The 2026-27 UEFA Champions League will have an added historical storyline: Paris Saint-Germain enters with the chance to become European champion for a third consecutive season. The French club won the 2024-25 and 2025-26 editions, meaning another title would place it in an extremely exclusive group. The last team to win three straight European Cups was Real Madrid in 2018, when Zinédine Zidane's side completed its three-year run.
When was the last UEFA Champions League three-peat?
Paris Saint-Germain will enter 2026-27 chasing an achievement no team has accomplished since Zinédine Zidane's Real Madrid: winning Europe's biggest club competition three seasons in a row.
Real Madrid's three-peat
The streak began in 2015-16. Real Madrid drew 1-1 with Atlético de Madrid in the final at San Siro before winning the penalty shootout 5-3. Cristiano Ronaldo converted the decisive kick and finished that Champions League campaign as the competition's leading scorer with 16 goals.
A year later, Zidane's team beat Juventus 4-1 in Cardiff, with Ronaldo scoring twice and Casemiro and Marco Asensio adding the other goals. That victory made Real Madrid the first club to successfully defend the trophy since the competition adopted the UEFA Champions League name in 1992-93.
The third consecutive crown arrived on May 26, 2018, in Kyiv. Real Madrid defeated Liverpool 3-1 behind one goal from Karim Benzema and two from Gareth Bale. It completed the first — and still the only — three-peat of the Champions League era. Zidane also became the first coach to win the tournament in three consecutive seasons.
Who had done it before?
Across the full history of the European Cup, Real Madrid still owns the record for consecutive titles, having won the first five editions from 1956 through 1960.
Two other clubs later produced three-peats. Ajax won in 1971, 1972 and 1973, while Bayern Munich lifted the trophy in 1974, 1975 and 1976. More than four decades then passed before Real Madrid matched that three-title streak between 2016 and 2018.
Could PSG make history in 2027?
That history matters again because of Paris Saint-Germain's current position. Luis Enrique's team won the club's first Champions League title in 2025 with a 5-0 victory over Inter before retaining the trophy in 2026, beating Arsenal on penalties after a 1-1 draw in Budapest.
UEFA notes that PSG is only the second club to successfully defend the title in the Champions League era, after Real Madrid. If the French club lifts the trophy again in 2027, it will become the first European three-peat winner since Zidane's Madrid and join a historical list that currently includes only Real Madrid, Ajax and Bayern Munich.
