In Barcelona, Real Madrid, PSG and Inter, four Champions League quarter-finalists are still in with a realistic chance of winning a treble. 2024-25 is set for an exciting climax.
After a couple of scares in domestic cup competitions last week for some, the 2024-25 season appears set up for a grandstand finish.
Almost every English club has already failed on several fronts this season, leaving the only possibility of a Premier League side winning more than one trophy as Aston Villa upsetting the odds to win both the Champions League and FA Cup. Meanwhile, four of the biggest teams in Europe are still in with a genuine chance of winning the treble.
Spanish rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid are battling with one another on two fronts domestically, while they are both still in with a chance of winning the Champions League, too.
Paris Saint-Germain won the Ligue 1 title at the weekend and will be huge favourites to secure yet another domestic double when they face Reims in the Coupe de France final in late May. Luis Enrique has them looking like real contenders for the biggest prize of all in Europe, too.
Inter are top of Serie A, level after the first leg of their Coppa Italia semi-final with Milan, and in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. Having made the final only a couple of years ago, they will be hoping to go one better this year.
It all means this is the first time in seven seasons that four teams have reached the Champions League quarter-finals while still being in with a chance of winning the treble. The last time was 2018-19, when Manchester City, Barcelona, Porto and Ajax made the last eight of Europe’s premier competition while all still in their respective title races and on course for domestic cup glory.
That is the only other season in the past decade that has had four Champions League quarter-finalists chasing a treble. The 2020-21 season had four teams mathematically in with a chance of winning the treble, but both Chelsea and Borussia Dortmund would have had to overturn almost-impossible points deficits to win their league titles, so there was only a realistic chance of a treble for two of the four.
Each of the five most recent seasons have seen no more than two teams in the Champions League quarter-finals who are also in with a realistic chance of winning a treble. In each of the last four seasons, it has been Man City and at most one other team, and in one campaign it was only them.
It’s a unique situation to have this many teams from Europe’s top five leagues still chasing a treble at this stage of the season. And what’s more, not only are they all still in contention to win a domestic double, but all four have also been kept apart in the quarter-final draw.
That means there is a chance we have Real Madrid playing PSG in one semi-final and Barcelona facing Inter in the other, with all four in with a chance of winning their respective treble (assuming title races are still running and each team is still in their domestic cup, too). The final could also be between two teams chasing a treble.
According to the Opta supercomputer, Barcelona, PSG and Inter are all favourites to win their quarter-finals, while Madrid are only just outsiders against Arsenal (50.2% to 49.8%). So if the supercomputer is to be believed (how dare you consider doing otherwise?), there’s every chance we have those four in the semis.
And the icing on the cake (for those of us who love a blockbuster showdown) is that we could be in for the first ever Clásico Champions League final.
Barcelona currently lead Real Madrid by four points at the top of La Liga and the rivals are set to meet in a six-pointer next month that will have a huge say in a title race that could come down to head-to-head record. Barcelona currently have a big upper hand in that battle, having won 4-0 at the Bernabéu back in October, but a slip-up in any other game could hand Madrid control. Barça dropped points at home Real Betis over the weekend, so clearly aren’t entirely infallible, although Madrid lost at home to Valencia, so overturning that four-point deficit could prove a challenge. It’s set up for an exciting finish, regardless.
The two Spanish giants are also on opposite sides of the Champions League draw, and could therefore feasibly meet in the final of the biggest competition in the world. Given how much these two sides have dominated European football, particularly this century, it is rather surprising how few Champions League showdowns they have had.
Barça and Madrid have won 12 of the 25 Champions League trophies on offer since 2000, yet they have only met twice in the entire Champions League era (since 1992) – the semi-finals in 2001-02 and 2011-12 . They also met in two more two-legged ties in consecutive seasons in the European Cup semi-finals in 1959-60 and the first round in 1960-61, but four ties over the competition’s whole history is not many at all.
They have also never met in the final of the competition, and the prospect of it finally happening this season is a mouth-watering one. The last four competitive meetings between the teams have produced a whopping 25 yellow cards and two reds, and none of those games have had anything like as much hanging on them as a Champions League final would.
Even if it doesn’t happen, though, we are already guaranteed to see some other silverware fought over by these sides as both progressed from semi-final scares last week to set up a Copa del Rey final meeting at the end of April. It will be the first Clásico final of any sort since 2013-14 in the same competition. That game was won in dramatic fashion by a famous Gareth Bale goal.
Madrid nearly failed to make it to this season’s final, though, after a major wobble at home to Real Sociedad in their semi-final second leg last week when they went 3-2 down on aggregate with just 10 minutes remaining. They then scored twice to take the lead, but conceded again to send the tie to extra-time. With just five minutes left before the game went to penalties, however, Antonio Rüdiger popped up at a corner to give his side a 5-4 aggregate win.
Barcelona’s second-leg win was far more straightforward, as they beat Atlético Madrid 1-0 through Ferran Torres’ well-taken first-half goal. They were the better team on the night and deserved to go through.
However, the first leg of that semi-final was about as dramatic as they come, as Atléti went 2-0 up, only for Barça to score four unanswered goals before conceding two late goals to draw 4-4.
Perhaps if it’s drama you want, Spain’s domestic cup competition is where to find it, and a Copa del Rey Clásico final could prove an incredible recipe. It would surely be far less cagey than a Champions League final with so much at stake, so could make for a more entertaining game.
There’s a long way to go before we are able to compare Clásico finals in different competitions, though, and nobody should write off PSG or Inter, respective potential semi-final opponents for Madrid and Barcelona, or indeed the other four teams involved in the Champions League quarters. Arsenal, after all, are slight favourites to beat Madrid in the quarters in the eyes of the Opta supercomputer. Bayern Munich, Aston Villa and Dortmund are less fancied, but all have strengths that shouldn’t be underestimated.
PSG face Villa and former manager Unai Emery, a master of European competition, but the French champions have emerged as one of the tournament’s standout teams after an unconvincing start to the league phase.
Given how much they dominate domestically, it may not be much of a surprise to find that, after Man City, PSG are the most regular treble-chasing Champions League quarter-finalists. They have now reached this stage while still in the hunt for a treble in four of the last six seasons, and they were beaten finalists under Thomas Tuchel in 2019-20 when a win would have secured the treble (though it’s worth noting they were awarded the Ligue 1 title because the season was curtailed early due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so perhaps the treble purists among us wouldn’t have considered this a true three-pronged triumph).
They have already produced the second largest aggregate victory in Champions League history (10-0 vs Brest) and knocked out previous favourites for the title, Liverpool, in this season’s knockout stage, and appear to be genuine contenders. They are still unbeaten all season in domestic competition.
Inter, the other treble hopefuls, have a bigger job on their hands. They still have a Coppa Italia second leg against Milan to overcome (following a 1-1 draw in the first leg last week), and only hold a four-point lead at the top of Serie A having played a game more than second-placed Napoli, who face Bologna on Monday. Bayern will also be formidable opponents in their Champions League quarter-final.
However, Inter have lots of pedigree in Europe’s biggest competition, having reached the final only two years ago, and won the treble under José Mourinho back in 2009-10. They are in with a shout of winning a second this season.
It would be Barcelona’s third treble win, but it would be a first for PSG and, interestingly given their record of 15 European Cup/Champions League titles, Real Madrid, too. Last season was only the fifth time they have won the league and European Cup double, while they have only won the domestic double four times, despite winning La Liga a record 36 times.
Winning the treble is clearly very, very difficult to do, but this season, we have more chance than usual of seeing history made.
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Four Teams Chasing a Treble, and a Possible Clásico Crescendo: 2024-25 Could Produce a Blockbuster Finish Opta Analyst.
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