Bill ConnellyApr 23, 2026, 10:26 AM ETCloseBill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.Follow on XMultiple Authors
play1:09Laurens: I can’t see Lamine Yamal playing vs. GetafeGab and Juls discuss Lamine Yamal’s potential hamstring injury and fears over his availability for Getafe and El Clásico.
play0:48Laurens: They were booed, Real Madrid’s performance was not reassuringGab Marcotti and Julien Laurens show concern over Real Madrid’s 2-1 win vs. Alavés, suggesting they won’t catch up to Barcelona.
play1:09Has Balogun’s Ligue 1 hot streak secured his USMNT starting spot?Gab & Juls react to Folarin Balogun scoring in eight consecutive Ligue 1 games for Monaco.
play2:06How Pellegrino Matarazzo became the first American manager to win a major European trophyThe Futbol Americas panel review Pellegrino Matarazzo’s performance after leading Real Sociedad to their 4th Copa del Rey title.
play2:26Could Newcastle United’s Saudi owners sell their share in the club?Gab Marcotti discusses whether the Saudi Public Investment fund could sell their majority stake in Newcastle United.
play1:16Laurens: Spurs showed more heart and intensity in Brighton defeatJulien Laurens says relegation-threatened Spurs’ next fixture league against Wolves is “the must of the must-wins.”
play3:13Brenden Aaronson: It’s a dream to play at WembleyESPN FC’s Julien Laurens and Brenden Aaronson discuss the FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea and his USMNT career.
Marcotti: A rested Musiala is a plus for Bayern Munich (0:57)As Bayern Munich progress to the DFB-Pokal final, Gab Marcotti praises Jamal Musiala’s return to form after injury. (0:57)
Laurens: I can’t see Lamine Yamal playing vs. GetafeGab and Juls discuss Lamine Yamal’s potential hamstring injury and fears over his availability for Getafe and El Clásico.
Gab and Juls discuss Lamine Yamal’s potential hamstring injury and fears over his availability for Getafe and El Clásico.
Laurens: They were booed, Real Madrid’s performance was not reassuringGab Marcotti and Julien Laurens show concern over Real Madrid’s 2-1 win vs. Alavés, suggesting they won’t catch up to Barcelona.
Gab Marcotti and Julien Laurens show concern over Real Madrid’s 2-1 win vs. Alavés, suggesting they won’t catch up to Barcelona.
Has Balogun’s Ligue 1 hot streak secured his USMNT starting spot?Gab & Juls react to Folarin Balogun scoring in eight consecutive Ligue 1 games for Monaco.
How Pellegrino Matarazzo became the first American manager to win a major European trophyThe Futbol Americas panel review Pellegrino Matarazzo’s performance after leading Real Sociedad to their 4th Copa del Rey title.
The Futbol Americas panel review Pellegrino Matarazzo’s performance after leading Real Sociedad to their 4th Copa del Rey title.
Could Newcastle United’s Saudi owners sell their share in the club?Gab Marcotti discusses whether the Saudi Public Investment fund could sell their majority stake in Newcastle United.
Gab Marcotti discusses whether the Saudi Public Investment fund could sell their majority stake in Newcastle United.
Laurens: Spurs showed more heart and intensity in Brighton defeatJulien Laurens says relegation-threatened Spurs’ next fixture league against Wolves is “the must of the must-wins.”
Julien Laurens says relegation-threatened Spurs’ next fixture league against Wolves is “the must of the must-wins.”
Brenden Aaronson: It’s a dream to play at WembleyESPN FC’s Julien Laurens and Brenden Aaronson discuss the FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea and his USMNT career.
ESPN FC’s Julien Laurens and Brenden Aaronson discuss the FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea and his USMNT career.
The most watchable teams in Europe’s Big Five leagues to date
Clear room in your schedule to always watch (Grade: 9.1-10.0)
Don’t watch unless you have a rooting interest (Grade: 0.0-1.0)
One of the major storylines of the 2025-26 European soccer campaign has been how the best league in the world, the Premier League, has a bit of a boringness problem. Open-play scoring is down — hell, the amount of time the ball is in play is down — and has been replaced by meat walls, long throw-ins and all sorts of functional, but aesthetically unpleasant, actions.
So does that mean soccer as a whole is going through a more stolid, cruddy-to-watch period? Hell no! It just means you just have to watch other leagues!
– Is a new ball leading to more long-range goals? We asked a scientist – Connelly’s Champions League semifinal preview: Who will advance? – How would an NFL-style draft work in Premier League?
For years now, I’ve been tinkering with a way to apply numbers to aesthetics, using a combination of stats that measure quality, scoring prowess, defensive intensity, verticality, switches, through-balls, match tension, openness against good teams and, as of last year, how interesting you are when you’re behind. It’s time to unveil this season’s Watchability rankings.
