The Treble

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Treble is a term in football. It consists of winning a country's top tier league and two cup competitions in the same season. The exact meaning varies from one country to another and the cup competitions may be either domestic or regional (eg European).

1 All-time leader table for domestic trebles
2 The European Treble
3 Other Trebles
4 Near Trebles
5 See also
6 External link

[edit] All-time leader table for domestic trebles

Club	Nation	Number of trebles
Rangers	Scotland Image:Flag of Scotland.svg	7
Floriana	Malta Image:Flag of Malta.svg	4
Celtic	Scotland Image:Flag of Scotland.svg	3
Shamrock Rovers¹	Republic of Ireland Image:Flag of Ireland.svg	3
South China	Hong Kong Image:Flag of Hong Kong.svg	3
Linfield	Northern Ireland	2
Derry City	Republic of Ireland Image:Flag of Ireland.svg	1
Bayern München²	Germany Image:Flag of Germany.svg	1
Brøndby	Denmark Image:Flag of Denmark.svg	1
Sun Hei	Hong Kong Image:Flag of Hong Kong.svg	1
Maccabi Netanya	Israel Image:Flag of Israel.svg	1
Cruzeiro	Brazil Image:Flag of Brazil.svg	1

¹ - The trebles of Shamrock Rovers consisted of league, cup, and shield. Derry City won the FAI Cup, the FAI League Cup and the League of Ireland in 1989.
² - In Germany, a domestic treble has only been possible since 1997, when the DFB Ligapokal was introduced. Prior to that, the winner of the Bundesliga championship played the winner of the German Cup in the German Supercup.

[edit] The European Treble

The most famous type of treble, the European Treble commonly known simply as The Treble, consists of winning a country's top tier league and the major domestic cup competition, as well as the European Cup/Champions League. Only four teams have achieved this rare distinction:

Celtic F.C. - The 1967 team won the Scottish Premier League, Scottish Cup, and the European Cup. They also captured the Scottish League Cup and the Glasgow Cup.

Ajax Amsterdam - The 1972 team won the Dutch Eredivisie, KNVB Cup, and the European Cup. They also won Intercontinental Cup.

PSV Eindhoven - The 1988 team won the Dutch Eredivisie, KNVB Cup, and the European Cup.

Manchester United - The 1999 team won the English Premier League, the FA Cup, and the Champions League. They also won the Intercontinental Cup.

While all European Trebles are equal in stature, Manchester United's was the first by a club from the big five European domestic leagues.

[edit] Other Trebles

There are other examples of trebles, mostly European, that do not adhere to the stricter definition above:

IFK Göteborg - The 1982 team won the Swedish Championship, Svenska Cupen and the UEFA Cup. They also won the domestic league, Allsvenskan, which at the time did not decide the Swedish champions, but only decided which eight teams that would play the play-off for the championship.

Liverpool - The 1984 team became the first English club to win three major competitions in the same season when they won the league championship, the League Cup and the European Cup; they missed out on the European Treble as they were eliminated in the FA Cup.

Galatasaray - The 2000 team won the Turkish Premier Super League, Turkish Football Cup, UEFA Cup and UEFA Super Cup.

Liverpool - The 2001 team won a unique treble of the F.A Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup. This has been referred to as a Cup Treble. Some opposition fans have mockingly labelled it as the Mickey Mouse Treble. The club also went on to capture the FA Community Shield and European Super Cup, making them the first English team to win five trophies in one year.

FC Porto - The 2003 team won the Portuguese SuperLiga, Cup of Portugal, and UEFA Cup.

CSKA Moscow - The 2005 team become the first Russian club to win a major European Competition, the UEFA Cup. They also won the Russian Premier League and the Russian Cup.

[edit] Near Trebles

There have been several instances of teams just missing out on trebles. Some of the more notable occurrences include,

Leeds United - The 1970 team obtained the unenviable title of the "nearly men" when they finished second in the League, losing out to Everton, were beaten finalists in the FA Cup, losing to Chelsea, and lost in the semi-final of the European Cup to Celtic

Liverpool - The 1977 team won the English League, lost to Manchester United 1-2 in the FA Cup final, then beat Borussia Mönchengladbach 3-1 to win the European Cup (Manchester United themselves became the first English side to complete this treble twenty-two years later).

Everton - The 1985 team won the English Division One Title and European Cup Winners Cup, but they lost to rivals Manchester United in the FA Cup, 1-0, two days after they had beaten Rapid Vienna in Rotterdam.

Manchester United - The 1994 team won the English Premier League and the FA Cup, beating Chelsea 4-0 in the final but missed out on a domestic treble as they lost 3-1 to Aston Villa in the League Cup final.

Bayern Munich - The 1999 team won the Bundesliga, but finished runner-up in the German Cup and the Champions League, the latter was a heartbreaking loss to Manchester United. Bayern had led 1-0 for 85 minutes of the match but United scored 2 goals in stoppage time to claim victory (and their own treble).

Bayer Leverkusen - The 2002 team achieved an unenviable "runners up" treble also known as the Treble Horror. In the German Bundesliga the team surrendered a five point lead at the top of the table over the last three games of the season to finish second behind Borussia Dortmund, lost the German domestic cup final 4-2 to Schalke 04 and lost the Champions League final 2-1 to Real Madrid. Five players went on to play for the German National Team in the 2002 World Cup, where Germany finished second.