Five incredibly close European title races you need to start paying attention to

While the Premier League takes almost all of our focus, there are some incredibly close title races underway around Europe.

In Spain, the usual two-horse race is underway with Barcelona ahead of Real Madrid for now, but there’s even a tight battle going on north of the border with the Scottish Premiership proving far more competitive than usual.

Here are five of the best European title races you may have missed this year

We’ll start in Turkey where the standings of the Super Lig are ridiculously close.

The country’s most successful club Galatasaray lead the way on 64 points, but the previous 25-time winners are just one point ahead of city rivals Fenerbahce, although the leaders have played a game fewer.

Seven-time winners Trabzonspor are in the hunt too and are level on points with Fenerbahce having defeated Galatasaray 2-1 at the weekend.

With Trabzonspor not facing their title rivals again this season, the biggest match left looks to be the Intercontinental Derby later this month, which could decide the outcome of the league.

That match was a 1-1 draw at Fenerbahce’s stadium earlier this year, a result that would play into Trabzonspor’s hands.

Scottish football fans are being treated to an unexpected title race, which came as a mixture of Celtic’s incompetence, Hearts’ strategic planning and Rangers’ mid-season hire.

Starting off with Celtic, back-to-back defeats prompted Brendan Rodgers to walk and having lambasted their former boss, Celtic appointed Martin O’Neill on an interim role.

The return of the Irishman saw the club return to winning ways before Celtic decided to appoint the relatively unknown manager Wilfried Nancy in early December.

His first match was a 2-1 home defeat to Hearts followed by an away loss at Dundee United and statements such as he knew a lot about Scottish football due to a failed transfer to Carlisle United did little to help the fraud accusations.

Nancy did win some games, but was sacked after losing the Old Firm with O’Neill back in to steady the ship .

As for Hearts, Tony Bloom’s latest football experiment has proven to be quite successful with the club beginning the season with a run of 12 games unbeaten, only three of which were draws.

Hearts, who last won the league in 1960, lost just two games before the turn of the year, although a small 2026 wobble has opened the door to the familiar big boys.

As for Rangers, they started poorly with six draws in their opening eight games under Russell Martin but their season turned with the appointment of Danny Rohl in October and the Gers are now well in the mix.

With just one match before the split, Hearts are top on 67 with Rangers on 66 and Celtic on 64. Hearts face Celtic at Parkhead on the final day of the season which could well decide the title.

Away from the British Isles, Austria is producing a very close title race.

The league itself can be quite confusing, so stick with us. But the simple version is a 12-team league where each team plays each other once home and away, as is the case everywhere else.

This is then when it gets a bit confusing; while it does have a split like in Scotland, in Austria, teams’ points are halved which suddenly brings a lot of clubs back into contention.

This year, the regular season ended with four teams within two points of each other and the entirety of the top six was separated only by five points.

We are three games into the post-split portion and it is Sturm Graz who are top on 26 but behind them, there are three teams on 22 and another on 21. It is only Hartberg who have fallen away on 17.

Sturm Graz have won the previous two titles, putting an end to a 10-year dominance by Red Bull Salzburg.

There are seven games left meaning the title is still pretty much in anyone’s hands.

After the splits of Scotland and Austria, Poland is more straightforward but still just as tight.

With seven games remaining, Lech Poznan top the league on 45 points but there are plenty of teams close behind.

Both Jagiellonia Bialystok and Gornik Zabrze are on 42. Zaglebie Lubin are on 41 while Wisla Plock, Rakow Czestochowa and GKS Katowice are all on 39.

Practically the whole league is tight together as if we ignore the bottom place side Bruk-Bet Termalica on 25, there are just 15 points between first and second worst. For comparison, Arsenal are 50 points ahead of the second-worst Premier League team.

With four different winners in the past four seasons, the Belgian Pro League often offers up an exciting title race and this year is no different.

Like Austria, the Belgian league splits and halves points meaning leaders and reigning champions Union Saint-Gilloise went down to 33 points, narrowly ahead of Club Brugge.

After one round of the playoffs, Union St Gilloise are just a point ahead of Club Brugge with the two set to play each other in the final game of the season.

St Truiden could have been a third contender but have lost their last three and are seven points off the race.