Unexpected international rivalries?

[Muuri]

By unexpected I mean between countries that are not close to each other geographically or dont have other ties in recent history.

I recall Netherlands and Czech Republic having sort of rivalry in early 2000s. They faced off in Euro 2000 and 2004 and plenty of qualifiers. The games were always great and competetive.
I suppose games like Argentiina vs. Germany and Netherlands vs. Spain could also count. First one has plenty of football history behind it though.

As for Finland, we have this weird rivalry with Hungary. They have traumatized the Finnish football fans on number of times ('97 being the most traumatic).

Any other examples?

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[Duchene2MacKinnon]

AFA vs Argentina, Mardona vs AFA vs Argentina. Messi vs Argentina vs AFA. Higuain vs buffet. All good choices.

 

[Power Man]

Messi vs leadership

 

[Albatros]

Meetings between South Korea and Iran are pretty intense, they have now 11 games in a row (since 2006) without either team scoring more than once. They've also been in the same World Cup qualification group three times in a row now.

 

[HajdukSplit]

I don’t know if English fans consider it but in Croatia matches with England are considered something of a rivalry as usually the matches have big implications and both sides have had their moments (Croatia eliminating England from Euro 2008 and the 2018 WC semis) while England were the main reason Croatia didn’t qualify for 2010 and why they were relegated in the NL

It doesn’t help that Cro players and media take everything the English media seriously, even the tabloid articles. I know the run up to 2018 semis bothered everyone (I was in Croatia at the time) with the feeling of England already looking forward to the final and they saw “football is coming home” as a big provocation

 

[Panteras]

USA vs Trinidad & Tobago....

 

[robertmac43]

Ghana v the US at the World Cup. They were in the same group in 06 and 2014, and met in the quarters in 2010. Never got violent but they were always intense important games.