Vinícius Júnior alludes to treble aspirations: Real Madrid’s elusive dream

Since over 100 years ago when Real Madrid formally became an official institution, the club has yet to lift a treble in its illustrious history. For a club with accomplishments and trophies that seem unending and commonplace, it is somewhat surprising that they haven’t achieved the feat of lifting the Champions League, La Liga, and Copa del Rey within the same season. It is even more surprising given that Los Blancos are the all-time leaders in trophies won in the Champions League and La Liga while having the third most wins in the Copa del Rey (behind Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao).

“I joined Madrid at the age of 18 and everything was new to me. I continue to learn and develop to help Madrid now and in the future. I work hard, both at the club and at home and follow the right rest and nutrition regime so as to be at my best. I’m going to continue improving a lot to help in every aspect. I want to lift the treble”.

- Vinícius Júnior, Official Real Madrid Website

Vinícius recently hinted at something that one can only imagine has been discussed — even if only anecdotally — within the walls of the Bernabeu. Real Madrid is a club that takes notice of areas where they may be struggling and diligently, unabashedly look to rectify any underperformance. We have witnessed this recently with the way the club reasserted its dominance on the European scene following six successive round of 16 eliminations. This was followed by Zidane being unwavering in re-affirming the club’s prioritization of the league after a meagre haul of only one trophy in the Florentino Perez 2.0 era (one in seven seasons before Zidane oversaw a full season). This number has now grown to two in four seasons or three seasons fully managed by Zidane.

The biggest treble of them all

While Vinícius’ call of action is exciting and signals the level of ambition, drive and uncompromising push the team has shown (particularly under Zidane), the club has already achieved arguably the greatest treble in modern football history. This is a reference to the consecutive Champions League triumphs in 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18. Even just writing that sentence still seems utterly surreal.

Winning the Champions League (or the previous version of the tournament) three times in a row has been done before. However, doing so in the current generation is beyond unprecedented and unimaginable due to the way the competition is currently structured. Pitting the best teams in Europe in a tournament where their fates can be decided in do or die situations and only over a maximum of 13 games means being the last team standing more than once in successive seasons is extremely difficult.

So while Real Madrid should not discredit — and look to add to its collection — the immense quality it takes to win the Champions League, La Liga and Copa del Rey treble, the club should remember to never forget the epic three-peat.