The match may be 21 days away, but there is already one name on the Manchester United teamsheet in Moscow. Paul Scholes, scorer of the goal that edged United past Barcelona to confirm their first Champions League final appearance since 1999, has been guaranteed his place by Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager. In the circumstances, it was the least he could do.

Scholes and Roy Keane were the pitiable absentees when United lifted the trophy nine years ago, and while Keane will not get the chance to right that wrong, it is fitting that, in the twilight of his career, Scholes will. As a man on a mission in the Russian capital, however, he will not be alone.

This was the night when Manchester United the team emerged from the shadow of Cristiano Ronaldo the one-man show. It has been glibly claimed in some quarters that the sheer will of Ronaldo’s genius has dragged this collection of players to the brink of glory this season and without him they would be nothing. This was the case against that argument.

Ronaldo had a good game last night; good, but not great. Had it been down to him, United would not necessarily have progressed. He worked hard and manfully and stretched the Barcelona defence at every opportunity, but would have fallen short without the collective efforts of his teammates, including some of the unsung and simply overlooked heroes of the season.

In the absence of Wayne Rooney and Nemanja Vidic, United’s tower of strength at the back, it was men such as Carlos Tévez, Michael Carrick and Park Ji Sung who propelled United to the first all-English final in European Cup history. And the defence, of course, always the defence. The rock on which United’s season has been built, a statement that should encompass the much-maligned Wes Brown and his stopgap replacement at right back in recent matches, Owen Hargreaves.

Yet it is Scholes who will capture the headlines and the imagination. Scholes, who many thought would be incapable of returning to a team aiming for such a high level of performance after so long out injured. Scholes, whom Fabio Capello wants back in the England squad, and no wonder. His fourteenth-minute goal was not the half of his contribution here and by the time he was withdrawn for the fresher, younger legs of Darren Fletcher in the 76th minute, he had given everything, as he has in so much of this campaign.

At times it is hard to believe a celestial influence on modern football, when cheats often prosper and good guys finish last, but after all he has been through in this competition, karma was surely at work in allowing Scholes to score the goal that took United to their second Champions League final under Ferguson, just as it is moving that they should be there in the year of the 50th anniversary of the Munich air crash.

And what a beauty Scholes’s goal was, too. Scrappy in the conception but exquisite in the denouement as Ronaldo was dispossessed on the run only for Gianluca Zambrotta, the Barcelona right back, to hit the next pass directly to United’s greatest redhead, belying Capello’s suspicion that it is only the English who cannot keep the ball. This was Scholes’s perfect range and the supporters knew it. There was almost a collective whisper of encouragement to shoot as he honed in on his target and struck, the ball flying into the top right corner of the net, leaving VÍctor Valdés, the goalkeeper, no chance.

And that was all it took. United had apparently prepared for this match on the basis that Barcelona would score and they would have to outgun them on the night, but in the end the most slender margin of victory was enough. For all their poetry in motion, and what Ferguson evocatively described as the passing carousel, Barcelona barely threatened the United goal in two matches. They played nice football here and Lionel Messi is a delight to behold, but the end product amounted to little more than pot-shots at Edwin van der Sar’s goal, much as happened in the Nou Camp last week. The best team won. The best team in Europe, quite probably. Now they must finish the job.

It was tense until the end, of course, because Barcelona have too much talent to allow opponents comfort when guarding a single-goal lead, and there were shredded nerves when Florian Meyer, the fourth official, signalled three minutes of stoppage time, but the best chances went to United, not the visiting team.

Of these, the pick came in a 25-minute spell at the end of the first half and were often the work of Nani, perhaps the most surprising of Ferguson’s choices but justified for the threat he posed. It was Nani’s crosses that caused Valdés most trouble; the goalkeeper spilt one in the seventeenth minute and palmed another away in great panic soon after, and Nani should have scored in the 40th minute when he met Park’s cross with a header that travelled just wide.

Tévez, for all his graft, was quiet in front of goal, except for a second-half shot kept out by Valdés, and it was left to Park to come closest with the ball on the ground, a side-foot shot, set up by Ronaldo, that went close after 21 minutes.

Park is typical of the sort of player who will travel to Moscow with a score to settle. He should have been a Champions League finalist in 2005, when PSV Eindhoven were desperately unlucky to fall to AC Milan at the semi-final stage, having outplayed the Italians over two legs. Carrick, too, will feel that he has a point to prove as the most underrated English footballer in the Barclays Premier League, if his recent omission from Capello’s England squad and his performances in recent weeks are anything to go by.

Then there is Ferguson. He knows that he should have been a European finalist more times than this. He knows that his team have underachieved in Europe. Now he can do something about it. For United, and for all sorts of reasons, this is the time to make things right.

Manchester United (4-4-2): E van der Sar - O Hargreaves, R Ferdinand, W Brown, P Evra (sub: M Silvestre, 90min) - Nani (sub: R Giggs, 76), P Scholes (sub: D Fletcher, 76), M Carrick, Park Ji Sung - C Ronaldo, C Tévez.

Substitutes not used: T Kuszczak, Anderson, J O’Shea, D Wellbeck.

Booked: Carrick, Ronaldo.

Barcelona (4-3-3): V Valdés - G Zambrotta, C Puyol, G Milito, É Abidal - Xavi Hernández, Y Touré (sub: E Gudjohnsen, 89), Deco - L Messi, S Eto’o (sub: Bojan Krkic, 72), A Iniesta (sub: T Henry, 61).

Substitutes not used: Pinto, Edmilson, Sylvinho, L Thuram.

Booked: Zambrotta, Deco, Touré.

Referee: H Fandel (Germany).

Talking tactics

— Manchester United had only 38 per cent of the possession last night but their excellent defending prevented Barcelona from having many chances to test Edwin van der Sar, the goalkeeper. The six players with the highest number of successful passes were all in Barcelona shirts yet both teams had seven efforts on goal

— United displayed far greater fluidity last night than they did last week in Spain, notable on the wings, and thus carried more of an attacking threat. The change was typified by Park Ji Sung, who was stuck on the left flank almost throughout the first leg yet drifted around the pitch at Old Trafford

Possession

First leg

Barcelona 61%

Manchester United 39%

Last night

Barcelona 62%

Manchester United 38%

Words: Bill Edgar