Champions League final, Premier League race: May viewing guide

And finally, it's May. The European club season, which unofficially began with the first round of Champions League qualification in late June of 2023, will unofficially end in about a month with the Champions League final. Even with a lot of major title races already decided (or close to it), the month of May is a legitimate roller coaster: We have the semis and finals of UEFA's three continental tournaments, major cup finals, fights over Champions League spots for next season, desperate promotion and relegation plot twists, minor league title chases and the glory that is final-matchday whip-around coverage. And then we'll all take approximately 24 hours off before Euro 2024 and Copa América begin. What a glorious day of an offseason it will be.

- Stream on ESPN+: NWSL, LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)

Here's everything you need to follow in a loaded month of May. I typically break these monthly previews out in a country-by-country manner, but let's go category-by-category -- title races, cup finals, relegation battles, et cetera -- this time.

UEFA competitions

Champions League

• April 30 & May 8: Real Madrid vs. Bayern Munich

• May 1 & 7: PSG vs. Borussia Dortmund

• June 1: Champions League final

The rubber has met the road. The competition that began with Montenegro's Buducnost Podgorica beating Andorra's Atletic Club d'Escaldes 3-0 on June 27 began its semifinal round Tuesday with Leg 1 of Real Madrid, 14-time champions, versus Bayern Munich, six-time winners. PSG-BVB kicked off at Signal Iduna Park on Wednesday.

Despite featuring three of the five or six richest clubs in the world, these semifinals arrived as a surprise of sorts. Real Madrid dipped into its endless supply of dark magic to take down defending Champions League winner Manchester City in the quarterfinals, PSG parlayed brilliant play from a lot of players not named Kylian Mbappé (and some meltdown moments from Barcelona) to advance to just their second Champions League semifinal in the Qatar Sports Investments era, and Germany's two biggest clubs both reached the semis despite down years in domestic play. The final is guaranteed to pit one of Europe's most decorated champs against a team looking for either its first (PSG) or second (BVB) European title.

Europa League

• May 2 & 9: Bayer Leverkusen vs. Roma

• May 2 & 9: Atalanta vs. Marseille

• May 22: Europa League final

Speaking of dark magic, Xabi Alonso's Bayer Leverkusen have found their own seemingly endless supply of it these days. The freshly crowned German champions won the Bundesliga with ease and have used late goals to not only survive in the Europa League (they all but fell to Qarabag in March) but extend a season-long unbeaten streak.

Typically these magical streaks come to a close in harsh fashion -- might Roma be on the delivering end? The Giallorossi have lost only three times in 21 matches since club hero Daniele De Rossi succeeded Jose Mourinho in mid-January, and one of those was in a kinda-meaningless Europa League game against Brighton. (They fell 1-0 after winning the first leg of the round of 16 by a 4-0 margin.)

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'Why not Leverkusen?' Xhaka wants to match Arsenal's invincible feat

Granit Xhaka says Bayer Leverkusen's new target is an unbeaten season, as their run stretched to 45 games without defeat.

Conference League

• May 2 & 8: Fiorentina vs. Club Brugge

• May 2 & 9: Aston Villa vs. Olympiacos

• May 29: Conference League final

Yes, it's a third-tier competition of sorts. I get it. But once we've whittled down the Conference League field to the teams that really want to get there, and once proud, well-supported clubs like Aston Villa and Club Brugge start thinking in terms of "We can make our first European final since ___" (1982 for Villa, 1978 for Brugge) -- or, in the case of Olympiacos, a first European final ever -- the energy in this competition begins to match that of the others.

ESPN BET lists Unai Emery's Villa as a heavy favorite at the moment, but Club Brugge are smoking hot (they've won their past seven matches by a combined 18-2), Fiorentina have a chance to right the wrongs of last year, when they lost to West Ham in the final, and if Olympiacos can pull an upset of Villa, the final would take place in their home country. We're guaranteed some pretty fantastic environments regardless.

Women's Champions League

• May 25: Barcelona vs. Lyon

The semifinals of the Women's Champions League looked primed to deliver a pair of upsets. Chelsea won at Barcelona in the first leg, and the tie remained even late into the second leg. (Barca was on the kind end of some controversy, too.) Meanwhile, Lyon spotted PSG a pair of road goals in the first leg before hitting the accelerator.

