Soccer on TV: Premier League and Bundesliga title races highlight midweek games to watch

Tuesday, 2:30 p.m. (ESPN+)

Though there’s still a long way to go in the Bundesliga season, this meeting of the third- and fourth-place teams has huge stakes. Both teams have 29 points in the standings, and dropped points over the weekend while first-place Bayern Munich won. That let the reigning champions open up a four-point lead over second-place Leipzig atop the table.

If there’s a winner in this game, it would pull even on points with Leipzig for a moment. The loser would be seven points behind Bayern, and that gap might already be too big to make up.

Tuesday, 3:15 p.m. (NBCSN)

Chelsea’s 1-0 win over Fulham on Saturday snapped a three-game Premier League losing streak, but it wasn’t convincing. Leicester has quietly risen to third place, and could temporarily jump into first with a win here.

Wednesday, 1 p.m. (NBCSN, Universo)

After Sunday’s much-anticipated Liverpool-Manchester United game fizzled into a scoreless tie, Manchester City thumped Crystal Palace, 4-0. That allowed City to jump over Liverpool into second place. Kevin De Bruyne and Man City are unbeaten in nine straight games, and have risen six spots in the standings this month. They’re just two points out of first.

» READ MORE: This week's Premier League schedule

Wednesday, 2:30 p.m. (ESPN+)

We get yet another clash of top teams in the Bundesliga, this time Tyler Adams and second-place Leipzig hosting fifth-place Union. Bayern visits 11th-place Augsburg at the same time, also on ESPN+.

It’s quite possible that we’re about to see Bayern pull away from the pack for yet another year. But it’s pretty neat that Leipzig is just seven points clear of eighth-place Monchengladbach, which means a lot of teams will be competing for berths in next season’s Champions League.

» READ MORE: This week's Bundesliga schedule

Wednesday, 3 p.m. (ESPN+)

The round of 32 in Spain’s Copa del Rey started Saturday, then stopped to wait for the four teams that played in the just-concluded Spanish Super Cup to join the field. Those teams are Real Madrid, Barcelona, Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao — in order, last season’s La Liga champion and runner-up and Copa del Rey winner and runner-up.

All four big teams entering the Cup this week play at third-tier opponents. Alcoyano is based in the town of Alcoy, population just under 59,000, about an hour and a half south of Valencia in southeastern Spain. The club’s Estadio El Collao, capacity 4,850, will turn 100 this year. And coincidentally, the squad has a centerback with the same name as one of Real Madrid’s most famous strikers: Raul Gonzalez.

Wednesday, 3:15 p.m. (NBCSN, Universo)

United’s lead over City is two points, and City has a game in hand. Fulham has been woeful, and one of its rare bright spots, American left back Antonee Robinson, is suspended after an awful tackle late in the first half Saturday. So this should be a win for United. But if Manchester City wins the earlier game Wednesday, there will be some heat on the Red Devils at kickoff.

Thursday, 3 p.m. (ESPN+)

If you think you’ve seen it all in soccer, you in fact had not until Sunday. At the very end of Barcelona’s Super Cup final, in which Barcelona blew a lead against Bilbao in the 90th minute and lost in extra time, Lionel Messi drew the first red card of his entire club career. That’s 753 games total, all with Barcelona, going back to his first-team debut on Dec. 7, 2004. (He’s had two playing for Argentina, one in his national team debut in 2005 and one in 2019.)

The ejection was unquestionably deserved: He swung his right fist at Bilbao’s Asier Villalibre. Messi’s fist didn’t quite land, but his arm did, and that was more than enough for the referee to send him off. (Messi knew what he had done, and didn’t object.)

Because the red card was for violent conduct, Messi is looking at a lengthy suspension. Spanish soccer’s rule book says it can be anywhere from one to a whopping 12 games, depending on the judgment of the Spanish federation’s competitions committee, and it will apply across La Liga and the Copa del Rey.

So Messi is definitely out of this game. What happens after that will be one of the biggest stories in world soccer in the coming days.

Update: Messi was suspended for just two games, and Barcelona has appealed the suspension.

» READ MORE: The rest of this week's Copa del Rey schedule