Ada Hegerberg scores 16-minute hat-trick as sensational Lyon destroy Barcelona to win Champions League

• Lyon 4 Barcelona 1

They will not ask if Ada Hegerberg can dance the next time she picks up an award, they will not shrug when they are told Lucy Bronze is one of the world’s best and they will not dare to tell Jess Fishlock or any of this magnificent Lyon side that football is a man’s game.

Lyon are simply sensational, turning Barcelona’s dream Champions League final into a traumatic nightmare they wanted to end after half an hour. The French champions have become the champions of Europe for a fourth successive year and there is not a team, in any sport, anywhere in the world more formidable; more dominant; more awe inspiring.

Hegerberg was the heroine in Budapest, the first winner of the Ballon d’Or Feminin who was cringeworthingly asked if she could “twerk” when she collected her award last year, scoring a 16-minute first half hat-trick.

It was further evidence of her clinical touch in front of goal, but Lyon were superior, stronger, faster, sharper and more skilful in every single department and at right back Bronze was equally impressive, creating two of Lyon’s four goals.

Bronze could have been an Olympic cyclist, such is the power in her legs and torso, she might even have excelled as a middle distance runner, but only ever wanted to be a footballer. She can now lay claim to being among the global elite.

There is something languid in the way Bronze moves, as if she finds the effort of walking an inconvenience, yet she has such strength and speed, as though she reserves all her energy for football, all her effort to help players like Hegerberg score and wingers like Shanice van de Sanden flourish.

The girl from Alnwick in Northumberland, who was distraught when ordered to stop playing with the boys she had grown up with, the teenager who endured three hour round trips to train with Sunderland, is now a supreme athlete, enjoying the peak years of her career alongside some of the finest players - including Wales’ Jess Fishlock who was superb in the centre of midfield -  to have defied all of those loathsome old prejudices about women’s sport.

Fishlock was a colossus, prompting, probing and destroying. Like Bronze, this was her second Champions League final victory, having also won it with Frankfurt, one of only two clubs to have prevented Lyon from lifting the trophy since 2011.

Bronze has also won two Champions Leagues in as in as many years at Lyon, a team who are the closest football has to an unstoppable force.

Barcelona may claim to be more than a club - a brand slogan more than a mission statement these days - but in the women’s game they are just like everyone else, a hugely inferior one.

If this was the Spanish club’s Everest moment, it was akin to climbing the world’s tallest mountain, without oxygen, in a blizzard.

How badly England striker Toni Duggan will regret squandering a relatively simple chance in the opening moments, receiving the ball, unmarked inside the area from Vicky Losada, only to drag a shot well wide.

Within seconds Lyon took the lead, van de Sanden delivering the perfect cross for German captain Dzsenifer Marozsan to gallop into the area to meet, toe poking home from six yards. Barcelona were already in a damage limitation exercise and Lyon had more gears to go through

And it was Bronze who carved then open for the second goal, advancing forward from right back, drawing players to her, beating two, before springing a through ball that van de Sanden swept across for Hegerberg to score.

The Norwegian grabbed a second four minutes later, smashing home a shot with the nonchalant ease of someone finishing off a training ground routine. While 3-0 leads in the Champions League are apparently there to lose these days, Barcelona looked beaten inside 20 minutes and were heading for humiliation in less than 30 when Bronze produced a delicious cross for Hagerberg to complete her hat-trick.

Lyon relaxed, but did not switch off as Barcelona tried to find some solace. A consolation goal would do, but Lieke Martens hooked wide. Lyon were going through the motions and still did enough for their record goalscorer, Eugenie Le Sommer, to spurn a host of chances before Barca substitute Asisat Osholoa finally gave Barca’s fans - who outnumbered Lyon’s inside the stadium - something to cheer.