As Gareth Bale departed Tottenham Hotspur for Real Madrid in 2013, the club's chase for la decima undoubtedly informed their willingness to pay such an inordinate fee.
Without European success since Zinedine Zidane put Bayer Leverkusen to the sword in Scotland eleven years earlier, extravagant acquisitions of everybody from Cristiano Ronaldo to Jose Mourinho had not yielded the club their tenth continental title.
Although few would credit Bale with initiating the spark that has yielded such astounding success in recent years, the Welshman, five years after becoming one among many of Madrid's second strand of modern Galacticos, now stands equal with Liverpool's Phil Neal as the most successful Briton in European football.
With four Champions League/European Cup winners' medals apiece, Bale's fourth came at perhaps the moment it looked least likely. Favouring Karim Benzema and Isco ahead of Bale tonight, Zidane may well have been aware that the Welshman offered an exciting, dynamic option off the bench tonight if needs be.
He can hardly have thought that Bale would score perhaps the finest Champions League final goal since Zidane's winner sixteen years ago.
Between Mohamed Salah's first-half injury at the hands, arms, and general torso of Sergio Ramos, Loris Karius' disastrous error for Karim Benzema's opener, Sadio Mane's quick equaliser thereafter, and the second notable Karius error, the winning of this game could have come from anywhere.
When Bale made his entrance shortly after the hour mark, he entered a game that had become somewhat strung out.
So often the cliched moment where one with his particular talents (pace, work-ethic, fantastic finishing ability) is expected to thrive, with the opposition lagging, unused to the cut-and-thrust of a major final, Bale entered with the seasoned experience of one who has done all this a number of times before.
Yet, such circumstances guaranteed nothing.
Having had a promising end to the La Liga, the Welshman cannot but have been disappointed to find himself starting from the bench again tonight. In declining favour since his feted arrival, tonight's arrival wasn't so much grounded in expectation, as it was based on hope and the possibility of some remembered magic.
The constant target of transfer rumours, plotting his move away from Madrid, there is a gritty determination to his staying power that amazes however.
Speaking immediately after the game, Bale's message was clear; "I need to be playing week in, week out."
"Disappointed not to start," Bale's response to this set back was exactly what we have come to expect however; "You have to keep working to the end."
In much the same way that Zidane himself, as he claims a third successive Champions League win in his third year of football management, faced the peril of the sack earlier this season, Bale's future at Madrid is by no means secure.
Confirming that he will sit down in the coming weeks to discuss his future, Bale's bicycled effort tonight was unforgettable. His supreme talents and work-ethic, however, are timeless.
