The Quadruple

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The Quadruple is a term used in football that refers to a club winning their country's top tier league and the two most highly regarded domestic cup competitions, as well as the top tier continental cup competition - the European Cup/Champions League under the UEFA confederation - all within a single season or calendar year.

The FA Community Shield (or other similar minor trophies), UEFA Super Cup (or Super Cups from other confederations), Intercontinental Cup, or FIFA Club World Cup are never counted as part of The Quadruple. As with The Treble, it is possible to win 4 trophies in a season other than the top tier combination. A consensus view is that such an achievement should be called 'a quadruple' or 'quadruple' as a common noun with The Quadruple or Quadruple as a proper noun reserved for the top tier achievement.

At present - in the majority of leagues - The Quadruple is the ultimate achievement, consisting of every major top tier trophy a club can win in a single season. Yet it remains a practical impossibility in some countries, such as Spain and Italy, where there is only one major domestic cup competition.

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[edit] Continental Quadruple

Celtic FC were the first team to accomplished the feat in the 1967 season, winning:

[edit] Domestic quadruple

Sun Hei of Hong Kong won 4 trophies in the 2004–05 season.

[edit] International Quadruple

It is possible to win an International Quadruple by consecutively winning the FIFA World Cup, the international level Confederation tournament (the European Championships or Copa America are examples), the Summer Olympic Football Tournament and the FIFA Confederations Cup. The Olympic tournament was viewed with importance in the era before the World Cup but is now perceived as a secondary tournament - due to this view and age restrictions on players, this Quadruple is yet to be won. This route is unlikely to be possible for countries from the Home Nations since - for political reasons within FIFA and the International Football Association Board - Great Britain does not field a united side in the Olympics, and neither England, Northern Ireland, Wales or Scotland compete separately in the Olympics.

[edit] See also