In English

Football in England

Association football is a national sport in England, where the first modern set of rules for the code were established in 1863, which were a major influence on the development of the modern Laws of the Game...

 football, "The Invincibles" has been used to refer to either the Preston North End

Preston North End F.C.

Preston North End Football Club is an English professional football club located in the Deepdale area of the city of Preston, Lancashire, currently playing in the third tier of English league football, League One...

 team of the 1880s, or the Arsenal

Arsenal F.C.

Arsenal Football Club is a professional English Premier League football club based in North London. One of the most successful clubs in English football, it has won 13 First Division and Premier League titles and 10 FA Cups...

 team of the 2003–04 season. In both cases, the teams won the top division of English football unbeaten, the only two times this has occurred in English football history.

Preston North End

The term invincible was first applied to Preston in 1883 by a correspondent from Blackburn as a 'sneer

Sneer

A sneer is a facial expression of scorn or disgust characterized by a slight raising of one corner of the upper lip, known also as curling the lip or turning up the nose...

' in relation to their Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 professionals

Professional sports

Professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are sports in which athletes receive payment for their performance. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations...

. In addition, Preston's achievement of winning the League

The Football League

The Football League, also known as the npower Football League for sponsorship reasons, is a league competition featuring professional association football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest such competition in world football...

 unbeaten in 1888–89 was further enhanced by winning the FA Cup

FA Cup

The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...

 without conceding a goal, making them the first team to achieve the Double. Preston's final record in the league was 18 wins, 4 draws and 0 losses, out of 22 games total. Out of the five teams to have completed the Double, Preston remain the only ones to have done so unbeaten.

Arsenal

Arsenal emulated Preston's unbeaten run in the 2003–04 season going unbeaten for all 38 games, almost twice as many league games as Preston had played. Their final record for the 2003–2004 league campaign stood at 26 wins, 12 draws and 0 losses, out of 38 games total, an unbeaten run not matched in any single season by any team in an English league division. Arsenal went 49 Premier League games unbeaten which was a new record for the most League games without defeat, the sequence coming to an end with a controversial 2–0 defeat to Manchester United

Manchester United F.C.

Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...

. The Premier League commissioned a special gold version of the Premier League trophy to commemorate Arsenal's unbeaten season. A very important part of this season was Thierry Henry

Thierry Henry

Thierry Daniel Henry is a French professional footballer who plays for the New York Red Bulls in Major League Soccer.Henry was born in Les Ulis, Essonne where he played for an array of local sides as a youngster and showed great promise as a goal-scorer. He was spotted by AS Monaco in 1990 and...

 who scored 30 goals that season, with Robert Pirès

Robert Pirès

Robert Emmanuel Pirès is a former French international footballer. He is perhaps best known for his time with Arsenal, with whom he won three FA Cups and two FA Premier League titles including the club's famous unbeaten season of 2003–04...

 chipping in with 14 goals.

Starting XI

Below is the 2003–04, Arsenal

Arsenal F.C.

Arsenal Football Club is a professional English Premier League football club based in North London. One of the most successful clubs in English football, it has won 13 First Division and Premier League titles and 10 FA Cups...

 team that have earned the nickname "The Invincibles".

.