The Double Treble: When Kedah Ruled Malaysian Football

Ask a Kedah supporter of a certain age about the late 2000s and watch their posture change. Between 2006 and 2008, Kedah did something no Malaysian club had ever managed: they won the domestic treble — league title, FA Cup and Malaysia Cup — in two consecutive seasons.

2006-07: the first sweep

Under coach Azraai Khor Abdullah, Kedah swept the 2006-07 season: champions of the Malaysia Super League, FA Cup winners, and Malaysia Cup winners. One golden season can be a lucky year. What came next made it a dynasty.

2007-08: doing it all again

The following season, with every opponent now treating Kedah as the scalp to take, the team retained all three: the 2007-08 league title, the 2008 FA Cup and the 2008 Malaysia Cup. Six major trophies in two seasons — a record of sustained dominance that no Malaysian side had achieved before.

Six trophies. Two seasons. One team from the rice-bowl state.

The legacy

The double treble reshaped how the rest of the country saw Kedah — no longer a northern side that occasionally upset the big city clubs, but the standard everyone else measured themselves against. It also set the bar by which every subsequent Kedah team is judged, sometimes unfairly. The 2016 Malaysia Cup win and the FA Cups of 2017 and 2019 each carried echoes of it: proof that the state that did the impossible twice still knows the way to a final.