In the buildup to this final, the BBC debated who was the greatest of all club football sides and settled on the Real Madrid team who won the first five European Cups from 1956 to 1960. There was unanimity in favour of Puskas, Di Stéfano and Gento: white-jerseyed enemies to the people of Catalonia.

Study the tapes of those Real Madrid XIs and you see skill, exuberance, thrust and machismo; a regal confidence across the team. You also register a wholly different version of football in which possession is easily surrendered and defending often laissez-faire. The greatest of all Real's early triumphs – the 7-3 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960 – was a goal avalanche impossible to imagine in a Champions League final today.

The stately 3-1 victory by Barcelona over Manchester United on Saturday deserves high rank in the European Cup's 55-year history. It reaffirmed what we knew: that on a good night Barcelona "speak a particular footballing language unintelligible to the rest", to quote the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. There is a not a club side anywhere on the globe who could have coped with the Catalan compound of zealous defending, relentless ball circulation and flourishes of individual brilliance.

For Manchester United it felt like 1968 again only in the sense that everyone went home with a warm hippy glow. An insanely tribal game, football rarely unites its followers in admiration as it did when superbly executed goals by Pedro Rodríguez, Lionel Messi and David Villa inflicted a series of unanswerable traumas on United.

From the moment Barça bounced on to the pitch for the warm-up, their energy levels brimmed. Ten months ago, six of their 11 starters won the World Cup with Spain and yet there has been no appreciable dip in their form all season. The Spanish contingent in Pep Guardiola's orchestra have been on the go pretty much continuously since the 2008 European Championship, which they also won. Almost the first quality to acknowledge is their ceaseless dynamism. This is a side that can't stop running.

Any attempt to plant them in the pantheon runs into the problem that football has evolved substantially in 55 years. Puskas, who was invariably overweight, would be sent home from training by today's superpower clubs, which is not to diminish Real's achievement in pulling together so much international talent. But a modern audience is entitled to point to Barcelona's three Champions League titles in six seasons and assert that crushing the rest of Europe these days requires a level of regulated artistry that would have been beyond just about any other team of the last half-century.

The rivals are Ajax (1971-73), Bayern Munich (1974-76), the Liverpool sides of 1977-81, the Milan teams of 1989-94, and the Real Madrid galáctico ensembles from the Zinedine Zidane era, who will be shouted down by those who remember them as corporate, or synthetic. United's treble-winning side of 1999 also deserve a mention. Already we see that to announce a hierarchy from such a disparate collection is both impossible and pointless.

However, Barcelona are blessed with a midfield/attacking trio to match any in history: Messi, Xavi Hernández and Andrés Iniesta. For United, Xavi was a looping nightmare, popping up all across the midfield line, not only circulating the ball to keep the rhythm going but producing brutal, defence-slicing passes to Pedro, Villa and Messi. His mastery of those midfield areas was almost cruel. He was inescapable and mesmerising.

When you see a defender deprive a galloping forward of the ball with the precision and poise of Gerard Piqué versus Javier Hernández you know you are up against towering conviction and dexterity. These Barcelona players have seen the formula work so many times that defeat in big games is becoming inconceivable. After a brief fluster of intent from United in the first 10 minutes, Barça knew they would not be troubled by the 37-year-old Ryan Giggs in central midfield, or by Antonio Valencia and Park Ji-sung on the flanks. They resumed their surgical work with a sadistic air of delight.

"We put on a spectacle for everyone who is passionate about football and who loves football," said Dani Alves, the Barcelona right-back, trying to sound philanthropic. But for the Internazionale semi-final blockade last year, this Barcelona side would have won three consecutive European titles.

Inter's success under José Mourinho no longer encourages other managers to believe tiki-taka can be undone. It looks more and more like an aberration.

Messi is the best footballer since Zidane. This we know. Nor is it hyperbolic to talk of him alongside Diego Maradona. To be so dazzling in Champions League combat year after year requires a level of dedication Maradona could never have hoped to match. Alongside Messi is a conductor (Xavi) whom some consider even more valuable, for his influence in every forward move.

Xavi is 31, Iniesta 27 and Messi 23, so no end is in sight, unless Guardiola's likely departure next summer disrupts the structure and philosophy. Until the machine breaks down, the rest of football is just going to have to recline and admire. How will we cope?