Liverpool claimed the first honours of the English football season, and in doing so sparked lofty ambitions of a clean sweep of trophies. That begs the question – has a team ever won a quadruple?
Can Liverpool Win a Quadruple This Season?
Prior to the start of the season, the prevailing narrative appeared to be whether recently-crowned treble winners Manchester City could go one better in 2023/24 and lift a highly-coveted quadruple.
No team in English football has ever claimed a true, traditional quadruple; that is, both domestic cup competitions, the Premier League, and the Champions League.
However, there have been instances in English football, and across Europe, where teams have lifted four or more trophies in a single season. This of course includes season curtain-raisers such as the Community Shield or Super Cups.
With Liverpool claiming their first trophy of the season against Chelsea in the Carabao Cup, the fairytale end to Jurgen Klopp’s nine-year reign on Merseyside is beginning to blossom.
They lead the Premier League by a solitary point, remain in contention for the Europa League with a round of 16 clash against Sparta Prague, and Southampton await in the FA Cup fifth round.
UK betting sites have them as second-favourites to win the league and the FA Cup, while they are top of the pile as far as the Europa League in concerned.
Maybe it wouldn’t be a quadruple in the ‘traditional sense’, but it is a quadruple of trophies nonetheless.
That got us thinking – has a team ever won a quadruple?
How many trophies will @LFC win this season? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/EfRJu1ccCf
— Premier League (@premierleague) February 26, 2024
Which Teams Have Won a Quadruple?
Taking Europe’s top five leagues into account, no team has ever won a quadruple in the true sense.
That may be doing the relentless Bayern Munich team of 2012/13 a disservice given an English League Cup equivalent ceases to exist in Germany.
That year, Jupp Heynckes led Bayern to a Champions League triumph along with a domestic treble of the Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal and DFL-Supercup, all the while losing just once across the three competitions. It is therefore logical to assume that if a League Cup style tournament existed, they may will have lifted it.
Bayern would actually win another four trophies a year later in Pep Guardiola’s first season, albeit with a UEFA Super Cup and Club World Cup thrown into the mix. For reference, only four of the total 20 Club World Cup finals to date have been won by a team outside of Europe.
They would win four again in 2020/21 – two Super Cups, a Club World Cup and a Bundesliga. Pretty meh as far as quadruples go.
You must be thinking, surely Barcelona have won a quadruple? They have, three times in fact, but again none of which were true quadruples. Had it not been for Atletico Madrid in the last eight of the Champions League in 2015/16, they may well have had claims to the best quadruple of trophies in history.
Nevertheless, Barca still hold the record alongside Bayern Munich as being one of two teams to win a sextuple of trophies in a single calendar year (2009).
Real Madrid have of course managed to win four trophies in a single season, on two occasions. Had it not been for an uncharacteristically sluggish quarter-final defeat to Celta Vigo in the 2016/17 Copa Del Rey, they would have won every possible trophy that year.
PSG have won the French quadruple four times in the last 10 years, but their yearning for European silverware continues to eat away at them despite an overwhelming period of success.
In terms of English quadruples, both Manchester United (2008/09) and Manchester City (2018/19) have achieved four trophies in one season, but these both include the Community Shield which is little more than a glorified friendly.
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