Liverpool came close to winning the coveted quadruple last year. Walked at the end of last season the Reds missed out on the Premier League title by one point and lost 0-1 to Real Madrid in the Champions League final. Winning one major trophy in a season is quite an achievement, not to mention two or three.
Certain clubs are capable of competing on multiple fronts, but has any club ever managed to win four trophies in one season?
What is a quadruple?
If a club wins the quadruple, it means they have won four titles in one season. For example, if a team wins the Premier League, FA Cup, EFL Cup and Champions League, they have won the quadruple.
In official terms, a quadruple is ‘real’ when a club wins all four major trophies in one season, not over a calendar year. A club can take four trophies and call it a quadruple, but true know-it-alls will say that trophies such as the FIFA Club World Cup and UEFA Super Cup do not count towards the quadruple as they are not considered major prizes by the majority of people.
A ‘treble’ is when a club wins three major titles in one season, and a ‘double’ is when a club takes two major titles. Bayern Munich won the unofficial quadruple as they won the Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal and Champions League in the 2019/20 season. They won the Club World Cup a few months later, meaning they won four titles, but not the true quadruple.
Pep Guardiola won six titles in the 2009 calendar year as manager of Barcelona – the Champions League, La Liga, Spanish Cup, Club World Cup, UEFA Super Cup and the Copa del Rey. But he was unable to win the right quadruple in the 2009/10 season, falling short in the semi-finals of the Champions League while winning the Spanish Cup and La Liga.
Has any Premier League club ever won the quadruple?
No Premier League club has managed to win the quadruple. The closest a club has ever come was Manchester United in the 1998/99 season when they won a historic treble. But in the League Cup were killed the Red Devils in the quarter-final against Tottenham Hotspur.
Manchester City, meanwhile, collected all three domestic trophies in 2018-19, but were knocked out of the Champions League in the quarter-finals. They also won the Community Shield that year.
Clubs that have won four awards
No team in the top five major European leagues has won the true quadruple, although many clubs have won as many as four titles in a single season. Celtic won the true quadruple in 1966/67, having won the European Cup/Champions League, Scottish League, Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup in one season.