AROUND £30m worth of attacking talent and the kid labelled the new Dennis Bergkamp on show during an action-packed Carling Cup semi-final. Money well spent? Middlesbrough don't care.

Yet despite some silky touches from two of the game's biggest names and smallest players, Juninho and Jose Antonio Reyes, it took 69 minutes for either side to find the vital breakthrough.

And Reyes, ironically, put one of the three goals in his own net.

For Arsenal there is every likelihood that their £17m investment in Reyes will come good even though it was his touch past his own goalkeeper that sent Boro to Cardiff on his first start in English football last night.

Juninho, a bargain £3.8m capture from Atletico Madrid, was always inventive and probing but never troubled inexperienced goalkeeper Graham Stack.

But where the Brazilian and his diminutive Spanish counterpart aim to provide, Boro's record buy Massimo Maccarone is selected to score.

And the £8.15m Italian should have put the Teessiders out of sight during a first half showing that demanded the hosts scored the goals to assure themselves of a third League Cup final in seven years.

He missed two chances in a ten minute spell midway through opening period that defied belief, and must have had McClaren wondering if there was anyway of making a renewed bid for Leeds' Mark Viduka.

The first, a delicate chip over Stack when he was put through on goal was the worst. Had he hit the target then the ball would have found the net and a trip to the Millennium Stadium would have been on the cards much earlier. Instead the ball trickled wide of the upright.

And then Maccarone's best efforts to turn a Franck Queudrue volley past Stack came to nothing as the Gunners' reserve choice keeper superbly scrambled across the goal to clear.

But while it is amazing to think that a goal was so long in coming, through Bolo Zenden, this was not a semi-final that was starved of excitement.

On a night when the rest of the country expected Steve McClaren's men to roll over and surrender their slender one-goal advantage from the first leg they did just opposite.

Instead of whipping out the white tissues - on flag night at the Riverside - the Teesside crowd provided the fevered atmosphere to help push their heroes to the Welsh capital.

McClaren had called for the recreation of the famous party mood back in 1998 when Boro edged out Liverpool in their last League Cup semi.

But there was no record crowd to see this one. In fact, less than 30,000 turned out to witness Boro reach only the fourth major final.

One thing is for sure, though, a few more fans will come out of the woodwork as they prepare to travel to Cardiff on February 29.

Remember the date. It could be the day the first piece of major silverware heads to Teesside