A couple of years ago, I began applying a similar algorithm to individual matches to look at the most entertaining single games of a given year. Here’s this season’s top 20 to date from Europe’s Big Five leagues and UEFA competitions, and one thing stands out: the Champions League knockout rounds have delivered.
2. German Bundesliga: Bayern Munich 5-1 RB Leipzig, Jan. 17. This one was as close as a 5-1 game can be. Bayern were flirting with being a little too wide open at this point in the schedule, and RB Leipzig took an early lead with a goal from Rômulo. It was still tied into the 67th minute when Bayern pulled off one of the combinations only they seem capable of: They scored in the 67th, 82nd, 85th and 88th minutes, and easily won with 36 combined shots and 7.1 combined xG.
3. Spanish LaLiga: Real Madrid 3-2 Atletico Madrid, Mar. 22. Amid a big run of great Atleti vs. Barca matches came this delight. Ademola Lookman gave Atletico an early lead in the Bernabeu, then the teams combined for four goals (three from Real Madrid, two from Vinícius Júnior) in a wacky 21-minute span. A late Fede Valverde red card made things tense for the hosts, but they held on in a delightfully direct affair.
5. UEFA Champions League: Bayern Munich 4-3 Real Madrid, April 15. Honestly, the only surprise is that this didn’t rank first.
7. UEFA Champions League: Barcelona 3-3 Club Brugge, Nov. 5. If this year’s Champions League was any indication, we should have made Club Brugge temporary LaLiga members. They’d have threatened for a top-four finish, and they’d have ramped up the entertainment value significantly.
8. German Bundesliga: Bayer Leverkusen 3-1 RB Leipzig, Dec. 20. RBL had three of the top eight matches, but won only one. Goals from Martin Terrier and Patrik Schick late in the first half gave Bayer Leverkusen a 2-1 lead, and while RBL assaulted Mark Flekken’s goal in the second half, Leverkusen put the match away with a late goal from 18-year-old Montrell Culbreath.
9. French Ligue 1: Marseille 3-2 Lyon, March 1. The fourth March match on the list! One of France’s most bitter rivalries produced a delightful track meet here. Lyon led for 54 total minutes, but Marseille came back from a pair of deficits and seized all three points when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored in the 81st and 91st minutes.
10. German Bundesliga: Bayern Munich 5-1 Hoffenheim, Feb. 8. No one does fun blowout wins like Bayern. Despite an early red card, Hoffenheim tied this match up at 1-1 late in the first half before the inevitable Bayern charge. Harry Kane and Luis Díaz both scored late in the first half, then Diaz scored twice more in the second. Bayern attempted 27 shots worth 6.0 xG!
Let’s be honest: You already know who the top two teams on this list are going to be. It was just a question of who would be No. 1.
1. Bayern München (9.6). Granted, Bayern are still aiming for bigger trophies this spring — with the Bundesliga already in the bag, they still have a shot at the DFB Pokal and Champions League trophies — but they are now four-time Watchability champions despite the fact that only 64% of their possessions have come with a match within one goal, by far the lowest percentage of any team here. And the reason is pretty self-explanatory.
This genuinely might be the best attack that soccer has ever seen. That’s generally a pretty watchable thing.
Laurens: I can’t see Lamine Yamal playing vs. Getafe
Laurens: They were booed, Real Madrid’s performance was not reassuring
4. PSG (9.5). I can’t imagine a Luis Enrique team ever ranking too low on the Watchability scale, and giving him players like Khvicha Kvaratshkelia, Ousmane Dembélé, Vitinha, Désiré Doué, Bradley Barcola and Achraf Hakimi is almost unfair. PSG’s attention span has been a bit spotty this year — understandable after last season’s Champions League breakthrough win — but it would surprise no one if they finished the job and ended up as back-to-back European champs.
5. RB Leipzig (9.5). This club’s job is to produce great young talent and play high-octane ball. They did far less of either than usual last season, but new additions Yan Diomande (19) and Romulo (24) have combined for 20 league goals and 10 assists, and RBL are back to playing prolific and intense ball. They’ll almost certainly be back in the Champions League next season, too.
7. Manchester United (9.4). Only two of the top 17 teams here are from the Premier League, which fits this season’s general perceptions, but you have to give United credit: They’ve been pretty damn entertaining. They don’t create all that many high-quality scoring chances, but their matches feature more than 27 combined shot attempts on average, their matches are almost always within one goal, and Bruno Fernandes’ creativity has been off the charts.
8. Monaco (9.4). A mainstay in and around the Watchability top 10 each year, Monaco have been too defensively shaky to fight for a Champions League spot this year, but Folarin Balogun, Maghnes Akliouche & Co. have ensured they remain prolific and entertaining.