The Big Three (Clubs) ( sv, De tre största (klubbarna)) is a phrase used to refer to the three most successful football clubs in Sweden by authors, journalists, club representatives, and supporters. The three clubs AIK from Stockholm,

IFK Göteborg Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna Göteborg (officially IFK Göteborg Fotboll), commonly known as IFK Göteborg, IFK (especially locally) or simply Göteborg, is a Swedish professional Football team, football club based in Gothenburg. Founded in ...

from Gothenburg, and

Malmö FF Malmö Fotbollförening, commonly known as Malmö FF, Malmö, or MFF, is a professional football club and the most successful football club in Sweden in terms of trophies won. Formed in 1910 and affiliated with the Scania Football Associatio ...

from

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal popula ...

have a combined 50 out of 119 Swedish championship titles, 30 out of 64

Svenska Cupen Svenska Cupen (, ''The Swedish Cup'') is a knockout cup competition in Swedish football and the main Swedish football cup. Svenska Cupen usually refers to the men's tournament, although a women's tournament is also held. Each year 96 teams co ...

titles, and occupy the top three places in the All-time Allsvenskan table. Malmö FF lead the all-time Allsvenskan table, but AIK have played the most seasons in the highest league. The three have led the all-time table for 83 out of 95 seasons, and no other club has led the table since 1937. As for championship titles, the Malmö side have 20, IFK Göteborg have 18, while AIK is trailing with 12 in fourth place, behind

IFK Norrköping Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna Norrköping, more commonly known as IFK Norrköping or simply Norrköping, is a Swedish professional football club based in Norrköping. The club is affiliated to Östergötlands Fotbollförbund and play the ...

and their 13 titles. In the national cup, Malmö FF have won 14 times, IFK Göteborg and AIK share the second place with 8 titles each. IFK Göteborg and Malmö FF are the only clubs to have reached the final of a European competition, IFK Göteborg having won the

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, cla ...

in 1981–82 and again in 1986–87 while Malmö FF were runners-up in the 1978–79 European Cup. As IFK Göteborg distanced itself from its old informal alliance, Göteborgsalliansen, with the other Gothenburg clubs in the 1970s, they instead established a closer cooperation with Malmö FF and AIK under the partnership name "The Three Traditional Teams of Sweden" for some time. Football historian Torbjörn Andersson refers to the three clubs as Sweden's three "proper large clubs" (""). The Swedish football magazine '' Offside'' ranked the largest clubs in Sweden in 2010 by defining five categories ("national honours", "international honours", "excellence", "attendance", and "trend") in which AIK ranked 4th, 3rd, 5th, 1st, and 1st, IFK Göteborg ranked 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, and 3rd, and Malmö FF ranked 1st, 2nd, 1st, 4th, and 2nd. Totalling the scores of each category, Malmö FF ranked first scoring 87 points narrowly beating IFK who scored 85 points, with AIK third at 79 points. The fourth-ranked club

Djurgårdens IF Djurgårdens Idrottsförening, commonly known simply as Djurgårdens IF, Djurgården (), and (especially locally) Djurgår'n (), Dif or DIF – is a Swedish sports association with several sections, located in Stockholm. Name The club is nam ...

scored 60 points in total, the only other club together with IFK Norrköping outside the big three that managed to rank top 3 in any category. AIK, IFK Göteborg and Malmö FF are also the three clubs that have contributed with the most players, as well as the most

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Ja ...

, to the

Swedish national football team The Sweden national football team ( sv, svenska fotbollslandslaget) represents Sweden in men's international football and it is controlled by the Swedish Football Association, the governing body of football in Sweden. Sweden's home ground is ...

Rivalries

The fixture between AIK and IFK Göteborg, the two largest clubs from the two largest cities, has been called the "Swedish

El Clásico El Clásico or el clásico (; ca, El Clàssic, ; ) is the name given to any football match between rival clubs FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Originally referring to competitions held in the Spanish championship, the term now includes every ...

". The two clubs have, besides some Swedish local derbies, the largest rivalry in Swedish football. Fixtures between the clubs gather the largest nationwide interest out of any Swedish club fixtures. The rivalry between the two most successful clubs in terms of honours, IFK Göteborg and Malmö FF, is sometimes called ( en, Clash of the greatest champions).

Rivalries

Honours

Citations

References