Image by luigi diamanti /FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Some sport events have become renowned because of a rivalry between teams from the same city or because there was a previous rivalry between the cities where the teams were later created. Today we present you some of the most important rivalries in football:

Argentina: When Boca Juniors and River Plate play, everything stops in Buenos Aires. There are other famous derbies in Argentina, like Independiente-Racing, San Lorenzo-Huracán, Rosario Central-Newell’s Old Boys and Estudiantes-Gimansia

Brazil: The Flu-Fla is one of the main two derbies in Rio de Janeiro, having Flamengo and Fluminense match forces in legendary Maracana Stadium. The other Rio derby was born in the water as it comes from a rowing rivalry between Flamengo and Vasco da Gamma. There are other derbies in Brazil, like the Grêmio - Internacional in Porto Alegre or the Corinthians-Palmeiras in Sao Paulo.

England: The inventors of football have several traditional rivalries: Manchester United - Chelsea is one that has become popular in the last years but there are older derbies: Manchester City and Manchester United, Everton and Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and Manchester United… The list could go on and on.

Italy: In Milan the derby is Internazionale - AC Milan, in Rome: Lazio - AS Roma and in Turin: Juventus and Torino.

Portugal: Benfica and Porto translate to the football field the rivalry between the most populated cities in the country: Lisbon and Porto. “Eagles” and “Dragons” have been playing against each other since 1912.

Spain: Barcelona and Real Madrid are among the top ten clubs in the world and they face each other at least twice a year in the “Liga”.

Uruguay: In Montevideo, Peñarol and Nacional have one of the longest-running rivalries in football, and the longest-running outside the UK.

HomeForHome has users registered in every one of these places, so you may want to check the sports schedule before you set your availability calendar for next year’s home exchanges.

You probably noticed that we left out a few important events in our last post. Well, we had a good reason: we were saving them for this post

The World Marathon Majors - Since 2006, the marathons held in Berlin (September), Boston (April), Chicago (October), London (April) and New York City (November) award points to win the World Marathon Majors series. Additionally, the Olympic Games Marathon and the World Championship Marathon also award points, but only the best four finishes of each athlete count for the series’ final results.

Marathons in spectacular settings:
– the Safaricom Marathon in Kenya allows you to run in the wild.
– the Athens Classic Marathon.
– the Antarctica Marathon - we probably won’t be able to help you find accommodation through home exchange
– the Antarctic Ice Marathon & 100k, like for the above event we won’t assure a HomeForHome exchange partner in (or near) this destination.
– the North Pole Marathon.
– the Polar Circle Marathon in Greenland.
– the Great Wall Marathon in China.
– the Big Five Marathon in South Africa.
– the Easter Island Marathon
– the Solar Eclipse Marathon, this unique marathon will start in Four-Mile Beach (Port Douglas, Australia) during the solar eclipse that will occur November 14, 2012.

The Grand Slam - to complete the “Grand Slam” is one of the greatest accomplishments a tennis player can achieve, the four Major tennis tournaments take place in four countries: Australia, England, France and the United States, clearly an opportunity for a “Home Exchange Grand Slam”

The Seven Continents Club - this is an interesting club that awards runners a medal when they complete the challenge of finishing a marathon in each of these continents: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania and South America. If your challenge is to use your passport in the seven continents, HomeForHome may be your best option.

Image by Tina Phillips / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Tri-Nations - the three best rugby teams from the Southern Hemisphere compete in this annual tournament: Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Many of these sports events are accompanied with other activities like concerts, fan zones or closing parties, so even if you are not a participant or your team is not there, you can still have some fun.

Many cities organize important events in an effort to receive more visitors every year. Many of such events are sport events and today we would like to invite you to join us in a journey through several cities that host relevant sport events. Maybe your city is in our list and you can include an event in your home description, maybe you would consider arranging a swap to one of these cities to participate or attend an event, or maybe you would find a city you didn’t consider before as a home exchange preferred destination that would get you interested.

Events in the USA:

Image by Arvind Balaraman /FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Basketball - The most famous basketball league, the NBA has over 1,000 games every season. Some of the main cities: New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami, Orlando, San Antonio, Chicago, Dallas… Beautiful cities to watch a great game.

Marathons - Three events from the World Marathon Majors are held in the USA:
– Boston - Next year’s edition of the Boston Marathon, the 115th, will be held on April 18th.
– Chicago - It usually takes place in October and it flat course is giving it preference among participants wishing to improve their personal records.
– New York City - The New York City Marathon (next edition to be held November 6th, 2011) is one of the marathons with the largest attendance, with more than 100,000 applicants every year, over 40,000 participants and nearly 2 million spectators cheering during the race.

Ice Hockey, American Football and Baseball are other sports you can attend while in the United States.

Events in Europe:

Berlin - The next edition of the Berlin Marathon (http://www.berlin-marathon.com/), which will be number 38, will take place on September 25th, 2011. With almost 300 users from Berlin registered in HomeForHome, it seems like it could be a good alternative for a Marathon+Swap combination. Also, Germany has finished among the top 4 in the last 3 FIFA World Cups, so any city with a Bundesliga team would be a great place to catch a good football game.

London - It seems like London is going to be the capital of sports as it prepares for the 2012 Olympic Games (more info in http://www.london2012.com/). In 2011 the UEFA Champions League Final will be held in London’s Wembley Stadium. Other sport events that take place in London every year are Wimbledon and the London Marathon.

Paris - There are several sport events that take place in Paris, we are going to highlight the Paris Marathon and Roland Garros (we have written other posts about this tennis tournament: Tennis Fever in Paris) but there are also rugby and football teams that play their games in the capital every year.

Spain - No need to say that Spain has the lead in registered homes in HomeForHome, so if you also like running and would like to make a Home Exchange+Marathon combo, here we have a couple of options:

– Marató de Barcelona (next March) -  There’s also an interesting photography contest for those that want to combine their artistic skills with the running.
– Seville City Marathon (next February) - More information in the Official Website (English version)

More sports near your next swap will come in future posts.

A week from today a huge sport event will be starting in South Africa: the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Thirty-two teams, representing nations from all continents will compete to become the world champion of football. The championship will last about a month and the games will be watched by millions of people worldwide, since it has the record of being the most watched sporting event in the world, even over the Olympic Games.

I got curious to learn if HomeForHome had listings from all the participating countries. What do you think? Will you venture a guess?

Here goes what I found:

1. Spain: 5118
2. France: 4032
3. Italy: 1764
4. England: 621
5. Germany: 542
6. United States: 480
7. Australia: 110
8. Argentina: 101
9. Switzerland: 64
10. Mexico: 48
11. Portugal: 48
12. Brazil: 27
13. Chile: 25
14. Netherlands: 20
15. Algeria: 18
16. Uruguay: 9
17. Denmark: 7
18. New Zealand: 7
19. Greece: 5
20. Paraguay: 3
21. Serbia: 3
22. Cote d’Ivore: 2
23. Japan: 2
24. South Africa: 1
25. South Korea: 1
26. Honduras: 1
27. Slovakia: 1
28. Cameroon: 0
29. Ghana: 0
30. Nigeria: 0
31: North Korea: 0
32: Slovenia: 0

Almost! Only but a few of the countries that qualified to the final round of the 2010 FIFA World Cup do not have someone willing to do home exchange through HomeForHome.

Now, Spain took the lead a long time ago in the number registered swappers, do you think HomeForHome will bring Spaniards luck in the football field? Since they are among the favourites, we’ll just have to wait and see.