For months - it seems like years - Arsene Wenger has sung the same refrain, as if repeating the words often enough might actually make them true.
His youthful Arsenal team so carefully and patiently nurtured is finally coming to the boil, Wenger insisted. The boys were becoming men and this, at long last, could be the season when the London side actually wins something more than mere applause for its often beautiful, but at times frustratingly ineffective, football.
Then, in the space of a few seconds on Sunday, a giant but otherwise not particularly dangerous striker from Serbia made all of Wenger's talk look like nothing more than hot air and wishful thinking.
Nikola Zigic's glancing backheader caught Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny and defender Laurent Koscielny in that horrible no-man's land between ineptitude and indecision.
The pair's blunder in the 89th minute of a final that Arsenal should and could have won gifted the League Cup to Birmingham City. Not since 1963 had it won a trophy of any kind. Hardly believing their luck, Birmingham's blue-clad fans roared when Obafemi Martins latched onto the Arsenal defensive pair's catastrophic mistake to score the winner.
''People were crying. It was stunning, stunning,'' said the long-suffering team's manager, Alex McLeish. ''For the fans, it means everything. They have suffered so long. It's been what, 60 years? I could see the pain etched in their faces.''
For this defeat, Wenger shares some of the blame.
As loudly as the Frenchman has been insisting that his team is finally showing mettle and maturity, his critics have been warning that his defense, at times, still looks as fragile as blancmange.
They cautioned that Arsenal should invest in a world-class 'keeper to guard its goal while Wenger's quick and cunning midfielders and forwards run rings around opponents up front.
Wenger didn't listen. His trust in 20-year-old Szczesny looks sadly misplaced now.
So, too, does his reliance on young defenders like Koscielny, who two years ago was playing lower-league football in France. The 25-year-old is much improved after he was thrown in at the deep end with Arsenal, helping to fill in the gap left by the long-term injury to the more reassuring Thomas Vermaelen. Still, the defensive partnership of Koscielny and Johan Djourou that Wenger played for the Wembley final is not the solid foundation Arsenal needs at the back.
When at its best, Arsenal can deceive one into believing that it is capable of beating anyone and of great things. The world's best side, Barcelona, learned that to its cost in a 2-1 loss on Feb. 16 at the Londoners' Emirates stadium. Because it plays beautiful football more effectively than Arsenal, the Spanish side will still be favored to win when the two meet again in Barcelona on March 8, with a place in the Champions League quarterfinals as the prize.
But, against lesser teams, Arsenal can be ordinary, as against Birmingham. That is especially true when Cesc Fabregas, Arsenal's captain and conductor of its midfield, is missing because of injury, as he was on Sunday. Although Arsenal is not a one-man team, without Fabregas it lacks bite and does not look fully formed.
Arsenal's game-deciding mistake in the 89th minute reeked of naivety. There are many ways to lose a football match but this was cruel in the way it exposed Wenger's oversized faith in players who aren't quite ready, cool-headed or experienced enough.
Birmingham 'keeper Ben Foster had the ball. With the teams deadlocked at one apiece, it was blindingly obvious to everyone in the 88,855-strong crowd that he was going to hoof and hope - loft the ball to the 6-foot, 8-inch Zigic in the expectation that he might use his height advantage to make something of the last-gasp chance.
Somehow, as telegraphed as the tactic was, it still caught Koscielny and Szczesny by surprise. When the ball glanced off the top of Zigic's head, Koscielny got in the way of Szczesny, his 'keeper who otherwise might have caught it and perhaps could have avoided the mix-up by authoritatively yelling, ''MY BALL!''
Instead, it bobbled out of the Polish goalie's hands and landed at the feet of Martins. The Nigerian was never going to squander such a close-range gift.
''The easiest goal I've ever scored,'' he said.
Without naming names, Wenger made clear that Koscielny and Szczesny were at fault.
''A lack of communication and a lack of determination a little bit, as well,'' he said. ''When the ball is in no-man's land, somebody has to take responsibility and go for it.''
The League Cup was always the least important of the four trophies Wenger targeted this season. The Champions League, the FA Cup and the Premier League are more prestigious and, in theory at least, still not out of reach for Arsenal.
But that didn't make the defeat easier. Most of Wenger's players still don't know what it feels like to win a trophy with Arsenal, because they weren't around when the team last did it in 2005. So the idea was that winning the League Cup would give the young team a taste for it and that that would make it want more.
Instead, the wait for Arsenal to live up to its youthful promise goes on. But promise, alone, is no longer enough.
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John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester(at)ap.org
