First Aston Villa, now Crystal Palace, then Arsenal? Thanks to this month’s European successes for Villa and Palace, the Premier League is one game away from joining an extremely exclusive club.
Palace ended their topsy-turvy 2025-26 season on a high by beating Rayo Vallecano 1-0 in the UEFA Conference League final on Wednesday. With both teams contesting their first-ever European final, Jean-Philippe Mateta’s goal was enough to nab the win for Palace in Leipzig, Germany, and end outgoing head coach Oliver Glasner’s tenure on a high.
This came a week after Aston Villa ended a trophy drought of their own in Istanbul by comprehensively beating Freiburg 3-0 in the UEFA Europa League final to clinch their first major trophy since 1996 and their first in Europe since 1982.
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So with Villa lifting the Europa League and Palace winning the Conference League, there is now a chance that Premier League teams could complete a clean sweep of the UEFA club competitions this season, should Arsenal manage to vanquish defending champions Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final on Saturday.
After grinding their way to the Premier League title, the Gunners are back in the Champions League final for the first time in 20 years and are seeking to complete an impressive double. However, they face formidable opposition in the shape of defending champions PSG, who are on course for a remarkable five-trophy season.
Should Mikel Arteta’s side muster a win in Budapest, Hungary, it would complete a Premier League clean sweep of all three UEFA club competitions in the same season — a rare, but not entirely unprecedented feat.
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How Arsenal can beat PSG in the Champions League final
The same country/league has provided the winners for two UEFA competitions in the same season on 12 occasions in the past, but the same country providing winners for three different ones in a single season has occurred only once in over 60 years of competition.
It should be noted that no country has ever won the modern treble of Champions League, Europa League and the Conference League as the latter was only introduced as UEFA’s new tertiary continental club competition in 2021.
Indeed, the only previous three-way clean sweep of UEFA club competitions came in 1990. In that year, three clubs from Italy’s Serie A won the European Cup (which became the Champions League in 1992), the UEFA Cup (rebranded as the Europa League in 2009) and the old UEFA Cup Winner’s Cup, which ran from 1960 to 1999 and, as the name suggests, was contested as a straight knockout tournament among the winners of European football’s domestic cup competitions.
Serie A actually provided four finalists across the European Cup, UEFA Cup and UEFA Cup Winner’s Cup in the 1989-90 season, with all three trophies ending up in Italy in the space of the same month.
Firstly, two goals from Gianluca Vialli helped Sampdoria beat Belgian side Anderlecht in extra time to win the Cup Winner’s Cup. Juventus then edged out Italians rivals Fiorentina over two legs to claim the UEFA Cup. Finally, a single goal from Frank Rijkaard saw AC Milan pip Portugal’s Benfica to lift the European Cup.
Italian football’s clean sweep of three UEFA competitions has remained a unique achievement in European football ever since. But, after ending their 22-year wait for another league title, Arsenal can make another bit of history for the whole Premier League with a win Saturday.
