Unity, ‘humility’ and star dust: How to win a treble, European football’s hardest feat - The Athletic
“It’s a magic moment to win a treble,” says former Inter assistant coach Jose Morais.
Morais was Jose Mourinho’s assistant when Inter won the famed treble of Champions League, Serie A title and Coppa Italia during the 2009-10 season.
“That feeling of being a family, that energy, that trust and confidence in each other, it was really something special,” continues Morais, now coach of Turkish club Bodrum. “Before every game, I always felt we were going to win.”
Those emotions are rare in European football. Only 10 times have a team won the European Cup/Champions League, their country’s league championship and the main cup competition in the same season, most recently Manchester City in 2022-23.
Four of this year’s quarter-finalists — Barcelona, Inter, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain — have that very possibility coming into view.
The Athletic looks back at what the ‘treble’ has meant to each of these four clubs in the past, including glorious victories and painful misses, and explores what further history might be made by this season’s end.
“We’ve never done the treble in 109 years of history,” then-Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola said in January 2009. “It’s absurd to suggest it.”
The historic absurdity of Barca becoming the first team from La Liga to win all three big competitions began to look possible as the season progressed.
A 6-2 Clasico win at Real Madrid’s Bernabeu in early May 2009 all but secured La Liga. Four days later, Barca were seconds from being eliminated from the Champions League at Chelsea, until Andres Iniesta’s 93rd-minute 20-yard strike sent his team through to the final on away goals. The Copa del Rey final saw Lionel Messi score twice in a 4-1 victory over Athletic Club.
Manchester United were beaten 2-0 in the Champions League final in Rome with a goal in each half from Samuel Eto’o and Messi. The following evening, almost a million supporters lined the Catalan capital’s streets as the team bus took three hours to travel from the city centre to a ‘treble’ party at a packed Camp Nou.
“It was something inconceivable, like a dream, it was all happiness after that, lots of partying, lots of joy,” Messi later recalled in El Pais.
Six years later, Neymar and Luis Suarez had joined the Argentinian in the Barca attack, while Luis Enrique had replaced his former team-mate Guardiola in the dugout.
Yet, Barca’s 2014-15 season almost crashed completely in January. After a row with head coach Luis Enrique, Messi and a clutch of stars were dropped for the trip to face David Moyes’ Real Sociedad. The day after that dismal 1-0 defeat, sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta was fired and his assistant Carles Puyol quit. Club president Josep Maria Bartomeu came under pressure to resign.
But amid the crisis, the team clicked — they soared clear in La Liga, winning 56 of a possible 63 points; eliminated Manchester City, PSG and Bayern Munich in the Champions League; and reached the Copa del Rey final, where they beat Athletic 3-1.
“Nobody expected a treble, not in January nor at the start of the season,” Barca defender Gerard Pique told Mundo Deportivo before the Champions League final against Juventus. “You can have all the talent in the world, but if you’re not feeling good in your head, it’s impossible things will go for you.”
After goals from Ivan Rakitic, Suarez and Neymar sealed a 3-1 win in Berlin, Luis Enrique referenced the challenges along the way.
“We’ve finished a historic year, a difficult year, I’m grateful to the people who trusted in me,” he said. “We never imagined we could win all three titles. These players never get tired of winning.”
This season is Barca’s first realistic chance in a decade for another treble, under new coach Hansi Flick, who also achieved the feat with Bayern Munich in 2019-20.
“Thinking about the treble is all very well, but we mustn’t focus on dreams,” said Flick in early April, after Barcelona had beaten Atletico Madrid to reach the Copa del Rey final against Real Madrid (in Seville on April 26).
Barca are four points clear of Madrid at the top of La Liga with eight matches remaining. This year’s red-hot front three of Robert Lewandowski, Lamine Yamal and Raphinha all scored again in Wednesday’s 4-0 Champions League quarter-final first-leg win against Borussia Dortmund. Watching was Como midfielder Sergi Roberto, a member of Barca’s 2014-15 treble-winning squad.
