Bernabéu last season.

The perfect grudge-swap. Spalletti, who ended Napoli's 33-year title wait, is now in the Juventus dugout; Allegri, Juve's five-time title-winner, now runs Napoli. Each man walks out to face the club he made his name at.

The Basque derby is the rare fixture where both sets of fans share bars before kickoff and sing at each other afterwards. San Mames delivers the noise either way, and the txuri-urdin travel in numbers.

Red Star against Partizan turns Belgrade into a wall of flares, and the rival fans walk the same streets to reach two grounds sitting almost within sight of each other. The Marakana on derby night is a sensory overload few stadiums anywhere can match.

Austria Wien owned the derby last season, three wins and a draw, with Rapid failing to win a single one of the four meetings. The 350th edition, a 2-0 for Austria, bumped them above Rapid in the final table. Rapid arrive with a year of derby humiliation to answer.

Torino clawed back a two-goal deficit to draw 2-2 in the season finale, one of two derby draws that took two points off a stumbling Juventus last term. The Turin derby, with the little club emboldened and the giant still mid-rebuild.

A three-act season that ended in role-reversal cruelty. Champions Porto took the opening Clássico; Sporting's revenge was dumping them out of the Taça semi-final at the Dragão, only to lose the final itself to a second-tier club. Bad blood and mutual embarrassment.

Two 0-0 draws last season, and the story has shifted underneath the fixture. Allegri has left Milan for Napoli, Milan restart under Rúben Amorim, Juventus under Spalletti. Two fallen giants rebuilding, both with a point to prove.

A revenge arc in a single season. Lyon mugged ten-man Marseille with a late own goal in August; Aubameyang tore it back with two goals in the final nine minutes to win 3-2 at the Vélodrome. The series finished level, both games decided at the death, a Champions League place riding on it.

They finished second and third and traded blows: Napoli won in Rome to go joint-top, Roma led twice in a 2-2 at the Maradona. Both turned on an old wound, Leonardo Spinazzola, the ex-Roma full-back, scoring against his former club yet again.

They split last season one win each, but Standard's 2-0 in February is the one that mattered: it got Anderlecht's manager sacked the same day. A financially battered Standard, rebuilt after exiting the 777 Partners ownership mess, showed it can still wreck Anderlecht's season.

The War of the Roses is a Premier League fixture again: Leeds against Manchester United, Yorkshire against Lancashire, a grudge older than either club and one of English football's most venomous.

Wisla and Cracovia sit a short walk apart across the Blonia meadow, and Krakow spends the week beforehand holding its breath. The name Holy War is not marketing.

Fiorentina drew at home and then won 2-0 in Turin last season, and their old boy Rolando Mandragora scored against his former club in both meetings. Add the eternal Vlahović grudge and it's Viola-versus-traitor theatre every time.

Köln's promotion last season restored the Rheinderby, and it delivered: Gladbach won the reunion 3-1, then couldn't hold a 3-3 barnburner in the 100th Bundesliga meeting. Gladbach had the better of it, but the second game showed Köln will trade blows, and the oldest rivalry in the Rhineland is lively again.

The Adriatic derby brings Torcida up the coast to Rujevica, a compact bowl above the sea that gets seriously loud for Hajduk's visit. Coastal bragging rights matter more here than points most seasons.

Croatia's eternal derby, Split against the capital, with Torcida turning the Poljud's sweeping concrete shells into a cauldron. Tickets move fast and the north stand is a spectacle in itself.

Budapest's defining football argument, Ferencvaros green against Ujpest violet. The Groupama Arena makes an intimidating stage for it, and the away allocation always travels.

Nico Williams turned Barcelona down to stay in Bilbao, a public snub to the champions, then watched Barça beat Athletic home and away, the San Mamés game settled by Lamine Yamal, the teenager Barça built around instead of him. The one who stayed against the one they kept.

Seville splits house by house, half the city in red and white, half in green and white, and nobody stays neutral. The derby runs at an intensity the rest of La Liga rarely touches.

Romania's eternal derby carries decades of army club against police club, and Bucharest treats it as the fixture of the year. Whatever the table says, neither side dares lose this one.

Prague's football week revolves around Letna and Eden, and when the two meet the city picks a side. Expect pyro, a full away end, and a tram network wearing scarves.

The Derby of Poland pits Legia's Zyleta against Lech's travelling Kociol, two stands that plan their choreography months in advance. Warsaw on this night is not subtle.

