What does “treble” mean in soccer?

What does “treble” mean in soccer?

The word treble simply means three of something. In soccer, it describes a club winning three major trophies in the same season. If you hear commentators say a team is “going for the treble”, they usually mean the continental treble: winning the national league, the main national cup and the biggest continental competition in the same campaign. In Europe, that third trophy is the UEFA Champions League.

It is one of the hardest achievements in club soccer because a team has to stay at the top for nine months across competitions that reward different things: consistency in the league, one-off nerve in the cup and quality over two-legged ties in Europe. Our explainer on what the UEFA Champions League is shows why that last piece is so demanding.

The other pieces of the puzzle are the league and cup. A team that wins the league and cup is said to have won the double, and a treble is a double plus a third major prize.

Continental treble vs domestic treble

There are two main meanings of treble, and fans often mix them up.

The continental treble is the one people mean when they talk about the greatest seasons. A domestic treble is still a big achievement, and many clubs have done it, but it does not require winning in Europe. According to Wikipedia, Celtic have won more domestic trebles than any other club.

Sometimes a team winning the second-tier or third-tier European trophy is also called a continental treble, but that use is less widely accepted. In this article, we use the standard definition with the top continental competition.

For a look at how domestic leagues and cups are organized, see our guide to promotion and relegation.

What counts toward a treble?

The usual rule is that a treble must be made of full competitions, usually across a whole season: a league, a knockout cup with many rounds, or a big continental tournament. Single-match or two-match trophies are normally left out. That means the following do not count as part of a treble:

• The FA Community Shield, Supercopa de Espana, Supercoppa Italiana, Trophee des Champions and DFL-Supercup.
• The UEFA Super Cup.
• The FIFA Club World Cup and the Intercontinental Cup.

These can still make a club's season look even bigger, which is where the quadruple, quintuple and sextuple come in. They are informal labels used by the press for four, five or six trophies in one season or year, and there is no official definition, so you will sometimes see different claims.

Fans often ask whether winning the Europa League counts. It is a trophy, but when people say “the treble” in English soccer, they mean the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League. Our comparison of the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A shows how each country has its own cups, which is why the details of a treble change from country to country.

Every European continental treble winner

As of October 2026, nine European men's clubs have won eleven continental trebles. Each one won the league, the national cup and the European Cup or Champions League in the same season.

Real Madrid, the club with the most European titles, have never completed a continental treble, a point we explore in our guide to which club has won the most Champions League titles.

In 2025-26, no European club added a twelfth treble. Paris Saint-Germain won the league and the Champions League again, but they went out of the Coupe de France in the round of 32.

The stories behind the most famous trebles

Celtic, 1967. The first treble came when Celtic won the Scottish league, the Scottish Cup and the European Cup, beating Inter Milan 2-1 in the final in Lisbon. Their squad was famously made up of players from close to Glasgow.

Ajax, 1972. Ajax won the Dutch league and cup and beat Inter 2-0 in the European Cup final, part of their run of three titles in a row.

Manchester United, 1999. United won the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League, beating Bayern Munich 2-1 in Barcelona with two goals in stoppage time. It remains the only English treble before Manchester City.

Barcelona, 2009 and 2015. Pep Guardiola's team won La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the Champions League in 2009 and then added the Supercopa, UEFA Super Cup and Club World Cup for a sextuple. In 2015, a team led by Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez did the treble again.

Inter, 2010. Inter Milan, led by Jose Mourinho, won Serie A, the Coppa Italia and the Champions League.

Bayern Munich, 2013 and 2020. Bayern beat Borussia Dortmund at Wembley in 2013, and in 2020 they beat Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 in Lisbon.

Manchester City, 2023. City beat Inter Milan 1-0 in Istanbul to complete their treble with the Premier League and FA Cup, and you can watch the official highlights in the video section on this page.

Quintuple and sextuple: more than three trophies

Once a club has a treble, extra trophies make the story even bigger. The sextuple is six trophies in one season or calendar year, and according to Wikipedia only three clubs have achieved it: Barcelona in 2009, Bayern Munich in 2020 and Paris Saint-Germain in 2025.

For Barcelona, the six were La Liga, the Copa del Rey, the Champions League, the Supercopa de Espana, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup. Bayern's six were the Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal, the Champions League, the DFL-Supercup, the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup. For PSG, the haul came across 2025 and included Ligue 1, the Coupe de France, the Champions League, the Trophee des Champions, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Intercontinental Cup, which they won on penalties against Flamengo on 17 December 2025.

Because the sextuple includes one-match trophies, the exact count and dates depend on how you tally them, which is why some writers prefer to call them “six trophies in a calendar year”. The simple treble stays the cleanest measure.

The treble idea also exists in the women's game: Barcelona's women's team completed their first continental treble in 2021.

Why is a treble so rare?

Several reasons make a treble so hard. First, a club has to win three different kinds of competition, each with its own style. A league rewards the most consistent team, a cup is a lottery of single matches, and the Champions League has tough knockout ties against the best teams in Europe.

Second, the schedule is heavy. A team chasing all three trophies may play around 60 matches or more, and injuries, suspensions and fatigue build up in spring, exactly when the biggest games arrive.

Third, one bad day can end the dream. Many great teams have won two of the three and lost the third, such as clubs that win the double and then lose a Champions League semi-final. Liverpool, for instance, won the FA Cup and the League Cup in 2022 but missed out on the league and Champions League by a small margin.

Finally, there is the question of depth. Modern clubs build large squads and many use rotation, but only a few clubs have both the depth and the star power to win everything.

That is why the best players in our iconic players collection are often the ones with a treble on their record. For more on the skills that make those players special, visit our skills videos.