Soccer Watch

With barely a month to go in the European soccer season, there's new drama in a couple of races that looked all but over a short time ago.

Leicester, who were in last place in the English Premier League just 13 months ago, shocked the league with their turnaround this year. But their seemingly comfortable grip on the EPL title took a dramatic big blow last weekend when leading scorer, and front-runner for EPL player of the year, Jamie Vardy, was red-carded on a questionable dive call, and may miss multiple games for his "improper conduct" in reacting to the call. Tottenham Spurs have crept to within five points; people have been waiting all season to see if Leicester's going to crack, and if it's going to happen, now's the time. As always, NBC has blanket EPL coverage: eight games this weekend on various networks.

Meanwhile, what's wrong with Messi, Neymar, and Barcelona? The Catalans came into this month with a record 39-game unbeaten streak, a huge league lead, and a clear path to an unprecedented second straight treble: the Spanish league and Cup titles, plus the European Champions League. But in the last two weeks they've been knocked out of the ECL, lost three games in a row in Spain for the first time in years, and are now in a dogfight with the two Madrid clubs for the league lead. An eye-opening 8-0 road win Wed­nes­­day restored some semblance of order, but this one's going down to the wire.

Those Madrid clubs have their mid-weeks busy as well, as they're both in the European Champions League semifinals which start next week, April 26-27: Real Madrid at Manchester City on Tuesday, Bayern Munich at Atlético Madrid Wednesday, both at 1:45pm on Fox Sports and ESPN Deportes. Return legs are the following Tue.-Wed., May 3-4... The Europa League semifinals begin Thursday, April 28: Villarreal-Liverpool and Shakhtar Donetsk-Sevilla, both at 2pm, on Fox Sports 1 & 2.

And I have to give a shout-out to my man, 39-year-old Roma talisman Francesco Totti, who came on as an 86th-minute sub on Wednesday, and scored two goals to bring home a crucial 3-2 win. Tottigol!