If the leagues in Spain, England, and Germany were to end their seasons right now, there would be three decidedly unusual champions to behold, with Sevilla, Portsmouth, and Hertha Berlin as the current leaders.

Just kidding, of course — those three clubs had better make the most of their moment of glory, for their chances of remaining at the top are slim to nonexistent. With the nine-month season only a few weeks old, the big clubs — the ones who are surely going to be the real title contenders — are sitting comfortably in second place: Barcelona is right behind Sevilla, Manchester United and Chelsea trail Portsmouth by only one point, and Bayern Munich is also one point behind Hertha Berlin.

The chances of a small club winning one of the major leagues have more or less disappeared now that money is such a dominant force in the sport.

There’s nothing complicated to explain here. The long season takes its toll in injuries and fatigue. Which puts the small clubs — with smaller rosters and an appreciable drop-off in the talent level between first team players and reserves — at a huge disadvantage.

It is no exaggeration to say that Chelsea, the biggest spenders in world soccer, can field a reserve team as good as, if not better, than the first team of many lesser clubs. Of Chelsea’s 22 listed first team players, 21 are current members of their national teams.

Keeping such an abundance of talented players happy while half of them are sitting on the bench has inevitably become something of a headache for the rich clubs. This year, Arsenal lost their Spanish winger Jose Antonio Reyes, who was miffed at being left out of the Arsenal starting line up in last year’s Champions League final. Reyes declared he would never play for Arsenal again and has now returned to Spain, on loan to Real Madrid.

Dutch forward Ruud van Nistelrooy has a similar tale to tell. After five years with Manchester United — during which he scored 95 goals in 150 games — he found himself, last February, sitting on the bench for the League Cup final against Wigan. Van Nistelrooy has now left United and joined Reyes at Real Madrid.

Damien Duff, Chelsea’s Irish forward, spoke most clearly about the frustration of playing for a club with a large roster:

“At Chelsea you’ll get players who are happy to pick up money, but it’s a short career and all I want to do is play games. I want to play week in, week out because when I do that I am at my best. I wasn’t guaranteed to play a lot of games next season so I took it on the chin and asked to leave. I just want to play soccer and be happy inside, because I haven’t been happy for a while.”

When Chelsea acquired Duff in 2003, he cost the club a lot of money — more than $30 million was paid to Blackburn Rovers. Except that $30 million is not a lot of money to Chelsea. When Duff decided he wanted to leave, Chelsea simply said okay and sold him to Newcastle for $10 million.

As Duff departed, Chelsea was busy bringing even more stars on to its roster. It paid AC Milan $57 million for Ukrainian striker Andriy Shevchenko, then signed German star Michael Ballack. As Ballack’s contract with Bayern Munich had expired, no transfer fee was necessary, but Chelsea are believed to be paying Ballack a weekly wage in excess of $240,000.

While events in England, Spain, and Germany indicate that the traditional powers will be dominating the leagues there, the situation in Italy is quite different. Certainly, there is an unexpected leader in the two-week-old Serie A championship — Roma, a club that has won the title only three times in its 80 year existence. But Roma could well end up as this season’s champion, all because of the game-fixing scandal that has convulsed the Italian league.

The penalties handed down for that affair have almost cleared the deck of opponents for Roma. Juventus has been sent down to the second division Serie B, AC Milan and Lazio have been forced to start the season with a minus number of points. Of the traditional powers, only Inter-Milan would seem to pose a threat.

But Inter-Milan is also traditionally adept at screwing things up. Already, after only two league games (one win, one tie) and a loss in the Champions League, President Massimo Moratti has announced that there is “no crisis” at the club, another traditional Inter sign that there is indeed a crisis.

The rumors are swirling. The strongest says that Moratti has given coach Roberto Mancini just three more games to prove that he’s worth retaining.

The top half of Serie A presents the never-before situation of three Sicilian clubs — Palermo, Catania and Messina — in the top eight. At the other end of the standings, that other Italian island, Sardinia, provides the bottom club, Cagliari.

But in this surreal season Cagliari — despite losing both of its games and having a total of zero points — is not actually the bottom club.Below it are four clubs that were found guilty of various levels of involvement in the scandal and were docked points a result. Thus, Milan has -2 points, Lazio -11, Reggina -12, and Fiorentina -19.

As for Juventus, it sits unhappily and in lonely isolation at the bottom of Serie B, with a total of -13 points.

Never before has Juventus, the most famous club in Italian soccer history, played outside of Serie A.

Juventus’s away games are no longer played before huge crowds in the vast concrete bowls of the big-city Serie A clubs.The new Serie B life for Juventus started a couple of weeks back with a game in the Adriatic resort town of Rimini. There, some 10,000 spectators filled the pleasant little Stadio Romeo Neri to watch Juventus tie Rimini 1–1. Later this season Juventus will visit unusual places like Crotone, Spezia, and Treviso, all with cozy little 10,000-capacity stadiums.

So making predictions about this season’s European league winners is not that difficult — Chelsea in England, Barcelona in Spain, Bayern Munich in Germany — until we come to Italy. Maybe Roma . . . or Inter-Milan, or possibly even AC Milan, which must fight its way up the table from a -2 points deficit. One thing we do know: It won’t be Juventus.