The Euro Preview: La Liga title race heating up, Bayern look to get back to winning ways

The Real Madrid-Barcelona title race should be fun, Bayern Munich look to take out frustration on Dortmund and Dries Mertens doesn’t like to waste time.

La Liga

Leaders Real Madrid and second-place Barcelona both notched two wins in a four-day span. Both scored seven goals total in their respective matches. Both have won five of their last six league games. They are separated by two points at the top of the La Liga table. Real still possess that valuable game in hand. We got ourselves a good, old-fashioned title race on our hands, folks.

Say what you will about how it’s boring that it’s always these two giants taking home the La Liga hardware, but club soccer doesn’t get much better than when Real Madrid and Barcelona are both at the top of their powers slugging it out for the championship. Win after win. Goal after goal. It makes for great soccer-watching, especially if you don’t have a dog in the fight.

Barcelona cemented the hunt for the trophy as a two-horse race by defeating then third-place Sevilla on Wednesday. Lionel Messi returned from a one-game suspension, due to yellow card accumulation, to score two goals. On the same day, an Alvaro Morata hat-trick saw Real Madrid past Leganes. Superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale were rested which allowed James Rodriguez a rare start. He responded by scoring a goal.

The latest iteration of the Madrid derby will take place on Saturday as Real host third-place Atletico Madrid in the biggest La Liga match of the weekend. Atleti have won five straight and would love nothing more than to extend the streak to six against their crosstown rivals.

Barcelona will travel to 15th-place Malaga, who earned their first win in six tries against Sporting Gijon Wednesday, on Saturday. Fourth-place Sevilla are in poor form, going winless in their last five league matches, but will expect to right the ship against 16th-place Deportivo La Coruna on the same day.

Bundesliga

Hey! Bayern Munich finally lost!

*Checks Bundesliga table*

*Sees that Bayern are still in first by 10 points*

Oh.

But what a win for Hoffenheim, who, after three straight league wins, are now in third place and only four points behind RB Leipzig. Leipzig also won, as did fourth-place Borussia Dortmund. Fifth-place Cologne won as well, but there is still a gap of 10 points between the top four clubs and the rest of the field.

Dortmund slammed three past Bobby Wood and Hamburg on Tuesday. To the surprise of no one, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was on the score sheet, netting his 25th goal of the season. He is now one clear of Bayern’s Robert Lewandowski at the top of the Bundesliga goalscorers list.

American phenom Christian Pulisic came of the bench for BVB against Hamburg. An executive for the club, Carsen Cramer, was quoted as saying that the 18-year-old could become a “global superstar.” He prefaced his comment with the slightly insulting “By American standards … ” but still, that’s some seriously high praise for America’s Best Hope.

Unfortunately for Dortmund, they meet what is surely a very pissed off Bayern Munich in Munich on Saturday. An unlikely BVB victory would be just a big enough chink in the leaders’ armor to give the clubs chasing them a faint glimmer of hope.

Also on Saturday, RB Leipzig host 10th-place Bayer Leverkusen while on-fire Hoffenheim will look to hold onto third place as they travel to 14th-place Hamburg.

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Serie A

League leaders Juventus are through to the Coppa Italia final after beating Napoli 5-4 on aggregate. Gonzalo Higuain scored a brace to help knock off his former club. But the most interesting part of this match, and why I bothered to bring it up if I’m being honest, was what Napoli’s Dries Mertens did immediatley after coming on as a substitute.

That took all of 11 seconds, friends. The best part of the above video is when the camera zooms in on Mertens jogging onto the field. He suddenly breaks into a full-out sprint to pounce on Juve goalkeeper Neto’s unfortunate mistake. Sports are good.

The two sides had met just three days before in league play, and Napoli managed to hold the leaders at the Stadio San Paolo, 1-1. This dropped Juve’s lead atop the Serie A table to six points as second-place Roma beat Empoli on Saturday in Rome. Napoli are four points behind the Romans in third.

Juventus will look to get back to their winning ways on Saturday as they host 11th-place Chievo, who have lost their last two league matches. On Sunday, Roma will travel to 14th-place Bologna while Napoli pay a visit to surging Lazio, winners of five of their last six league matches. The Rome-based Lazio also squeaked past bitter rivals Roma on Tuesday to join Juventus in the cup final, winning the tie 4-3 on aggregate.

Bonus Goal

Do you think Luis Suarez knows how to ride a bike? Let’s go to the tape.

I’ll take that as a yes.

Enjoy the games, everyone.