The competition has had its critics in recent years, seen as an irrelevant sideshow to the main attractions offered by the Premiership and the Champions League. Even the weakened FA Cup has seemed a giant in comparison.
Regularly cited by leading managers as bottom of their list of priorities, even lower league clubs have fielded below-par teams in the tournament, seemingly anxious to exit as quickly as possible to concentrate on more worthy goals.
Yet perversely, this attitude has served to differentiate and strengthen the competition when it might well have sounded its death knell.
The sudden-death nature of the ties tends to produce open, flowing games, and the young talent we frequently bemoan the lack of is given a chance to catch the eye and stake a claim for more regular first-team action.
The success of the Arsenal kids in recent years has been a case in point, boosting interest in the competition and offering valuable experience to developing players. Pity that not many are English, but that's another story.
The League Cup will always have a special place in the heart of any Liverpool fan, of course, and not just for the number of times the Milk Cups, Worthington tankards and Coca-Cola bottles have landed in our bulging trophy room.
It was in the League Cup, in September 1993, that Robbie Fowler announced his arrival by scoring at Fulham on his full debut.
Two weeks later he scored five in the return leg and the rest, as they say, is history. Almost 14 years to the day, some 40 miles down the road, another Liverpool striker surely set down a marker that here was someone special, born to delight the Kopites for years to come.
Now I realise that there's a bit of a difference between an ex-Liverpool schoolboy making his debut and a £20m-plus Spanish international striker, but in terms of the terrific sense of optimism that can only be inspired by the sight of a potential goal-scoring legend, the impact was comparable.
Fernando Torres's second-half performance at Reading was truly outstanding, and you can only marvel at how quickly this most welcome of imports has adapted to the English game.
Showing none of the physical reticence of a Morientes or Cisse, he brushed off the stern attention afforded him by the likes of Andre Bikey and tortured the Reading defence with his paradoxical will o' the wisp elusive running and palpable presence.
It's not often you see these skills combined with delicate foot-work and deadly finishing, illustrated by three goals of the highest class at the Madejski Stadium on Tuesday night. This guy really does seem to have it all.
Inevitably, most of the papers wanted to portray his performance as some sort of riposte to Benitez, who left him out of the starting line up for the recent league matches against Portsmouth and Birmingham.
Baffling though the latter of these two decisions was in particular, I'm sure Torres himself neither felt nor needed such motivation. We have four strong forwards now who bring different talents to bear which can be used to best effect in different situations.
All of them have to play regularly to keep them sharp; the key issue is when to use whom.
You and I may think the manager got this wrong for the Birmingham game, but overall Torres will feel the benefit of being actively managed in his first season.
I for one intend to relish every moment he's on the pitch.
