Yup. Plenty of Chelsea, United, and Spurs fans realised that regular hidings at the hands of Bayern Munich and Real Madrid would soon relegate them to the current state of AC Milan...or Inter in last year's CL final.
Football needs to be clever. In a choreographed sport, learn from wrestling. If your great champion must lose, make it so that there are question marks over any defeat. Otherwise, avoid too many definitive confrontations and bob and weave your way to, perhaps, a rematch over the course of a year. Too many beatings quickly expose the "elite" to non-elite status. Look at United. They're not even in a super league and they are already in serious decline: a tainted brand.
If everyone is "elite", nobody is.
Look at Everton. We thought we were elite in 1992. We were. In the past.