Championship Round in Europe!

You might have missed it due to all the Premier League action on as well as the fact that it's the middle of the week, but today witnessed quite a few big mouth watering ties, championship deciders if you will in Europe.

Germany

Borussia Dortmund hosted Bayern Munich within its intimidating Westfalenstadion home. The game looked set to end in a stalemate until in-form Polish striker, Robert Lewandowski struck in the 77th minute to give the reigning champions a critical 1-0 win - critical as it sees the gap between them and Bayern extend to 6 points with 4 games to go.

It has been quite a comeback for Dortmund who were struggling for form earlier in the season and crashed out of Europe altogether in December. However, the key players like Shinji Kagawa and Kevin Grosskeutz started to find form and Lewandowski started scoring goals - he is now Dortmund's leading scorer for the season on 19 and Poland will be hoping he can score the key goals against the Czechs, Russians and Greeks later in the year.

As for Bayern, the German giants face possibly another season without a domestic league title despite having one of the most expensively assembled and better teams in Europe. Their fragile nature was clearly exposed in the middle of the season by Dortmund and now they must hope they can make it up by winning the Champions League title in their home stadium.

France

It's sad when you're cheering your own team to lose against the opposition at home but that's exactly what happened to Marseille when they took on Montpellier. With Marseille's much hated rivals, PSG, Montpellier's closest challengers in the title race, Marseille knew that if Montpellier won, the team from the capital of Languedoc-Rosillion would enhance further their claims for a first ever league title.

As it was, Montpellier won 3-1 and lead the league by 3 points with 7 games to go. Still a long way to go though and the thing is Montpellier and PSG play pretty much the same teams so it could go right down to the wire.

Italy

Juventus took a big step towards their first Scudetto since they were relegated due to match-fixing allegations in 2006. They won 2-1 against Champions League chasing Lazio courtesy of a last minute goal and the signs are clear that the Old Lady is back where she belongs and better than ever.

Juventus now have a world-class football stadium replacing the awful Stadio Delle Alpi and are set to make an ambitious swoop for Nemanja Vidic and Fernando Torres as they prepare for a return to the Champions League next season. Their chances of getting stars like them could be further enhanced should they hang on to the slim margin they have over their eternal rivals,AC Milan.

Spain

There was a derby this morning in Spain. It may not have been "that" derby but the Madrid derby between Atletico and Real is still one of the great derbies in world football and there was plenty at stake. Real Madrid needed a win to get back the 4 gap margin over Barcelona after only drawing with Valencia at the Bernabeu on the weekend, while Atletico were desperate to stop their more illustrious rivals from marching to the league title.

As it was, Ronaldo scored yet another hat-trick to lead Real Madrid to a 4-1 win at the Estadio Vicente de Calderon. It was yet another example of Real Madrid and Barcelona being clearly better than the rest and much as 9th placed Atletico tried, they weren't really up to their neighbour's standards.

Real Madrid host Sporting Gijon and Barcelona go to surprise package, Levante this weekend. Then the weekend after, El Derby Part 2 of 3? (well if they get through their semifinals in the Champions League, it'll be the El Derby Final in Munich) this time at the Camp Nou on Saturday night.