It is a tragedy of apocalyptic dimensions, a human catastrophe comparable to the melting of the ice-caps and the devastation of the rainforests rolled into one. Arsenal have been knocked out of the Champions League and have all but run out of steam in the race for the Barclays Premier League title. Anyone not inclined to lament, mourn and bewail this fact is not in possession of a soul.

You may say that I am exaggerating, but this is about more than mere football. It is about music and poetry, aesthetics and artistry, hope and audacity. Arsène Wenger could have instructed his team to play with the dispiriting pragmatism so beloved of his rival managers, but the mercurial Frenchman was not prepared to betray his nobler ideals, even when it might have improved his club’s chances of success.

Arsenal’s relentless and unadulterated pursuit of beauty has itself been a thing of beauty: a daring, epic and ultimately doomed journey that has taken the English game, against all expectation, into the territory of the artistic. Wenger has done more for neutral supporters in one season — talking spiritually now, talking of our moral fabric — than an eternity of watching the spirit-sapping utilitarianism of men such as José Mourinho and Rafael Benítez.

Wenger’s posse of swashbuckling and tragic youngsters embraced the vision of their leader with the naive enthusiasm of foot soldiers and now they look around themselves at the ruins. But they should not despair. Liverpool, their conquerors on Tuesday night, may go on to lift the European Cup next month, yet what are trophies except meaningless baubles that moth and rust destroy? What Arsenal have achieved this season will endure far longer, if only in the hearts of those of us who have watched them.

Who has been inspired by Benítez’s Liverpool or Avram Grant’s Chelsea beyond the core constituencies of Merseyside and West London, who cheer out of filial loyalty and never from aesthetic appreciation? Who in their right mind could watch a Liverpool or Chelsea performance and find a wide and happy smile arriving on their surprised lips?

This is not an argument that is pro-Arsenal any more than it is anti-Liverpool: Arsenal under George Graham were as dull and draining as Liverpool under Bob Paisley were thrilling. No, it is about celebrating something in Wenger’s team that goes far beyond success and failure; it is about saluting a philosophy that owes as much to Sartre as it does to Rinus Michels. Wenger understands that, in this curious journey called life, there are things that matter beyond the merely functional.

The Frenchman and his players will be feeling something close to desolation. They woke yesterday with their hopes and dreams, which were within grasping distance a few weeks ago, in tatters. But rather than despair, they should celebrate that they have imbued football with an aesthetic meaning that it has not enjoyed since the retirement of Pelé, Carlos Alberto and Co. They are glorious, even though they have been vanquished. They are glorious, perhaps, because they have been vanquished.

There was a time when it looked as if the English game was doomed to be strangled by route-one football. It is visionaries such as Wenger and the evergreen Sir Alex Ferguson who have resisted this calamity. Manchester United’s attacking luminosity and Arsenal’s intricate creativity have offered an alternative vision of the sport that, it must be hoped, will be embraced by a new generation of managers and coaches.

Football is becoming the beautiful game again. And, for that, we must thank, above all, the incomparable Wenger.