Self-deprecation is one of Phil Neville's endearing traits. Like the story he once told of wanting to swap shirts with a Real Madrid galáctico after a memorable European night at Old Trafford.

He knocked on the away dressing-room, handed his shirt to the Real kit man and waited patiently. A few minutes later the door opened and an outstretched arm thrust Neville's red Manchester United shirt straight back. The message from Zidane, Roberto Carlos, Raúl and Ronaldo was “thanks, but you can keep it”.

Then there was the time, against Fiorentina in the Uefa Cup last season, when he eagerly volunteered to take a penalty for Everton in the shoot-out. “But for some reason,” he recalled, “David Moyes kept pretending he couldn't hear me.”

There are those who have treated Neville throughout his career as though he has a lot to be modest about, but they discovered on Sunday how little they know of the man when, as the FA Cup semi-final against United entered the drama of another shoot-out, only one Everton player was absolutely insistent on taking a spot-kick.

Neville did not just volunteer to take one, but said that he would happily go first when there was every reason to hide. Why put himself under that pressure when no one expected him to step forward? Why risk undoing all the good work he has done to win over Everton fans sceptical about his allegiances after a lifetime at United? Imagine the consequences if he had missed.

Why enter an emotional maelstrom by taking a penalty against a team supported by his family, whom he represented man and boy and are still captained by his brother, Gary? “I'd never taken a penalty in a game,” Neville said, “but sometimes in life you have to do things you don't want to do. I knew I had to do it for myself, more than anything.

“It might have been different if we'd have been playing Chelsea, I don't know. I just felt this was a big moment. I had to stand up and be counted.”

Some might say it was fated when they hear that last month, after the quarter-final victory over Middlesbrough, Neville's wife, Julie, told him on the drive home that he should start practising spot-kicks just in case they came up against United. So Neville did. “I must have taken 100 of them, whipped exactly into the same spot, over those few weeks,” he said.

Sensibly, Everton had come up with a strategy that a player should take a penalty in practice and then hone one particular technique. Even Tim Cahill's blast over the bar was based on rigorous preparation because he had, until then, been driving them into the roof of the net consistently.

“It's funny,” Neville said, “but I knew I was going to score. As I walked up, I thought my wife would be crying with worry, but I had perfected exactly what I wanted to do. I felt absolutely sure of it.”

Penalty shoot-outs are often, wrongly, described as a lottery when actually they can reveal a footballer's nature, if only for a fleeting second. And Neville's foresight, his meticulous preparation and his guts were rewarded with one of the most uplifting moments of his career.

“Character is fate,” Thomas Hardy wrote in The Mayor of Casterbridge, and he might have been describing penalty shoot-outs. If it was fate, Neville's character certainly shaped his.

Smart money is on Ryan Giggs

A few people in Manchester knew something last week when they marched into various Coral bookmakers and heaped money on Ryan Giggs to win the Professional Footballers' Association's Player of the Year award. The betting was suspended: the debate may continue for weeks.

Has Giggs been the most influential player this season? Debatable given the contributions of Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres. Is he even the best performer at Old Trafford given the contribution of Nemanja Vidic?

But, then, have any of those players shown the consistency that would make them unarguable recipients in a campaign notable for not having a truly outstanding performer? Will any of them, at 35, be as vibrant as Giggs?

The fair approach would be to suspend this argument until the end of May, but the players did not have that luxury when they voted.

So let's just conclude by saying that those punters will not be the only ones thrilled on Sunday night if Giggs is called up to receive the biggest individual honour of a brilliant and exemplary career.

Will Cambridge go for a Burton?

It is a long time since I travelled up and down the country seeking morsels of pleasure from watching Cambridge United. But if ever there was a time to return it is now, as they stand on the brink of pulling off the greatest football story of the season.

At one stage 21 points behind Burton Albion in the Blue Square Premier, Cambridge head into the final weekend trailing by three points and with a goal difference of 26 to Burton's 30. The leaders, however, must go to high-flying Torquay United, staggering to the line like a delirious marathon runner after the mid-season departure of Nigel Clough. Cambridge have every chance of sticking a few past mid-table Altrincham as they seek to climb back into the Football League.

Would there have been a greater swing in a promotion race? Doubtful. To The Trade Recruitment Stadium it is.

Ferguson's real motives surface

Sir Alex Ferguson's claims to have changed his side over the weekend because of the state of the Wembley pitch can officially be declared poppycock. The Manchester United manager was already anxious enough about the wellbeing of his players that he had resolved days earlier to leave out almost his entire first team for the semi-final against Everton.

Friday's clumsy broadside at Rafael Benítez disclosed the real reason why he was willing to sacrifice the FA Cup: Ferguson is consumed by a dread of surrendering the championship to Liverpool.

The FA Cup never stood a chance the minute Ferguson realised that he would need all of his resources to chase his twin obsessions - adding more European Cups to his record, but, no less significantly, keeping Liverpool under his tyranny.