Arsene Wenger never won a League Cup in over two decades of managing Arsenal. He sought to treat the competition as a playground for the club's budding youngsters and for experimentation purposes. It took 'Le Professeur' until 2007 to reach his first final in the competition, and as a reward, he opted to start the players who had gotten them there. The lineup's average age of 21 was the youngest-ever in a professional English final. They came up against a Chelsea side managed by Jose Mourinho, one who at that point were back-to-back Premier League winners and were effectively England's answer to the 'Galacticos'.
There was such a serious mismatch between the two XIs that you can only spell them out in order to grasp the difference in quality. Mourinho went full strength with: Petr Cech; Lassana Diarra, John Terry, Ricardo Carvalho, Wayne Bridge; Claude Makelele, Michael Essien, Michael Ballack, Frank Lampard; Didier Drogba, Andriy Shevchenko.
In the red corner, Wenger started: Manuel Almunia; Justin Hoyte, Kolo Toure, Philippe Senderos, Armand Traore; Theo Walcott, Cesc Fabregas, Denilson, Abou Diaby; Jeremie Aliadiere, Julio Baptista.
Remarkably, Arsenal took the lead through a 17-year-old Walcott, only for Drogba to equalise soon after. A feisty affair descended into chaos deep into added time after Drogba put Chelsea ahead, with John Obi Mikel, Emmanuel Adebayor and Toure all sent off.
The consensus coming away from the last League Cup final at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium was that Arsenal were the better side on the day and had set themselves up for the future, yet they fell away in both the short and long-term. Wenger's side won only three of their 12 remaining Premier League games that season and were dumped out of the Champions League at the last-16 stage by PSV Eindhoven, while they wouldn't touch silverware again until 2014.