Double (association football)
The Double, in association football, is the achievement of winning a country's top tier division and its primary domestic cup competition in the same season.
Note: Bayern Munich's 2013 and 2020 doubles were part of the club's trebles which also included their UEFA Champions League victories.
Following World War II, a separate football competition emerged in the Soviet-occupied eastern area of Germany.
Five doubles were won in East German competition: Since the reunification of Germany, no former East German club has won either the Bundesliga title or the DFB Pokal (RB Leipzig having been founded in 2009); indeed, as of 2024, none of the aforementioned double winners are competing in the top flight.
Note: In 2006, Inter finished third in Serie A but were awarded the title as the highest placed club not to be involved in Calciopoli.
Note: Ajax's 1972 Double were part of the club's Treble which also included their European Cup victory.
In recent times, CFR Cluj has won the Double twice, being the fourth non-Bucharest team to do so, after Universitatea Craiova, UTA Arad and Ripensia Timişoara.
Note: Steaua București initially won the double in 1987–88 but voluntarily gave up their Cupa României title.
In San Marino six teams have won the Double of the Campionato Sammarinese di Calcio and the Coppa Titano.
Note: Celtic's 1967 Double was part of the club's Quintuple which also included their European Cup victory.
Note: Barcelona's 2009 and 2015 Doubles were part of the club's Trebles which also included their UEFA Champions League victories.
Additionally while Malmö won Allsvenskan in 1989, they were not Swedish Championships for that season as they did not win the play-off following the ordinary league play.
Note: Galatasaray's 2000 Double was part of the club's Minor treble which also included their UEFA Cup victory.
They narrowly missed out on a clean sweep of five trophies losing the Welsh Premier Cup Final to Wrexham.
Boca Juniors are the only club to simultaneously win the Argentine Primera División and the Copa Argentina.
Due to the large size of the country and the late development of the transportion and communication infrastructure needed to support it, a nationwide competition did not emerge until 1959.
An exception was the 1967 season, when Palmeiras won the double consisting of the inaugural Torneio Roberto Gomes Pedrosa and the final edition of the Taça Brasil.
In Uruguay, three teams have won the Double of the Uruguayan Primera División and the Copa de Competencia (defunct).
In Aruba, two teams have won the Double of the Division di Honor and the Torneo Copa Betico Croes.
In Puerto Rico only one team has won the Double of the Liga Nacional and the Torneo de Copa (defunct).
Since the formation of the A-League in 2004, a double could be accomplished by winning the Premiership in the regular league season and the Championship in the finals series.
In South Korea, two teams have won the Double of the First Division and the Korean National Football Championship in semi-professional era.
Due to the sporadic nature of football competitions in the country, with a league not in place until the 21st century, and only the United Football League (UFL) to last more than a season, and a national cup competition not being consistently held annually, achieving a double has been mostly impossible until recently.
In Rwanda, three teams have won the Double of the Primus National Football League and the Rwandan Cup.
In the case of Germany, the DFB-Ligapokal was played in the summer months prior to the Bundesliga and therefore was won in the preceding calendar year to the title win.
Examples include: A Trans-state double occurs when a club wins a league and a cup which technically belong to two different countries and different associations.
José Mourinho has the unique distinction of being one of two manager to achieve this double with two different clubs, having done so with Porto (2004) and Inter Milan (2010).
Likewise, career rival Pep Guardiola achieved the same feat with Barcelona (2009) and Manchester City (2023).
In 1994–95, Louis van Gaal's Ajax, with players such as Jari Litmanen, Patrick Kluivert, Marc Overmars, Finidi George, Nwankwo Kanu, Frank de Boer, Ronald de Boer, Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf, Winston Bogarde, Michael Reiziger and Edwin van der Sar, succeeded an unbeaten double, winning the Dutch Eredivisie with a 27–7–0 record and the UEFA Champions League with a 7–4–0 record.
FC Magdeburg and Dynamo Kyiv, it is also worth noting that the domestic championships they won are also now disbanded, due to German reunification and the dissolution of the Soviet Union respectively.
