Apollo Creed in Rocky isn’t a bad guy. He’s a flamboyant champion giving a no-name a shot at the title but he just doesn’t expect it to be a challenge at all and is pretty surprised to discover in the ring that Rocky is really serious about beating him.
The slow clap isn’t used to redeem villains! It’s for when the protagonist falls short, but gave such a courageous performance that he won over an audience otherwise inclined to root against him.
There were no douchebag rivals in Bang the Drum Slowly. Most of the antagonism came from their own teammates.
Actually, I think Bring It On is a clever lampshade of the whole “evil team in opposition to the plucky underdogs” trope. Dunsts’ team are the rich powerhouse badguys who dress in black and were riding on their reputations made by cheating. Its like all the other movies made from the perspective of the d-bags.
I think all the Rocky movies did a pretty good job establishing that bad guys weren’t really all bad, and they did it without any cheesy moments of generosity or comradery between them and Rocky. Well, maybe Tommy Gunn really turned bad, but I can’t recall.
In Bend It Like Beckham the Hounslow Harriers compete against several other women’s teams, there’s no recurring “rival”. There’s no conflict between teams off the field. After one game the Harriers and their opponents are even seen at the same dance club together. I’m not sure if they’re supposed to be the same people within the context of the film, no one says “Hey, let’s all be good sports and go dancing with the other team!”, but in the director’s commentary it is stated that the real-life athletes playing the opposing team were used as extras in the club sequence.
There is an instance of bad behavior from a member of an opposing team – during one game a player uses an ethnic slur against the Indian heroine of the film – but it isn’t suggested that the whole opposing team is racist or anything.
I think the 1966 film Grand Prix would qualify, virtuallt all the main protagonists are decent, the enemy is the track.
In Victory with Michael Caine, Sly Stalone, Pele, etc. the opposing team was all right, the guys in charage were stinkers, however.
In the original Longest Yard (I have refused to see the newer one), while the opposing team of guards started out bad, by the end, they were OK.
Ivan Drago wasn’t a bad guy at all, but Clubber Lang (Mr. T) is a major league asshole who insults people for no other reason than being an asshole. He’s portrayed as a driven, hard-working athlete, but he’s an unlikable jackass.