Welcome to this week's preview of the most exciting odds and games! We'll be covering the English Premier League, the Spanish La Liga, and the Italian Serie A.
Premier League
Perhaps we'll soon be able to stop prefacing any text on the Premiership with "oh hey it's already settled, would you look at that". But not before Thursday's game between the top two in the league.
Meanwhile, I'd say that this season is one of the fiercest in Europe when it comes to all other standings: who will take the fourth Champions League place? Will fifth place also go to the CL? And there are quite a few clubs involved in avoiding relegation. Let's dive into it!
Thursday, 20:15 GMT / 21:15 CET: Manchester City - Liverpool
We couldn't just skip it... this is a prestige game, after all, and although we know the reasons, it's still odd to see Liverpool as large underdogs in any match. The Mancunians come fresh from the defeat to Chelsea which saw the Reds win their first PL title in three decades, and Klopp is probably still drunk. This is also a battle between goalscorers: Agüero has 16, Salah 17, and Mané 15. The "first player to score" markets will be huge fun, if perhaps not very lucrative.
Saturday, 15:00 GMT / 16:00 CET: Manchester United - Bournemouth
Well, would you look at that - Ole's at the wheel and the ship is steering straight for Europe. It's just a two-point distance to Chelsea, who somehow managed to follow up 2-1 over fellow light blue Mancs with a 2-3 defeat against West Ham. Meanwhile, Wolves are level and in even better form, Leicester is just one point ahead of Chelsea and in abysmal form, so this is going to be really interesting to follow - especially since we don't even know what's going to happen to Man City in the courts.
Oh, and also Bournemouth are playing. They come from four straight defeats, Eddie Howe looks like he needs a year off, and anything but a firm old home victory would be a huge upset.
Saturday, 20:00 GMT / 21:00 CET: Chelsea - Watford
Lampard's boys are all over the place in terms of both quality and pitch. Watford, meanwhile, are... less good. They're just one point away from the Championship, and they'll need anything they can get. With Chelsea desperately clinging on to the small lead over Man U and Wolverhampton, this could see some really odd scorelines - although, obviously, the home team are huge favourites.
La Liga
Oh, Barcelona... the ratio between club grandeur and boardroom competency has rarely been so skewed. And although they're hardly risking missing the Champions League or anything, recent results have been lackluster - and now, Real Madrid are one point clear with one less game played.
The relegation seems all but settled, with Mallorca, Leganes, and Espanyol far or very far behind. So the big questions are: who get to Europe, and can Real keep the lead? In fact, let's look more closely at the top flight.
Thursday, 21:00 GMT / 22:00 CET: Real Madrid - Getafe
It's Galacticos vs shithousery! But the Getafe we know and hate/love have been facing only much worse clubs than Real since play restarted, and they're yet to win a single game. This is a team in trouble, versus a team spanking anyone they play. At least they won't have to travel far back home if they lose. The [term=Asian Handicap] odds on Real have been fluctuating for a while, so they may be worth keeping tabs on.
Sunday, 13:00 GMT / 14:00 CET: Athletic Bilbao - Real Madrid
More Real: this time, they go to Basque country. And I wouldn't call Madrid's remaining schedule easy, but this might just be the largest challenge. Bilbao away is always difficult, and thye're fighting for an Europa League spot which is juuust within their reach (especially if Getafe keep slipping up). And they do it with a collective defensive effort: 28 conceded in 33 played is very good; only Real and Atlético Madrid can match that. However, no team in the top thirteen has scored less - so perhaps over/under is well deserving of an heads-up.
Sunday, 21:00 GMT / 22:00 CET: Villarreal - Barcelona
If Barça are going to have any shot at the title, they really, really, really need to come home from the Valencian city with three points. It's not going to be easy, though. Villarreal are 4-1-0 over the past five games, and they're actively chasing whatever tiny chance they have at reaching the CL. I quite like their odds in this game, and I don't think anyone puts much faith in Barcelona to stop the internal turmoil any time soon.
Serie A
Friday's match free in Italy, but there's plenty of action the other days, and lots of really interesting skirmishes. At the top, Juventus is unsurprisingly still ahead - now four points clear of Lazio and eight of Inter.
With Atalanta having retained their ridiculous goals-per-game rate post-break, they're nine points from losing their Champions League spot. The top four, then, seems kind of settled already. But there are Europa League matches and relegations as well - and who knows, all it takes is one slip-up from Juve, and things might suddenly get very interesting again.
Thursday, 18:30 GMT / 19:30 CET: Atalanta - Napoli
Tonight's game features two of the three teams maintaining a winning streak of 5+ games. (No prizes for guessing the third one.) The over/under line is somewhere between 3.00 and 3.25, which would be ridiculous in any Italian top-flight game if it wasn't for the crazy Lombardians. If you like to bet under on all games in Italy, then this is clearly the match for you... :)
Saturday, 16:15 GMT / 17:15 CET: Juventus - Torino
Not exactly an exciting prospect normally - Torino in 13th position have very little to play for, and Juve are, well... Juve. But even without spectators, this is still going to be an intense derby battle, with each team's fans rating a victory very highly.
Saturday, 20:45 GMT / 21:45 CET: Lazio - AC Milan
The highest-profile match on the 4th of July, this one sees title contenders Lazio welcoming seventh-placed AC Milan to the capital. The guests are two points behind a Europa League qualification spot, and nowadays, that's a tournament they should probably really want to get into. Their most recent game was a severe hiccup, whatever you think of the ref, and 2-2 away at Spal is clearly not good enough. But, and this is a big but: Zlatan is back, and nobody out-Zlatans Zlatan. Whatever that means.
Sunday, 18:30 GMT / 19:30 CET: Udinese - Genoa
Not as glamorous as the above selection, but just as important for sure: the bottom three are automatically relegated, and this game will see the two teams just above that line dish it out for three very relieving points.
With Spal and Brescia each needing a miracle to avoid relegation, there's just one spot - 18th - to avoid in practice. Winning this match would be a huge boost - while drawing would just prolong the pain for both competitors.
