English premier league

The 2021-22 European season is winding down and while some leagues are snoozing to the finish line, here are 10 races worth watching until the end.

Ajax has spent much of 2021-22 playing like one of the best teams in Europe, winning their six Champions League group stage matches by a combined 20-5 and outscoring opponents 70-5 in their first 23 Eredivisie matches. For much of the season, bitter rivals Marseille and Nice have been jockeying for second, but after a dreadful winter stretch -- they pulled just nine points from nine league matches from Dec. 1 through Feb. 11 -- Bruno Genesio's Rennes have found their form. In their last six matches, however, they've lost 2-1 at Go Ahead Eagles, survived 3-2 wins over inferior RKC Waalwijk and SC Cambuur squads and suffered an upset at the hands of Benfica in the Champions League knockout stage. Their 4-2 win over Lyon on Sunday was their fourth straight in league play, and it bumped them back to fourth place, within a point of Marseille and Nice. Strasbourg is only three points back as well. QPR bounced between the first and second divisions early in the 2010s, but have otherwise lived a second-division existence for most of 30 years. This is a great position to be in, obviously, but they'll still have to survive the championship playoff in which the top four teams see their point totals cut in half (and rounded up) and everyone plays a six-game round robin. They finished a distant third behind Chelsea and Manchester City, and they had to hold off a rising Manchester United just to secure third place and a spot in the Champions League qualifiers. With the money involved in playing in the Premier League, this is always one of the tenser and more dread-heavy relegation battles in the sport. Huddersfield briefly earned promotion in 2017 for the first time in nearly a half-century, but they were back down within two years. They rank first (City) and second (Liverpool) in the overall SPI ratings, with Liverpool creeping ahead of a previously indomitable Bayern Munich. But they've leaked a lot of points lately and they find themselves four points behind Milan, one back of Napoli and only three up on Juventus with a game in hand. RB Leipzig have solved a lot of their disastrous transition issues in recent weeks, and while neither Freiburg nor Hoffenheim defend very well (even by Bundesliga standards) they boast major attacking firepower and have proven they can take points from the league's best teams.