Sports
All 8 Clubs To Win The Continental treble In Football History
Man City have become just the eighth European club to win a continental treble by beating Inter Milan. What kind of company are they keeping?
Barcelona and Bayern Munich both won their first trebles this century but each have since gone onto repeat the feat more recently, contributing to the fact that five of the nine clean sweeps across the continent have come since 2009.
Prior to that, Sir Alex Ferguson’s famous Manchester United side of 1999 had been the only team since Guus Hiddink’s PSV some 11 years earlier to have won all three trophies in the same season.
Here’s the full roll call of teams Manchester City have joined – and how those previous history makers managed it.
2012/13 and 2019/20 – Bayern Munich
A truncated Champions League in 2020, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, saw Bayern win the trophy in Lisbon
A truncated Champions League in 2020, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, saw Bayern win the trophy in Lisbon
When Hansi Flick took over Bayern Munich in November 2019 he inherited an ailing team who had underperformed under Niko Kovac, his former boss. Less than a year later, he had won everything with them. Nineteen wins and a draw from their final 20 Bundesliga matches marked an astonishing run of domestic form to win the league at a canter, and they made light work of Europe too.
Robert Lewandowski plundered 55 goals by the end of the campaign, but it was Kingsley Coman who eventually saw them to victory on the continent to seal the treble with a 1-0 win over PSG, rounding off a season where they won all 11 of their Champions League games en route to the trophy.
2009/10 – Inter Milan
Jose Mourinho's second Champions League title came with Inter in 2010, where he made them Italy's only treble winners
Jose Mourinho’s second Champions League title came with Inter in 2010, where he made them Italy’s only treble winners
Jose Mourinho’s Inter hold the impressive record, considering their country’s proud footballing history, of being Italy’s only treble holders, and a major summer transfer from Pep Guardiola’s victorious Barcelona the year before played a huge part.
The strike partnership of Samuel Eto’o – swapped with Barca for Zlatan Ibrahimovic – and Diego Milito fired Inter to glory in Europe. No Mourinho side would be complete without a strong defence, and the Brazilian duo of Julio Cesar in goal and Lucio at centre-back provided just that.
The semi-finals can often be the real defining moment for any Champions League-winning side and so it proved again, with Mourinho seeing off rival Guardiola 3-2 on aggregate before a 2-0 win over Bayern in the final.
2008/09 and 2014/15 – Barcelona
Pep Guardiola became one of two managers to lead his side to a treble in his first season as a first-team coach in 2009
Pep Guardiola became one of two managers to lead his side to a treble in his first season as a first-team coach in 2009
What a way Guardiola chose to announce himself to the world of football management. After a solitary year managing their B team, the former Barca midfielder stepped up to the top job and took LaLiga and Europe by storm.
With the midfield trio of Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets emerging and Lionel Messi at the peak of his powers, they swept to the title and went unbeaten in the knockout rounds of the Champions League, with a goal in each half from Samuel Eto’o and Messi enough to beat Man Utd in Italy in the 2008/09 final.
1998/99 – Manchester United
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's two injury-time goals have become iconic in Champions League history
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s two injury-time goals have become iconic in Champions League history
Ferguson’s side stand unrivalled in English history as the only side to have lifted all three trophies in the same season, and in uniquely dramatic fashion. Going into injury time of their Champions League final with Bayern Munich, their final game of the season, it looked as though they would miss out on the set thanks to Mario Basler’s sixth-minute goal. But then, up stepped Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and you know what happened next.
His winner has gone down in United and English football folklore, but there were plenty more moments like that across the season – including United’s comeback from 3-1 down on aggregate to Juventus in the final hour of the second leg of the Champions League semi-final and in the FA Cup too, when Dennis Bergkamp’s late missed penalty stopped Arsenal reaching the final at their expense.
1987/88 – PSV
PSV goalkeeper Hans van Breukelen kept a clean sheet as they edged Benfica on penalties in the European Cup final in 1988
PSV goalkeeper Hans van Breukelen kept a clean sheet as they edged Benfica on penalties in the European Cup final in 1988
Though PSV winning the European Cup seemed a once-in-a-generation moment, there was no fluke to a young Hiddink’s achievements with a band of players including a number who would go on to lift the European Championship with the Netherlands later that summer.
In the league, Hiddink’s side racked up 117 goals but in Europe they were built on defensive stability, and they did not win a game inside 90 minutes beyond the second round.
Ronald Koeman was the enduring household name but goalkeeper Hans van Breukelen and captain Eric Gerets were just as instrumental at the back while further forward 37-year-old Willy van der Kerkhof still featured intermittently a decade after helping ‘total football’ Netherlands reach the 1978 World Cup final.
1971/72 – Ajax
Ajax saw off Inter in 1972 on home soil at De Kuip in Rotterdam
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Ajax saw off Inter in 1972 on home soil at De Kuip in Rotterdam
At one stage, the Dutch were the treble kings of Europe with PSV’s success adding to Ajax’s all-conquering 1972 side, who somehow went one better than under Rinus Michels the previous season with Stefan Kovacs leading them to glory.
The legendary Michels had brought total football to Amsterdam and he left Kovacs a side braced for success, taking over a side who were already European champions after beating Panathinaikos in the 1971 final.
They won 26 of their 27 final league games and though they needed extra time to beat Den Haag in the KNVB Cup final, there were no such problems in Europe with a 2-0 win over Inter in the European Cup final – with who else but Johan Cruyff the scorer of both goals – enough to round off their greatest ever campaign.
1966/67 – Celtic
Celtic captain Billy McNeil with the trophy in Lisbon after their historic win
Celtic captain Billy McNeil with the trophy in Lisbon after their historic win
Legendary status does not seem a term high enough for Jock Stein, whose Celtic side of 1967 not only won the continental treble but also a quadruple with the Scottish League Cup also heading back to Parkhead that year.
They lost only twice in the league all season and earned an Old Firm win over Rangers in the League Cup final, before the so-termed ‘Lisbon Lions’ wrote themselves into eternal Celtic history against Inter in the European Cup final in Portugal.
Stevie Chalmers’ goal earned a 2-1 win at the Estadio Nacional as Celtic became not only the first, to this day only, Scottish European Cup winners but won everything else in sight too.
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