Bayern Munich's Champions League Wins - Ranked
Bayern Munich are founding members of an expanding gaggle of elite European clubs who - with the domestic league little more than the fulfilling of fixture obligations - judge themselves on their Champions League performance.
This obsession with the continent's prestigious crown started more than four decades ago for Germany's most decorated side. The five-time winners have the chance to scratch that unrelenting itch once more this season against the rather less storied Paris Saint-Germain.
Borussia Dortmund's chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke admitted - through gritted teeth - that the 2020 vintage of the Bavarian giants are 'the best team to ever play for Bayern'. They may have dismantled a flailing Barcelona, but the current crop are up against stiff opposition when compared to the previous iterations of Bayern that have hoisted aloft the big-eared trophy.
5. 1974/75
Goalscoring midfielder Franz Roth admitted that Bayern's players arrived 'fairly drunk' for their first game after claiming a maiden European Cup in 1974, losing 5-0 to Borussia Mönchengladbach. Yet, the same could scarcely be said when they were whipped 6-0 on the opening day of the following season.
That campaign Bayern - after completing a trio of consecutive Bundesliga titles - slumped to tenth in the league.
Yet, despite the departure of influential left-back Paul Breitner and manager Udo Lattek, Bayern somehow hauled themselves into that year's final against Leeds United.
In highly controversial circumstances, Leeds had two penalty appeals denied before Peter Lorimer's second-half goal was disallowed for a narrow offside.
Leeds' fury was compounded when (a sober) Roth opened the scorer before Gerd Müller ended the contest with a second.
4. 1975/76
For the second final in a row, Bayern were largely outplayed by their defeated opponents. Saint-Étienne remember the showpiece for the square posts at Hampden Park that night which supposedly denied them several goals from efforts off the woodwork.
Bayern were now well and truly at the end of the team's cycle and the mood among the winning camp was lacking in celebration. As Roth - who scored the only goal of the final - later revealed: "Everyone just went home, everyone went their separate ways."
3. 2000/01
After a trio of consecutive victories in the 1970s, Bayern spent the next quarter of a century desperately trying to recapture those European heights. In the intervening years, Bayern reached three more finals, losing each of them in increasingly dramatic circumstances.
Manchester United's painfully late comeback in 1999 was the heaviest blow and could have lingered over another club for years to come. Yet, 24 months later and the Bavarians were back.
After navigating the anachronistic labyrinth that was two Champions League group stages, Bayern exacted revenge on Manchester United in the quarter-finals, winning both home and away. Bayern resumed their glittering continental rivalry with Real Madrid in the semis before edging past Valencia on penalties in the final to claim their long-awaited fourth crown.
2. 1973/74
Five of Bayern's starting XI for the 1974 European Cup final against Atlético Madrid received a vote for that year's Ballon d'Or. Six of them started the World Cup final for West Germany two months later.
Even though they would win the next two continental titles, the club's first ever European Cup triumph was that era's footballing peak.
Even so, Gerd Müller and co. were just seconds away from losing the final to Atlético before centre-back Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck (dubbed 'the Kaiser's cleaner) fired in an equaliser in the 120th minute to force a replay.
Legend has it that Atlético's goalkeeper Miguel Reina - son of Pepe - had turned his attention away from the match to talk with a photograph behind the goal as Schwarzenbeck fizzed past him.
Bayern returned two days later to comfortably dispatch their Spanish opponents 4-0 and reach the apogee of this stellar vintage.
1. 2012/13
Jupp Heynckes' treble-winning Bayern Munich of 2012/13 weren't unparalleled masters of one particular facet of the game - instead they were just excellent at all of them.
Bayern's ability to dictate play with large swathes of possession rivalled even Barcelona that season. But when they faced the Catalans in the semi-finals, Bayern obliterated them 7-0 on aggregate largely on the counter-attack and by virtue of their superior physicality.
Bayern then defeated their modern rivals Borussia Dortmund in the final to crown the perfect season.