La Liga, Week 17: Villarreal meets Sevilla in the week’s key match-up

The three top teams in Spain face mid-table foes this week with Barcelona traveling to Getafe and Real Madrid on the road against Valencia. Atlético Madrid meanwhile get a home match against Levante. Barca remains in front of Atléti on a tiebreaker alone with both sides even on points and goal differential. Expect thing to stay tight until the two teams finally play for the first time this season in mid-January.

The rest of the European spot battlers are busy as well with Villarreal's match against Sevilla likely to be the best match of the week, at least in terms of the storyline. The Yellow Submarine had an extremely disappointing performance against Barcelona last weekend and can't afford to linger on that if they want to keep pace with Athletic Bilbao for the final Champions League spot.

La Real will chase their fourth straight win against Granada who would love to jump into the Europa League fight with a win.

At the bottom of the table, 18th placed Almeria meets 20th placed Real Betis in an absolutely massive mid-season relegation six pointer. Betis can ill afford to allow the team around them to create space by taking points at their expense if they want to turn their season around.

Elche vs. Málaga | 2:30 p.m. ET, 8:30 p.m. CEST

Espanyol vs. Real Valladolid | 6:00 a.m. ET, 12:00 p.m. CEST

Athletic Bilbao vs. Rayo Vallecano | 1:00 p.m. ET, 7:00 p.m. CEST

Celta Vigo vs. Osasuna | 3:00 p.m. ET, 9:00 p.m. CEST