Evidently Tuesday night's events at Camp Nou had drained the UEFA Champions League of its excess bark and fury.

Manchester United’s progress to the final was as tame as a snoozy old hearth-hound.

After last week’s almost farcically bad first-leg performance from Schalke, it was always going to be that way. Schalke were little better last night. They wrapped that ticket and served it right up to their hosts.

Sir Alex Ferguson must have dreamed of the day he could consider making nine changes to a line-up for the second leg of a Champions League semi-final with a pivotal Barclays Premier League match looming.

Last night was that night, and yet despite United’s second-gear cruise it would be wrong to ridicule the one-sidedness of it all, given how Schalke had obliterated Inter Milan to reach the semi-final stage.

First-half goals from Antonio Valencia and Darron Gibson ensured there was no way back for Schalke, who were already two goals down from the first leg, and a late double from Anderson completed a handsome victory. The visitors had but Jose Manuel Jurado’s ferocious strike at 2-0 down to show for their efforts.

For Gibson, in particular, it represented a fitting riposte to the critics who forced him off Twitter last week after spending barely two hours exposed to a demanding public.

Barcelona, by complete contrast, limp to Wembley counting the bruises from their two rancorous wars with Real Madrid, the damning words of vanquished rival Jose Mourinho ringing in their ears.

Whichever way you look at, none of the four legs of this season’s Champions League semi-finals will go down in football history alongside the kinds of great games of which both these sides have so frequently been a part.

What matters most is not how weakened United were, how bad Schalke were, how petulantly acrobatic Barcelona were, or how sore at being second-best Real Madrid were. What counts is the conclusion of those conundrums.

Neutrals – if any really remain on this increasingly tribal football continent – can now relish a showpiece between the two clubs who, more than any other pair in world football, can be pretty much guaranteed to put on a show.

Deep down, it may be just how Ferguson would have wanted it as he chases an achievement which arguably will rank among his finest yet, and possibly hasten his exit into glorious retirement.

Ferguson continues to defy the critics who have claimed all season long his time is past.

United may be skating on increasingly thin ice in the Premier League title chase but their big-occasion class remains apparent.

There is perhaps no other manager in the game who would trust his squad enough to make nine changes for such an important game, no matter the first-leg score nor the important domestic matters on the horizon.

But it is out of that ferocious loyalty, which so often sees him incur wrath for crossing the line of acceptability (and which, incidentally, is more ferocious than any of the vitriol spouted by Mourinho) that Ferguson hones his winning mentality.

Last night, it was the turn of the much-maligned Gibson to transform himself from much-mocked bit-part player into Champions League player of note with a first-half goal and a fine assist.

Such loyalty has paid off so many times before for Ferguson, be it with the one-time distinctly ordinary Darren Fletcher, or the temporarily out-of-sorts Ryan Giggs. He ignored the clamour for change and brought the best from them. Ferguson will do the same at Wembley, where all the farce and fury of the semi-finals will have been consigned to history, and the two teams who deserve to be there most will surely put on a show to remember.