The team of the future has arrived.

And what a way for San Miguel Beer to announce it’s coming of age.

The Beermen on Wednesday night ended a 14-year title drought in the PBA Philippine Cup after grinding out an 80-78 win over an Alaska crew that didn’t want to go as San Miguel finally realized its enormous potential and looks to be the league power that it is destined to be.

It was a Game 7 that will go down in history as one to remember, the result of which hung in the balance until the literal final second, when all of those 22,511 souls present at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao waited with bated breath for the final buzzer to sound.

Of course, there must be a winner. There should also be a loser.

This is a sporting event, still. But the way both teams played, unless you are pure fans rooting for just one side, it was quite OK to absorb defeat if you rooted for the vanquished.

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San Miguel is a powerhouse team ever since I can remember, a squad that, since time immemorial, has teemed with talents on all fronts.

It is what you can call a truly serious team that is not in the PBA only to advertise its product, but there to win titles and make fans realize the beauty of the sport that the Filipinos have been so passionate about.

From the likes of the stars of yesteryears like Ramon Fernandez, Hector Calma and Samboy Lim, to the generation that had Danny Ildefonso and Danny Seigle forming the backbone of the squad from the late 1990s, San Miguel has been there wanting to win.

Yes, the Beermen did win some championships, 19 of them before Wednesday night, in fact. They are the winningest team in league history but had just four all-Filipino crowns before that glorious night.

Winning the all-Filipino is every player’s dream, it’s every coach’s crowning glory and every franchise’s defining championship.

There have been great players who have never won one, multi-titled coaches who don’t have an AFC ring to show and teams that didn’t even come close to fighting for such a crown.

And to win in a Game 7, in front of a delirious throng and beating such a determined team that has nothing to be ashamed of, this batch of San Miguel Beermen has claimed a permanent place in the PBA’s history books.

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Alaska lost not because it lacked desire.

In fact, the Aces had the most of that amongst all of the teams in the tournament, coming back from seemingly insurmountable odds all-tournament long only to fall short in the final game.

The Aces qualified third after the elimination round and needed to win two games in the quarterfinals before upending Rain or Shine in a best-of-seven Final Four series, 4-2 where Alaska rallied from two seemingly lost games to win.

It was the story of the Aces for the conference, and one which was highlighted again last Wednesday.

The Aces had a six-point lead with under six minutes left and seemed headed to crowning its efforts with the season’s most prestigious championship. But things turned sour and Alaska would not score inside the final 1:35 to lose.

It was a painful way to go, no doubt about it.

For how could one swallow such a defeat when the Aces had come back from 23 points down in the first half to even zoom to a 74-68 lead. It was unfathomable, to say the least.

But unfathomable was the story of Alaska the whole conference, for they never seized to amaze each time – even in defeat.

I say this because the class in the team surfaced at the most unexpected time after the game, just when the Beermen were whooping it up with friends and family on the fabled Araneta Coliseum floor.

The coliseum barker called out the tournament runners-up to accept their trophy, and the Aces came out of their locker as a whole group, single file to the podium.

Calvin Abueva, the undersized power forward who led the Aces in a third quarter comeback, proudly accepted the trophy and hoisted it for the whole gallery to see. You can see a sparkle in his eyes of how proud he was for his team for coming in a very close second.

And that, to me, is also a mark of a true champion.