THE Champions League is a competition which resists dynasties and mocks empire builders.

In the 20 seasons which have elapsed since UEFA introduced the group stages, none of the behemoths of modern European football have been permitted to keep hold of the biggest prize in continental club football, rendering those few souls who manage to do so via the transfer market – Paolo Sousa (Juventus, Dortmund), Marcel Desailly (Marseille, Milan), Gerard Pique (Manchester United, Barcelona) and Samuel Eto'o (Barcelona, Internazionale) – to the status of statistical anomalies and trivia questions. It wears its difficulty like a badge of honour.

The Teutonic spectacle which unfolded at a packed Wembley Stadium on Saturday evening for the FA's 150th birthday was entirely in keeping with the best traditions of German football – the national team also ambushed the last match at the old Wembley and the first at the new one – but as this colourful, good-natured German invasion force demobilised from London yesterday there was a deeper, more philosophical question being asked. Could this Bayern side actually have the stuff to exert a monopoly similar to their ancestors' in the European Cup from 1974 to 1976?

To use one piece of crude national stereotyping, what happened on Saturday night in their third final in four years was the equivalent of Bayern placing their towel down on the Champions League.

The arrival of Neymar, the highly-regarded Brazilian forward, at the Camp Nou represents a renewal of the Spanish challenge, and the English big guns will lick their wounds and regroup, but Germany's footballing business model is performing as robustly as the rest of its economy. If they do rewrite the history books in 12 months' time in Lisbon's Estadio da Luz – they could complete the hat trick in Berlin in 2015 – Jupp Heynckes will not be part of the celebrations. After the German Cup final against Stuttgart, the 66-year-old will make a dignified exit, just as he did in 1998 when Real Madrid sacked him a week after masterminding continental success.

Heynckes becomes only the fourth coach to win the competition with different clubs, particularly impressive as he has only entered it three times, his name fully deserving parity in the pantheon of other London winners; Sir Matt Busby, Rinus Michels, Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola, who will replace him at the Allianz Arena next season.

In five seasons at Barcelona, Guardiola won 15 trophies, including three La Liga titles and the Champions League twice. His arrival is not so much a statement of intent as an outright declaration. But whoever is the occupant of the coach's office, Bayern are a relentless footballing machine. Just ask former sporting director Christian Nerlinger, summarily dispensed with and replaced by Matthias Sammer after defeat in last season's Champions League final.

Of the XI on Saturday, only Franck Ribery had celebrated his 30th birthday but there is already a sense of natural renewal, the cherrypicking of the finest players augmenting home-reared talents such as Bastian Schweinsteiger and Thomas Mueller, who has three Champions League finals under his belt by the age of 23. Mario Goetze's arrival and the likelihood of Robert Lewandowski following him from Dortmund is distinctly ominous. The win was achieved, too, without the considerable abilities of the injured Toni Kroos and Holger Badstuber and with such as Mario Gomez and Xherdan Shaqiri on the bench.

"There's never been a Bundesliga team that's consistently played at such a high level, winning the championship by 25 points, breaking almost all records," said Heynckes. "Look at the generation of Bastian Schweinsteiger and Philipp Lahm – the time had come to win something like this. We lost the final last year but didn't resign ourselves. We upped the ante. It's possible a new era under Bayern, may have begun."

Considering they finished 25 points back in the Bundesliga, and were unable to beat them in all four previous matches this season, Dortmund deserve their medals just for keeping pace with their formidable Bavarian opponents. It was certainly more of a game than the 7-0 dismantling of Barcelona. "It was a great season from my team and a really, good match – maybe the best against Bayern in this Champions League season, and you know who they've played," said Juergen Klopp.

How long that can continue is anyone's guess. Ilkay Gundogan and Marco Reus are world-class talents who remain under contract but, for all that the two sides contested Saturday night as equals, the deck may always be stacked in Bayern's favour. "Bayern buy all the big players, next season as well, so we will just have to see what happens," said Sebastian Kehl, the Dortmund captain. "But we go our own way – we don't have to compare ourselves, we can't because they have more opportunities and more money. We can be very proud of this team and the way this club is going so I'm not afraid of the future."