Still, the Chelsea supporters warmed up by expressing their ire for Ferdinand. The man whose brother was racially abused by the home captain has, by the logic of the football fan, become a Stamford Bridge hate figure.
From the first mention of his name over the public address system, the favourite pantomime villain hereabouts was booed to the echo.
Plus there was a pointed reference to his preference for television duties in Doha over turning out for his country: "go back to Qatar, you know what you are," was the chant. Except they did not say "go back".
Ferdinand, wearing a pair of boots in such a virulent shade of orange they were apparently styled on a steward's hi-vis jacket, did not appear overly perturbed by his reception. He would have been more worried by what was going on in front of him.
With Chelsea beginning the game as if keen to surrender possession at every opportunity (even Juan Mata seemed to have misplaced his radar) Ferdinand's colleagues seemed equally reluctant to seize the initiative.
Sir Alex Ferguson had selected a side to nullify Chelsea's creative heart, with Phil Jones bustling around Edin Hazard and Danny Welbeck dropping back to chase Mata.
But when United were presented with the ball, there was little ambition to advance: even the sight of Ashley Cole clutching at the back of his thigh after succumbing to a hamstring pull did not encourage United to fulfil their supporters' demands that they "attack, attack, attack".
These fans, gathering under a flag that identified them as the "Ralph Milne Ultras" were obliged to content themselves with mocking the substitute John Terry as he warmed up in front of them. For them, his miss in the Champions League final in Moscow remains a source of mirth.
What would have made their day here was Terry coming off the bench for a penalty shoot-out. It was a reasonable prediction: for the entire first half, a spot-kick lottery seemed the only way either side would break the deadlock.
But then, right at the start of the second half, Ba made his contribution. It was, as his manager Rafael Benítez insisted, the perfect application of the finisher's art.
Five minutes later it seemed as if one of Ferdinand's colleagues had matched the ruthlessness of that strike. But when Petr Cech somehow flicked Javier Hernández's header over the bar, a save that the Mexican acknowledged with a grin of astonishment, Ferdinand's one and only hope of a reprieve disappeared over the horizon.
"Rio, Rio what's the score?" demanded the home fans as Phil Dowd brought the game to a conclusion. They need not ask. Ferdinand will know only too well what the significance of this result is: another season passed without that missing bauble.
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