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Manchester City: What is football's Treble - and who's won one?

haaland with trophiesImage source, Getty Images

By any standards, Manchester City have had a pretty epic season.

Erling Haaland's team have won the Premier League and the FA Cup Final against their local rivals Manchester United.

And on Saturday 10 June they won their first Uefa Champions League - making them Treble winners.

In terms of English football, that's the super-rare feat of winning the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League.

The treble is a very unusual achievement but it has been done by other UK teams. Let's find out more.

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Winning one trophy in a season is tough enough for any team.

Sometimes teams even get to win two - usually the Double of League and Cup - but three? That's a rarity, but it's not unique.

And there's a difference between wining a treble and winning the Treble.

A treble is winning three trophies in a season - also rare - but the Treble is when a club wins their national league competition, the main cup competition in the country, and their continent's main club trophy.

Around the world it's been done by teams like Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Lyon but some British teams have done it too.

Manchester United 1998-1999

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Image caption,

Manchester United players holding the Champions League trophy

Let's start with one of the UK's most famous Trebles.

In 1998-99, Manchester United had an amazing season full of last-minute goals, penalty drama and legendary performances to do what no English team had done before.

During the season, United lost only five times and had a run of 33 games unbeaten but they still only pipped rivals Arsenal to the Premier League title by one point.

Image source, Getty Images

The Red Devils beat Newcastle United in the FA Cup final, then took on German champions Bayern Munich in the Champions League final, which they famously won with two goals in the last 90 seconds of the game.

An estimated half a million people watched their victory parade through the city and in recognition of his success, manager Alex Ferguson was given a knighthood.

Arsenal women 2006-2007

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Emma Byrne, Mary Phillip, Rachel Yankey, Yvonne Tracy and Jayne Ludlow with the Womens UEFA Cup Trophy

Fast forward to 2007 when the Gunners were chasing their own Treble.

The team were playing for the Women's Premier League (which became the WSL we know today), the FA Cup and the UEFA Women's Cup (the tournament was renamed the Women's Champions League in 2009).

Star players of the team included now Football Focus presenter Alex Scott who scored the winning goal in the UEFA Women's Cup final, and Faye White, the longest serving-captain of the England Lionesses - she played for England for 15 years.

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Image caption,

Alex Scott with all Arsenal's trophies from 2006-7

In the UEFA Women's Cup Final, they beat Swedish side Umea, led by Brazilian striker Marta, who went on to be one of women's football's most famous names and became World Player of the Year five times.

The Gunners were the superstars of women's football that year and in fact won a quadruple that season! They took home the National League Cup too.

And all without losing a single game!

Celtic 1966-1967

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Image caption,

Celtic team line up before their European Cup Final match against Inter Milan

We go back in time now to the 1960s when Glasgow's Celtic were one of the best teams in European football.

In an unbelievable season of success, the Hoops won every competition they entered: The Scottish League (now the Scottish Premier League), the Scottish Cup, the Scottish League Cup, the Glasgow Cup, and the European Cup (which was replaced by the Champions League).

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Image caption,

Celtic have a statue of 1967 Lisbon Lion's captain Billy McNeill outside their stadium in Glasgow

Becoming legendary as the "Lisbon Lions", Celtic beat Inter Milan 2-1 in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, to lift the trophy and were the first British team to win it, and also to win the Treble.

Whereas we're now used to clubs having amazing players from all over the world, famously all Celtic's players that day were born within 30 miles of Glasgow.