In the end, the plot twists gave us something very familiar. The final is a rematch of the 2019 and 2022 finals (both won by Lyon); it's Lyon's 11th finals appearance in 15 years and Barca's fifth in six. This will be the ninth straight Champions League won by one club or the other. These are women's soccer's defining teams.

Title chases in Europe's big leagues

Premier League

• May 12: Arsenal at Manchester United

• May 14: Manchester City at Tottenham Hotspur

The Bundesliga (Bayer Leverkusen), Serie A (Inter) and Ligue 1 titles (PSG) have already been decided, and Real Madrid leads LaLiga by 11 points with five matches to play. Even the top leagues outside of Europe's Big Five -- Portugal's Primeira Liga (Ruben Amorim's Sporting CP lead Benfica by five with three matches to go), the Netherlands' Eredivisie (PSV lead Feyenoord by nine with three to play) -- are mostly lacking drama at the top.

We still have Arsenal vs. City, however. City's three straight Premier League titles and current 31-match unbeaten streak have certainly given them an air of inevitability, but unlike Liverpool, Arsenal haven't yet gone away. They've lost only one league match in 2024, and they top the table by a point (though City has a game in hand). If City drop any points in their final four league matches -- Wolves (May 4), at Fulham (May 11), at Spurs (May 14), West Ham (May 19) -- Arsenal will control their title destiny. As long as they haven't dropped points themselves.

Wolves defeated City in Wolverhampton in September, and City's track record against Spurs -- a 2019 Champions League semifinal loss and wins in only four of their last 11 meetings -- is strangely poor. Might Spurs help their North London Derby rivals out? Surely not, right?

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Ten Hag: You can't make mistakes and win trophies

Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag says that his team need to cut out mistakes if they want to compete for trophies.

Elsewhere in Europe

• May 5: Arsenal (W) at Manchester City (W)

• May 5: Anderlecht at Union Saint-Gilloise (Stream LIVE on ESPN+)

• May 11: Rangers at Celtic

• May 13: Union Saint-Gilloise at Club Brugge (Stream LIVE on ESPN+)

• May 19: Club Brugge at Anderlecht

• May 19: LASK at RB Salzburg

The good thing about Europe's depth is if you keep burrowing in, you'll find something exciting. Even if Europe's seven biggest leagues have given us only one real race, we've still got England's Women's Super League (Man City leads Chelsea by six and Arsenal by eight, but Chelsea has two games in hand) and potential wildness in Belgium (Club Brugge and Anderlecht are tied at the top, with Union Saint-Gilloise one point behind), Scotland (Celtic lead Rangers by three with a derby ahead) and Austria (Sturm Graz leads Salzburg by three in attempt to end Salzburg's 10-year title streak).

If you've followed these monthly previews this season, you've caught on to my fascination with the Union Saint-Gilloise story. After earning promotion in 2021, they suffered late-season heartbreaks in both 2022 and (especially) 2023 and fell just short of a title. This season, they entered Belgium's late-season championship playoff with a four-point lead ... and proceeded to lose four straight matches and forfeit the lead to Anderlecht. They've rebounded to win two blowouts, however, and they've got shots at both of the teams ahead of them in the table. This might be the best race in Europe for the second straight year.

Major cup finals

• May 9: Bayern Munich (W) vs. Wolfsburg (W) (Women's DFB-Pokal)

• May 12: Manchester United (W) vs. Tottenham Hotspur (W) (Women's FA Cup)

• May 15: Juventus vs. Atalanta (Coppa Italia)

• May 25: Manchester City vs. Manchester United (FA Cup final) (Stream LIVE on ESPN+)

• May 25: Bayer Leverkusen vs. Kaiserslautern (DFB Pokal final) (Stream LIVE on ESPN+)

As I wrote recently, cups rule. They guarantee a certain level of uncertainty that title races often fail to deliver, they offer shots at major trophies that clubs outside of the sport's ruling class usually don't get, and sometimes they result in boat parties.

This year's batch of remaining cup finals features plenty of dominant teams -- Manchester City, PSG, the Bayern and Wolfsburg women and an evidently unbeatable Bayer Leverkusen -- but there are Cinderellas in the pack, too. The FA Cup will be the first major trophy for either the Manchester United or Tottenham Hotspur women, Lyon could cap a massive season rebound with an upset of PSG, and of course we've got the ultimate Cinderella in Germany's second-division Kaiserslautern, which is desperately trying to fend off relegation to the third division while also planning for its first major cup final since 2003. Totally normal stuff there.