“Barca are having an incredible season, they can win every possible title,” Roberto tells The Athletic. “Each game they play, they are rolling over their opponent, scoring three or four goals. That superiority makes you think they can win everything. After some more difficult years, this could be the perfect season for another treble.”
Coming into the 2009-10 season, Inter had won the four previous Serie A titles, but had not won Europe’s leading club competition since 1965.
“We had a good squad, and our mindset was we entered every competition wanting to win it,” recalls Morais, who worked as an assistant to Portuguese compatriot Mourinho. “But there was no special goal for the season. It was not a needy team, stressed, thinking, ‘We must win the Champions League’.”
Inter led from the front in the Serie A title race, qualified second behind Barcelona in their Champions League group and progressed smoothly through the Coppa Italia. A recurring theme was late goals to win games they had been losing — including at Dinamo Kyiv in Europe and Siena in Serie A.
Such spirit and togetherness was forged during team-bonding barbecues organised by veteran captain Javier Zanetti. Club president Massimo Moratti also invited players, staff and their families to a Christmas party at his lavish country home.
“It felt like a family with the Christmas party and the barbecues with the Argentine steaks at the training ground,” Morais says. “Fantastic moments together. We had a very good group, happy, funny — with people who mixed together and were there to play with each other.”
A 3-1 aggregate win at Mourinho’s previous club Chelsea in the Champions League last 16 gave Inter’s players the confidence that anything was possible, but it was the semi-final against Barcelona that really defined the season.
An ash cloud caused by the eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull meant a 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) bus journey for Barca to make the first leg in northern Italy. Inter shocked the previous season’s treble winners with some thrilling attacking football and won 3-1.
After a red card for midfielder Thiago Motta early in the second leg at the Camp Nou, Guardiola’s side registered 86.4 per cent possession but Inter’s 10 men showed immense concentration and physical commitment to progress 3-2 on aggregate.
“After Motta was red-carded, Samuel Eto’o sacrificed himself for the team, running like hell, pushing and motivating his team-mates,” Morais says.
“Wesley Sneijder had Ballon d’Or quality but played with the humility of someone starting his career. It was amazing — the secret was the unity of this group, the bond was so strong, how they trusted each other.”
The effort of playing in three competitions still took a toll, and a loss in Serie A at Roma allowed their challengers to close to within a point at the top of the table. Roma were also Inter’s opponents in the Coppa Italia final, while a Bayern team also going for the treble awaited in the Champions League decider. Step forward Argentine forward Diego Milito to score crucial goals to clinch all three competitions.
“(Milito) was phenomenal,” Mourinho told The Athletic in 2019. “When we speak about the treble, he scored the winning goal in the Coppa final, the winning goal to give us the Serie A title (against Siena on the final day) and both our goals in the Champions League final. Amazing.”
Through this season, Simone Inzaghi’s Inter have shown some of the same defensive stubbornness, mental strength and ambition of the 2009-10 side. Asked in mid-March about the possibility of adding the club’s second ever treble, Inzaghi joked that he was aiming even higher.
“I should say the quadruple — there’s the Club World Cup too at the end of the season,” smiled Inzaghi. “The only idea in our minds is to make our fans happy by trying to honour every single game. It’s not easy, but these lads have great spirit.”
In early April’s Coppa semi-final first leg, Inter went 1-0 down at rivals Milan but eked out a 1-1 draw. At Bayern last week, they showed a strong jaw to absorb Thomas Muller’s late equaliser and counter-punched with Davide Frattesi’s goal for a 2-1 advantage going into Wednesday’s return leg in Milan.
Real Madrid have won 15 European Cups, 36 La Liga titles and 20 Copas del Rey — but have never won all three competitions in the same season.
Ivan Campo was a defender in the 1999-2000 Champions League-winning team, which finished fifth in La Liga and lost against Espanyol in the Copa del Rey semi-finals.
“At Madrid, what really counts is what you do at the end of the season,” Campo tells The Athletic. “Sometimes that effort you make in the European Cup, you pay for in La Liga, physically and mentally. Maybe we didn’t push as hard as we could have in some La Liga games, so we could give everything in Europe.”
