Chelsea's improbable Champions league victory over Bayern Munich last Saturday inscribed on that famous jug-eared trophy the fifth different English football team to be crowned the Kings of Europe. In fact, in the last eight years, it was the third English club to be anointed into the annuls of history and also the seventh time an English club had contested the final, with 2008 being the year when both teams hailed from this tiny nation.
In that same period Spain has been represented and emerged victorious three times through their sumptuous Tika-Taka export- Barcelona FC. The Italians have enjoyed the same amount of final representatives through their two Milan giants AC and Inter, with both picking up the winners gong one-a-piece.
The three top footballing nations in Europe have dominated the recent scene with barely a look-in from any outsiders, bar two appearances and losses for the German behemoths Bayern Munich.
You have to look back to 2004 when Porto captured the title under the command of the Messiah mark II, otherwise know as José Mourinho, or crane your neck a little further to 2001 to see the name of Bayern Munich as winners from nations elsewhere.
It got me thinking, 'Has it always been thus?' Have the all conquering nations of England, Spain and Italy always been so devastating in their command of European club football?
The answer is pretty much a resounding yes but if you look back through the ages there were plenty of teams from elsewhere, peppering through to claim the ultimate prize.
Portugal's Benfica in the late Sixties won back to back titles, and then the country had to wait twenty five years for FC Porto to lift the cup. Then there was the Ajax side of the early Seventies who via the genius of the new born philosophy of 'Total football' and Johan Cruyff, won a hat trick of titles. Collecting another took until 1995 with a new generation of stars like Edwin Van der Sar and Patrick Kluivert.
Scotland's Celtic reigned supreme in 1967, beating the Italian favourites of Inter Milan whom just three years earlier had had their hands gripped tightly around Europe's throat with back to back wins. They were also the first ever winners from the United Kingdom.
The West Germans, as they were known before the Hoff tore down the Berlin wall with his flashing leather jacket and woeful Europop anthems, had Bayern Munich as back to back to back champions, with no small part played by the one and only Franz Beckenbauer of course.
The Romanians and Yugoslavs each presented winning teams in Europe through Steaua Bucharest in 1986 and Red Star Belgrade in 1991 respectively. Even the French, the footballing nation that didn't seem to care about the game until 1998 and Zinadine Zidane came along, had Marseilles crowned champions in 1993 (although the stench of corruption around that year's competition still continues to mar the victory).
The names of English, Spanish and Italian clubs have always been prevalent over the competition since it's inauguration in 1956 and it really has been very much those three said nations who have offered up the crème de la crème in Europe over the last decade.
This can in no way be a coincidence, for the amount of heavy financial investment that has been ploughed into the English, Spanish and Italian FA's coffers. Via television rights and general world-wide appeal, they have allowed the top clubs within those divisions to build up and maintain world class squads, overflowing with the very best the world has to offer in individual talents.
With that came wealthy investors sitting atop of the boardrooms, pumping endless amounts of cash into their clubs to bring home tons of silverware and continued glory and worship. All making sure that the trail of fire left behind them burnt any would be pretenders to the throne, to a crisp.
But could things be about to change in the very near future?
Michel Platini, the current boss of UEFA had announced with a great fanfare his 'Financial Fair Play' rules and regulations back in 2009, in an attempt to reign in the gross money making losses of those clubs under his watch.
The concept spelt out specific guidelines:
• to introduce more discipline and rationality in club football finances;
• to decrease pressure on salaries and transfer fees and limit inflationary effect;
• to encourage clubs to compete with(in) their revenues;
• to encourage long-term investments in the youth sector and infrastructure;
• to protect the long-term viability of European club football;
• to ensure clubs settle their liabilities on a timely basis.
The word encourage is used a lot but one senses a big stick hovering around in the background waiting to come down on any club who aren't 'encouraged' enough. Indeed, for included in those guidelines is also the punishment of being booted out of the Champions league competition if you have failed to break even with your finances in the years ending 2012/2013.
This could of course mean that clubs who usually fritter money away on expensive signings and wage packets may well find themselves at the wrong end of the balance sheet and beaten out of Europe's most profitable and famous club competition.
Certainly the likes of Chelsea FC will have to change the way they have gone about bringing success, and the giants of La Liga and Serie A are also no angels when it comes to managing their finances.
All three of the 'big leagues' in Europe have collective debts drowning away in the billions, so a huge responsible shift away from the 'money buys success' rule that has dominated football since the huge cash injections from TV rights and wealthy ownership is required. Otherwise there may be a good few years when these goliaths of the game do not have their names etched on the Champions league trophy.
Over the next few seasons there may be a few different clubs scoring their way to glory, a few more Ajaxs or Benficas to lift the Champions league, maybe the monopoly shall be broken. Maybe.