The most enduring element of Barça’s third European Cup in six years is the continuity with which all have been achieved, along with the potential for more to follow • Barcelona’s Luis Suárez, Leo Messi and Neymar too good for Juventus

The holy grail of becoming the first team to retain the Champions League remains unclaimed but this Barcelona, after winning a third European title in seven years on Saturday, can surely be regarded now as not merely a great team but a great dynasty.

This Barça perhaps now stand comparison with the Real Madrid team that won the first five European Cups. That is not to say that winning three times in seven years with three semi-final appearances is greater than winning five in a row, it’s to say that the core of this Barça side has remained more consistent than the core of that Madrid one; that – remarkably in this age of transfer-market frenzy – this Barcelona have managed to keep winning with essentially the same players.

When Pedro came on as a late substitute on Saturday – as he had in 2009 – it meant six of this Barça side had also played in the final seven years ago. Eight of them played in 2011 (there is one other common factor in Barça’s three most recent Champions League final successes: Patrice Evra has been on the losing side on each occasion). That represents a remarkable level of continuity; only four players who played in the 1956 European Cup final – Marquitos, José María Zárraga, Francisco Gento and Alfredo Di Stéfano – also played in 1960.

Barcelona’s Luis Suárez, Leo Messi and Neymar too good for Juventus Read more

But continuity will take you only so far. After Pep Guardiola’s departure in 2012, there had been a sense of drift about Barcelona, a feeling that nothing could ever be quite as good again, that their approach based on radical possession left them vulnerable to the Gegenpressing and energy of fresher rivals rising in Germany and Madrid. Perhaps appropriately, all three goals against Juventus came from players who were not there in 2011, players who embody a change in approach, not only from Guardiola’s Barcelona but from the diktats of Arrigo Sacchi, the last manager to retain the European Cup, with Milan in 1990.

“Football,” Sacchi said, “is a sport for teams that are in harmony. Very often teams aren’t teams at all, they are just groups. And they struggle to move together. This is the difference between a very organic team, a team with great understanding, and a team that has a collective ... many teams have soloists, and these break the harmony. [Guardiola’s] Barcelona didn’t have soloists, we didn’t have soloists, Ajax [in the early 70s] didn’t have soloists. We had people who played with the team, for the team, all over the pitch, for the whole game.”

And yet there is a sense that Barça had become too harmonious, that their constant passing, their reluctance to play the risky ball or attempt the dribble that might lose possession, made them at times predictable. Internazionale and Chelsea may have ridden their luck to beat them in the Champions League semi-finals in 2010 and 2012 but everybody knew that the best chance of beating Barça was to sit back and deny them space and the possibility of verticality, making them pass the ball across the pitch.

The impact of soloists such as Neymar and Luis Suárez has been to bring out the soloist in Lionel Messi more (the stats show Barça dribble three times more now than in 2011-12). This season has suggested that it may be beneficial to a proactive side to introduce players that disrupt their own harmony because of the greater disruption they cause to the harmony of a reactive opponent. Would Messi have played the diagonal pass out to the left, that led to the first goal, under Guardiola? It is impossible to say he would not have, but it is equally the case that quick crossfield balls have become a feature of his play this season, most notably in el clásico.

Not that anybody, surely, was complaining about a lack of harmony in a goal of supreme quality, one that featured 15 passes between nine outfield players and seemed to leave even Ivan Rakitic, the scorer, and Andrés Iniesta, Neymar and Jordi Alba, who had supplied the three final passes, awestruck as they celebrated. The perfectly weighted, perfectly angled pass from Rakitic to Messi that led to the second was typical of the verticality he has brought to Barca’s play.

Perhaps Guardiola’s Barça, after taking the early lead, would have turned the game into a procession, keeping the ball from Juve and making them chase shadows, as Ajax had made Juve run fruitlessly in a brutal 1-0 win in the 1973 final. That was Ajax’s third success in a row and their last until 1995; that side had nowhere left to evolve to. This Barça had looked to be going the same way, but the arrivals of Rakitic, Neymar and Suárez have jolted it back to life. Three titles in seven years may not be the end of it.