Real Madrid closing in, Borussia Dortmund miss big opportunity and there may be a Serie A title race after all.
La Liga
Real Madrid finally used up their game in hand on Wednesday, beating Celta Vigo 4-1 on Wednesday. Cristiano Ronaldo scored two (yawn, jk). The win puts them three points clear at the top of the La Liga table. The title is all but theirs.
Barcelona, for their part, have won six league matches in a row. They will probably finish the season with a seven-game winning streak as they host Eibar on Sunday. It probably won’t matter. All Real Madrid need to do is draw away to 11th-place Malaga on Sunday.
Malaga, though, are in decent enough form, winning four of their last five La Liga matches. Even more interesting is the fact they handed Barcelona their most recent loss back on April 8. Still, Real Madrid are in full steamroller mode. It’s hard to see how they don’t win by at least two goals.
It has been another La Liga season of Real Madrid and Barcelona dueling it out for the championship. It should be boring after all of these seasons, but, in addition to this season coming down to the final week, watching Ronaldo and Lionel Messi decimate opposing defenses never gets old.
And there still might be a little drama left for the final matchday.
Bundesliga
The top two spots in the Bundesliga have been decided. That didn’t stop Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig from letting it rip on Saturday. The champions won the 5-4 shootout thanks to two stoppage time goals. Arjen Robben scored the winner in the 95th(!) minute.
As we suspected, the race for third place will come down to the final day of the Bundesliga season. Borussia Dortmund still lay claim to it for now, but they missed a huge opportunity to pull away from fourth-place Hoffenheim by drawing away to Augsburg on Saturday.
(Christian Pulisic came on for the final 10 minutes of the match. Someone let Mr. Tuchel know I am very mad online about the lack of playing time for Pulisic. I won’t stand for it.)
Hoffenheim seized the opportunity by knocking five goals past Werder Bremen on Saturday. The two sides are level on points; BVB possess a four-point lead in goal difference. The clubs will trade opponents for the last matchday of the season as Dortmund host Bremen and Hoffenheim welcome Augsburg on Saturday.
Based on league standing, Hoffenheim have a much more favorable matchup. BVB will know that a loss more than likely knocks them out of third place.
Serie A
BREAKING NEWS: Juventus are good at soccer. Well, except for their last three league matches. Anyway, the Serie A leaders won their third straight Coppa Italia on Wednesday by defeating Lazio in Rome 2-0.
Also a reminder that they’re set to face Real Madrid in the Champions League final. This makes their recent skid in Serie A seem very strange. After back-to-back draws Juve dropped all three points to the second-place Roma on Sunday. They have seen their lead dwindle to four points with two league matches left.
Third-place Napoli are on a heck of a run, winning five of their last six Serie A matches. They trail Roma by a single point. If Juventus didn’t have two cupcakes — 18th-place Crotone and 15th-place Bologna — in their last two games Roma and Napoli would be serious threats to steal the title. Alas.
Next: This week in US Soccer: Pugh saga is finally over
Bonus Goal(s)
I think a double dip of Ronaldo is in order. The first is this ridiculous one-timer from the weekend:
And here’s the opener against Celta Vigo, which is a gosh damn rocket:
My favorite thing about the goals, besides the goalkeepers being completely helpless, is that they both came off his left foot. The guy can’t be human.
Until next week.