Ferguson's dog soldiers are more than enough to expose limits of Schalke's feeble infantry

(AFP/GETTY/PA)

It required a goal from one of Manchester United's ultimate defenders, Bill Foulkes, in the tumult of the Bernabeu in 1968.

Roy Keane had to produce one of the most extraordinary pieces of motivational brilliance in 1999 and before Chelsea were overcome in Moscow three years ago there was the little matter of disposing of a team called Barcelona, thanks to a single goal in 180 minutes scored by Paul Scholes.

Such semi-final achievements seemed like stories from ancient, epic campaigns last night when another shot at the greatest prize in club football at Wembley later this month was achieved by a team which was greeted, understandably enough, not so much by confidence but the odd gasp of apprehension.

Yet the concern died quickly enough with the swift conclusion that, if United had delved into the margins of their front-line resources there is, whatever the ebb and flow of recent form, rarely a shortfall of ambition and resolve.

Schalke are a poor, ill-formed team by the standards of Europe's elite, but a remarkable campaign still had to be put to the sword. The worry was that Sir Alex Ferguson had taken unnecessary risks, but then how else does a man make such a record of nerve and success?

Ferguson, astonishingly juggling the requirements of both the Champions League and a possible 12th Premier League title at the end of a season of unremitting struggle to find old veins of gold, had clearly weighed carefully the need to preserve key troops for Sunday's potentially winner-takes-all collision with Chelsea.

The result was a searing comment on the Schalke who overwhelmed the reigning champions Internazionale at San Siro in the quarter-finals.

Ferguson sent in the dog soldiers, some of whom will consider themselves lucky to make the Wembley bench. Yet just as Keane played to his very limits despite knowing he would not make the final (because of a yellow card) against Bayern at the Nou Camp, the same could be said – in rather less demanding circumstances, it has to be allowed – of young men like Chris Smalling, Jonny Evans and Darron Gibson.

Gibson was the best example of someone utterly committed to making something of his time at Old Trafford despite a growing sense that his future may well rest elsewhere. This, certainly, has been the insistent advice of his Ireland manager, Giovanni Trapattoni. Better, said the wily Italian, to go to develop your game in a place like Bolton or Stoke with regular first-team football. Put away the dream and settle for reality rather than romance. Last night it would have been a brave man harping back to such wisdom.

If there was any doubt about the wisdom of Ferguson's strategy last night, Gibson soon enough had his boss chortling in the stands. He sent in Antonio Valencia – an authentic thoroughbred among the dog soldiers this night – with a lacerating pass for the opening goal – and then scored himself with a trademarked drive that startled the hero of Gelsenkirchen last week, Manuel Neuer. Neuer redeemed himself with a few saves of the highest quality, but he too crumbled with the weight of the evidence that United could rummage among the reserves and still come up with football of an altogether superior type.

For Ferguson there was, apart from the ease of his progress to a fourth European Cup final, a whole rash of bonuses.

There was certainly a gust of reassurance after Sunday's disturbing collapse of both form and spirit at the Emirates. There were also individual performances which will surely linger in the mind when he comes to choose his teams for the pivotal games against Chelsea and, finally, Barcelona.

Most heartening of all, perhaps, was the arrival of Darren Fletcher, so often the grit in the eye of United's most dangerous opponents, a scuffling, relentless figure, whose absence, through suspension, Ferguson mourned when Barça cut his team to pieces in Rome in 2009 after dismayingly light contributions from such as Wayne Rooney, Michael Carrick and Anderson.

Fletcher has hard work before him to make a pressing claim, but he is an element that United have certainly missed at vital points in the last few weeks.

Last night there was a significant eruption from Anderson, a goalscorer and someone playing with a rare confidence in his ability to dominate the play. However, any analysis of last night's performance, from Anderson and the rest, by the watching Barça coach Pep Guardiola will surely be shaped by the feebleness of Schalke.

For United this was an extraordinary gift, this ghost challenge from a team unfit for purpose at this stage of the great tournament. Still, Guardiola will take home something that maybe runs deeper than the meaning of one mismatch. It is that Manchester United, yet again, have found a way to create another moment when football history is the prize. Only a fool would discount the possibility that they might just seize it.