Treble is used in association football to refer to a team winning three trophies in a single season or calendar year. Honours usually considered to contribute to a treble are the top-tier domestic league competition, primary domestic cup competition and most prestigious continental cup competition, although this depends to some extent on the football competitions of a particular country.
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Trophy competitions which consist of a single match or a two-leg match (e.g. the FA Community Shield, Irish FA Charity Shield, Supercopa de España, Trophée des Champions, the Recopa Sudamericana, the UEFA Super Cup or the Intercontinental Cup) are generally not counted as part of a treble.
Two phrases sometimes used are a 'continental treble', which involves winning at least one continental trophy, and a 'domestic treble' - usually the domestic league and two secondary tournaments.
Annual and seasonal trebles
There are few cases of a club winning their country's top tier league and the primary cup competition (The Double), in addition to the major continental tournament, all within a single season. This was first achieved in 1967 by Celtic, winning the Scottish Football League (top tier national league), Scottish Cup (main national cup) and European Cup (main continental tournament).
In total, 18 clubs across six confederations have achieved the feat on 23 occasions since 1962, including six African clubs, seven European clubs, two Oceanian clubs, two North American clubs and one Asian club. This list does not accommodate secondary continental and domestic competitions, so does neither list Liverpool F.C. winning the domestic League Cup along with the top tier League and the European Cup in 1983–84 nor Al-Ahly winning the continental Cup Winners' Cup alongside the Egyptian domestic double in 1984–85.
It is very rare that players of a team that wins a treble also win a cup with their national team in the same year. Hans van Breukelen, Berry van Aerle, Ronald Koeman, Gerald Vanenburg and Wim Kieft combined a PSV 1987–88 treble with a Euro 1988 cup with the Netherlands. Essam El-Hadary, Ahmad El-Sayed, Mohamed Abdelwahab, Hassan Mostafa, Emad Moteab, Mohamed Shawky, Mohamed Barakat, Wael Gomaa and Mohamed Aboutreika combined a Al-Ahly treble with a 2006 Africa Cup of Nations with Egypt.
In Europe, Spanish club FC Barcelona is the only one to have won a treble twice.
National trebles
This type of treble consists of a club winning three or four of their country's titles (top-tier league, cup, league cup), all during one season. Many countries do not have a third domestic (e.g. League Cup) competition, besides competitions consisting of a single match or a two-leg match (e.g. Supercups), so achieving a domestic treble is impossible (e.g. Germany and Italy as nowadays).
Brazil has an unofficial "Triple Crown", a name given to a team that wins the national league, the national cup, and their state league.
Note that trophy competitions which consist of a single match or a two-leg match (e.g. Supercups in general) are generally not counted as part of a treble.
European treble
Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) defines a European Treble as the feat of winning, over the club's entire history, all three seasonal club confederation competitions – European Cup/UEFA Champions League, European/UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, and UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League.
While the UEFA Cup Winner's Cup no longer exists, there are 28 teams that have won it in the past who could still add wins in the other two competitions to achieve this UEFA treble.
The European Treble has only been achieved by four teams:
Note: per criteria for achieving European Treble, shows first win only for any club with multiple wins of same competition.