Madrid have won La Liga and the Champions League in the same season three times this century — with Zinedine Zidane as coach in 2016-17 and Carlo Ancelotti in 2021-22 and 2023-24.
They also came close to a treble under Ancelotti in 2013-14 — Gareth Bale’s spectacular late solo goal decided a Clasico Copa del Rey final, but the focus on winning a ‘Decima’ (10th) Champions League against Atletico Madrid saw the emphasis slip in La Liga.
This season, the route to a first-ever treble opened up as Madrid progressed in the three big competitions, especially after beating Guardiola’s Manchester City and then Atletico to reach the Champions League quarter-finals.
“I’m focused on this historic treble we can achieve,” Kylian Mbappe told Le Parisien in mid-March, with Madrid joint-top of La Liga’s table. “It’s something Real Madrid have never done, so it’d be really extraordinary to achieve it in my first season.”
But competing on three fronts has stretched an already-thin Madrid squad in recent weeks. After needing extra time to see off Real Sociedad in the Copa del Rey semi-finals, they were beaten 2-1 at home by Valencia in La Liga to fall four points behind leaders Barcelona.
A 3-0 defeat at Arsenal in last week’s Champions League quarter-final first leg further hurt Madrid’s treble chances — yet Morais believes that the club’s history of ‘remontada’ comebacks at the Bernabeu means it remains a possibility.
“It’s more difficult now than before, but everything is possible — it’s never easy for any team at the Bernabeu, no matter the (first leg) score,” says the Portuguese, who assisted Mourinho at the Bernabeu from 2010-13. “Anything is possible with Real Madrid in this competition.”
Paris Saint-Germain won their fourth successive Ligue 1 title after defeating Angers 1-0 on April 5th — making it 11 titles in 13 seasons since Qatar Sports Investments took over in 2011.
PSG have also won seven Coupes de France over that time, completing the domestic double in 2014-15, 2015-16, 2017-18, 2019-20 and 2023-24.
But success in the Champions League has been elusive. The closest to a treble was in 2019-20 when PSG were declared Ligue 1 champions on ‘points per game’ during the Covid-19 pandemic. Tuchel’s side also won delayed Couple de France and the Coupe de la Ligue finals in July to secure a domestic treble.
When the Champions League was restarted in a condensed knockout stage in Portugal in August, PSG beat Atalanta and RB Leipzig to set up a final against Bayern Munich, then managed by Flick.
Both finalists were going for the treble. In Germany, it was a big deal, but in France, the entire focus was on a possible first Champions League for PSG and their Qatari owners. At the pre-game press conference for Tuchel and Mbappe, the idea of a clean sweep did not even come up. And it did not happen — Kingsley Coman’s 59th-minute header won it for Bayern.
PSG’s current coach does know what it takes to win a treble — and was comfortable discussing the idea as his first season came to its decisive stage 12 months ago.
“Winning everything — of course we talk about it,” Luis Enrique said in April 2024. “It’s a motivation. It is a way of writing the club’s history and the city’s history.”
That campaign ended in a familiar way — domestic domination but a 2-0 aggregate defeat by Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League semi-finals.
This season, PSG have again done their domestic homework as early as possible. On April 1, they beat second-tier Dunkerque 4-2 to reach the Coupe de France final. Four days later, they retained the Ligue 1 title with six games remaining.
“We have the ambition to win everything,” PSG captain Marquinhos said during the title celebrations. “The end of this season will be very exciting, with big things to achieve.”
Last Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final first leg in Paris also went well. PSG bounced back from conceding early against Aston Villa to take a 3-1 advantage into Tuesday’s return at Villa Park.
“I’ve very good memories of playing against Paris, and now I see them with Luis Enrique, a coach for whom I have a very special relationship,” says Roberto, who sees another potential treble coming this year. “Barca and Paris are the strongest teams in the Champions League. A final of Barca against PSG would be incredible.”
(Top photo: Lluis Gene/AFP via Getty Images)
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