While Beckham, Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard have emerged as the images of Eriksson's young England, Neville has quietly gone about his business and made the right-back shirt his own.
Often overlooked by fans and media alike - and by the England hierarchy when it came to reallocating Beckham's captain's armband - Neville is nonetheless one of the senior members of England's squad.
Regularly one of the first names on Eriksson's - and Sir Alex Ferguson's - team-sheets, Neville is the most-capped outfield player in the current England squad.
But he will not add to his haul of 52 caps until after England's World Cup campaign in Korea and Japan.
Neville is one of those taken-for-granted footballers of metronomical consistency, footballing proof of the old adage that you don't know what you've got until it has gone.
Evidence is provided by the lack of obvious candidates to fill the void, with Neville having been one of the few players whose place in the starting 11 was seemingly rubber-stamped.
Here, BBC Sport Online runs the rule over the leading candidates to fill the right-back role: