Winning the English Championship, the two national cups and the Champions League in the same year is the crazy challenge that Liverpool are pursuing, in search of their tenth final of the European queen event, Tuesday (9:00 p.m.) in half -final return to Villarreal (first leg: 2-0).
The English League Cup is already in your pocket, as is the ticket for the FA Cup final against Chelsea on May 14. With a small point behind Manchester City four days from the end and a favorable tie in C1, an English team has never been so close to the goal.
In 2007, Chelsea found themselves in a very similar situation, but three points behind Manchester United. The Blues had finally added only the FA Cup to their League Cup, beaten in the C1 semi-final by … Liverpool.
For a long time, the Reds have also minimized the possibility of a “Grand Slam”.
“No team in the history of English football has achieved the quadruple, right? This is because it is extremely difficult. We are still very far from thinking of such a crazy thing“, swept Jürgen Klopp in early March.
But the word is no longer taboo on the banks of the Mersey.
Liverpool could wipe out the league-FAC-Champions League treble of historic rival Manchester United in 1999.
THE REFERENCES
Klopp would also exceed the legendary first season of Pep Guardiola at the head of Barça, in 2008-2009, where the Catalans had rolled on the football planet (six trophies in one year) with the famous “tiki-taka” inherited from the precepts of Johan Cruyff.
This first Liga-Coupe-Champions League treble for a Spanish team also made an impression because it offered the first of its seven Ballons d’Or to Lionel Messi and launched its legendary rivalry with Cristiano Ronaldo.
The Bayern of the 2019-2020 season is another benchmark, since they had won the hat-trick at the end of the season, then a total of six trophies in one year: German Championship and Cup, Champions League, German Supercups and UEFA, and the Club World Cup.
This resounding feat, orchestrated by coach Hansi Flick, who had been able to sublimate a team of stars sometimes guilty of slumps, is however difficult to compare with a possible quadruple of the Reds.
Being German champion is the “bare minimum” for Bayern, which has not escaped the title since 2013, an unimaginable scenario with the fierce battle that opposes Premier League applicants each year.
Likewise, the 1967 Celtic and their “Lisbon Lions”, highlighted by UEFA on its official website as the only team to have won the Champions League, its championship and its national cup, as well as the Cup of the League – which only exists in a few countries – did not really suffer from the same competition for trophies over the Reds.
CITY, LE GROS OBSTACLE
The biggest obstacle on the road to Liverpool obviously remains Manchester City with its small ascendancy in the league and which could also be its opponent in the C1 final, if they get rid of Real Madrid.
“We don’t play to make the quadruple impossible (in Liverpool). We do it to win the Premier League and reach the Champions League final and win it for the first time,” Guardiola had to recall this weekend. .
With two 2-2 draws in the league and a 3-2 victory in the FA Cup semi-finals, Liverpool have slightly dominated head-to-head matches this season.
But it will probably be necessary to win the remaining 7 matches – if they eliminate Villarreal – and count on a misstep from City in the league.
“We really want to make it now“, yet admitted Klopp before the match at Newcastle (1-0) on Saturday.
“You can’t wait 10 years to create memories. We have to do it now (…) We don’t know if we’ll win anything, but right now we’re trying to get the most out of this season.”he concluded.
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