Before answering the question, `who are the main rivals of Real Madrid’? It is better, if you learn the history of this elite club. The club was initially founded as the Madrid football club in the year 1902. It played its first competitive match on 19th May, when it took part in the semi- final of the Campeonato de Copa de S.M. Alfonso X111. In 1920 it was renamed as Real (royal) when the club received a blessing from the king. La Liga which started in 1929 had Madrid as one of the main founding members.

The Club holds the records for the maximum UEFA Champions League, European cups and the La Liga titles. The club’s record maker was Manuel Sanchis Jr, who has made about 708 appearances from 1983 to 2001, after which he was replaced by Raul who made his 709th appearance representing the club in the UEFA Champions League against Olympique de Marseille on 30th September 2009. Real Madrid is one of the renowned team in Spanish football, historically it is Spain’s most victorious team, having won about 58 domestic trophies, 15 international trophies and it is considered one of the established football clubs in the world. They are the second winning team of Europe and they hold the third position internationally according to the records held by FIFA and UEFA. During the selection of FIFA 20th century clubs Real Madrid was placed in the first position. FIFA Order of Merit was also conferred to real Madrid in the year 2004. Adding one more feather to their achievements is the fact that they are permitted to adorn multiple winner badge on their shirt during UEFA Champions League matches since they have won more than five European cups.

Real Madrid has rivalries with other clubs and one of the main rivals is Barcelona. The two teams regularly contest the El Clasico. The other rivals of Real Madrid are Manchester City, Juventus, Sevilla, and Marseille. Recently Madrid has been extremely successful and it has the resource to buy the best players so as to make their team the most undisputed winner. It is more or less like no price tag is too big for the club. In 2000 they brought in one of the players from the rival team Barcelona, the next year they roped in the French wonder Zinedine Zidane from Juventus for a whopping amount. Later on they brought in Ronaldo in 2002 and then in 2003 David Beckham, England captain. Due to this policy of buying the best players at exorbitant amount to strengthen their squad has earned them a nick name of `Los Galacticos’.

The main rivals of Real Madrid are the ones with whom they hold matches so as to determine who the champion is. It is told that the Spanish football giant went deep into debt after shelling out money to rope in all the star players from various clubs, but they did this so that they could take away both the domestic as well as European titles from their arch rival Barcelona.