Barça signed Espanyol's own academy keeper Joan García off his release clause, then he kept a clean sheet against his boyhood club as the champions swept both derbies. The one they lost to the rich neighbour is now the derby's live nerve.

Two of the capital's big three in a rivalry with deep communist-era roots. Tirana's support treats every edition as a chance to remind Dinamo whose city this is.

Slovenia's eternal derby, purple Maribor against green Ljubljana, and the Ljudski vrt's Viole make it feel far bigger than the league around it.

Sofia's eternal derby needs no table context: Levski blue against CSKA red is the fixture Bulgarian football measures itself by, and the flare shows arrive regardless of form.

Bayern won the Bundesliga again and the gap to Dortmund only seems to grow. Der Klassiker has become less a title decider than Dortmund's shot at finally landing a blow on Harry Kane's Bayern.

They met at Wembley in last season's FA Cup semi-final, Enzo Fernández settling it 1-0 to send Chelsea to the final and Leeds home gutted. Layer that onto a grudge forged in the mud of the 1970 final and the league meeting has a fresh score to settle.

The Derby du Nord is mining-country football, two towns forty kilometres apart with a century of shared history and none of the warmth. Bollaert away days are famous for a reason, and Lille's reply is not quiet.

Galatasaray against Fenerbahçe splits Istanbul across the Bosphorus, Europe versus Asia, and reliably produces one of the most hostile atmospheres in world football.

Tirana's old army club against the old interior ministry club, a rivalry inherited from another Albania that still packs out whichever ground in the capital hosts it.

Partizani against Tirana is the capital's headline fixture, red against the blue and white of the club locals just call Tirona, in a city where allegiance runs through families.

The Paris derby is a fixture again after Paris FC's promotion ended a 46-year absence, and the LVMH-backed newcomers made their return count: two wins in three against Qatari PSG last season, dumping them out of the Coupe de France and beating the champions on the final day. Two clubs a street apart, no longer a novelty.

PSG arrive as back-to-back kings of Europe, having beaten Arsenal in the final, and French champions again. Marseille, the eternal challenger, just want to make Le Classique a contest.

Inter are reigning Serie A champions. Milan have handed their rebuild to Rúben Amorim, straight from his short, unhappy spell at Manchester United. Two clubs sharing the San Siro and nothing else.

Club Brugge sealed a twentieth Belgian title and steamrolled Anderlecht in the championship play-offs, 4-2 then 3-1, after Anderlecht had drawn first blood in the autumn. Anderlecht churned through three coaches last season and arrive desperate to prove the gap on the champions has closed.

Slovakia's defining rivalry, Trnava against the capital, with away followings that travel in numbers few leagues this size produce. Expect heavy pyro and a bouncing home curve.

Little-brother Sparta went to De Kuip and won a seven-goal thriller 4-3, after being smashed 4-0 in the first meeting, Feyenoord's most embarrassing home result of a runners-up season. Rotterdam's other derby suddenly has bite.

The Zurich derby is a ground-share affair, Grasshopper and FCZ both calling the Letzigrund home, so the away end is a home end with different flags. The city splits along lines that have nothing to do with the table.

The Cote d'Azur derby is the Riviera's one genuinely spiky fixture, and the away trip is a coastal train ride between the two grounds. Nice bring the noise; Monaco bring the setting.

Valencia's city derby sends Mestalla's support across town to Orriols, where the Ciutat de Valencia packs in tight and Levante relish the role of neighbourhood upstart.

Max Eberl spent fourteen years building Borussia Mönchengladbach and now runs Bayern as their sporting director, so every meeting is Eberl against the club he made. On the pitch it is lopsided, Bayern taking all six points last season, but a rebuilding Gladbach keep trying to land a blow on the empire their old architect commands.

Arsenal battered Tottenham 4-1 twice on their way to a first title in 22 years. For Spurs, the north London derby has become the fixture that measures how far ahead their neighbours have pulled.

Atlético put five past Real Madrid the last time this got serious, Julián Álvarez's free kick the pick of them, the first time they had scored five in the derby in 75 years. Now José Mourinho takes over the visitors' dugout for the return.

Barely a mile of Thames path separates Craven Cottage from Stamford Bridge, so this is a derby fans can walk between. The Cottage's riverside setting is one Chelsea's ground cannot answer.