St James’ Park awaits – Newcastle v Barcelona preview | OneFootball

Welcome to the Newcastle v Barcelona preview.

Thursday 18th September – 8pm kick-off.

Newcastle United embark upon their fourth Champions League campaign this Thursday, when hosting Barcelona at St James’ Park.

Coming twenty-eight years and one day after an absolutely iconic victory over the same opposition, this has the potential to be another classic occasion.

If Eddie Howe and his team can emulate our heroes of 1997 then we’re in for a night of celebration that will go down in Toon Army folklore!

This is the first of eight champions league matches (four at home and four away) and NUFC will be hoping for three points towards a top eight finish in a league of thirty-six, to guarantee qualification to the knockout phase.

Form

Newcastle have played four matches so far this season, winning one and drawing two. We also suffered a desperately unlucky injury-time defeat at home to Liverpool. We’ve been the better team in every match and a similar level of performance could well see a famous victory over our illustrious opponents. We’ve scored three goals and conceded three, racking up the five points that have us tenth in the league.

Barcelona have enjoyed an unbeaten start to their la liga campaign. They’ve played four, won three and drawn one. They’ve scored thirteen goals so far and conceded just three. They sit second in the table on ten points.

The Toon hosted Wolves on Saturday afternoon and celebrated as a Waltemade header ensured our first win of the season. It’s always great to see a striker score on his debut and our club record signing took advantage of a fine Jacob Murphy cross to power a header into the top corner. The winning margin could have been even greater as Murphy had an effort disallowed before Tonali hit the post with the ‘keeper beaten. The second half was a more tepid affair but this was a good result for the Toon and allowed me a very rare moment of self-congratulation, having predicted a 1-0 win in my preview.

Barcelona warmed up for their visit to St James’ Park with an absolute hammering of Valencia, 1-0 up at half-time, a scoring spree in the second half meant a 6-0 victory. Hopefully that means they’ve used up all their goals and will struggle to find the back of the net on Thursday!

Stat attack!

In four Champions league meetings between the sides, Newcastle have won one and lost three.

Newcastle have hosted Spanish teams at St James’ Park in competitive matches on seven occasions, winning five and drawing two.

The Toon have played fifteen home Champions league matches (including qualifiers), winning eight and losing seven.

NUFC have never drawn a home Champions league match or any competitive game at home to Spanish opposition.

Memorable match

September 1997 saw one of the greatest European nights in Newcastle United’s history! This one was absolutely epic. On a night where we were expected to just make up the numbers, we completely overwhelmed one the best teams in Europe in a match that has gone down in NUFC folklore. As an eleven-year-old lad, I’ll never forget being there behind the goal as Asprilla completed his hat-trick to put United 3-0 up. One of my favourite matches of all time, I could write over a million words and not do it justice. Read all about this legendary match here, fingers crossed for a repeat.

Played for both

Sir Bobby Robson didn’t play for either side but it’s safe to say his impact on both clubs was both long-lasting and inspirational. As manager of Barcelona he won the Copa del Rey, Supercopa de España and UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in his one season in charge, having made the employment of Jose Mourinho a part of the deal that took him to Spain. He spent another season ‘upstairs’ at the Catalan giants and is fondly remembered by their supporters who celebrated his legacy with Toon fans when we were drawn against them in the second group stage of the 02/03 Champions league.

He managed Newcastle from 1999 until 2004 and took us from second bottom of the Premier League into the Champions League with fourth and third placed finishes, before reaching the UEFA Cup semi-final in 2004. His place in the history of our club has been celebrated with a bust in the players entrance as well as a statue outside the stadium. Perhaps even more impressive than his incredible managerial career is the charity he set up before he sadly passed away in 2009. The Sir Bobby Robson foundation has raised millions upon millions and continues to do incredible work for those affected by cancer. Check out their website here.

Patrick Kluivert spent six years at Barcelona and scored ninety goals in one-hundred and eighty-two league matches. A phenomenal talent, we never really saw the best of him in his one season at NUFC. Signed by Sir Bobby in 2004, he soon found himself being managed by Graeme Souness as NUFC’s fortunes nosedived. We went from a fifth placed league finish in May 2004, all the way down to fourteenth just twelve months later. Kluivert highlights included winning goals against both Chelsea and Tottenham as we reached the FA Cup semi-final.

Luuk De Jong had loan spells at both clubs. He played twelve matches for the Toon in 2014 under Alan Pardew without scoring a goal. He did slightly better at Barca, scoring six times in his twenty-one appearances, but neither club were desperate to snap him up on a permanent deal.

Managers

Eddie Howe after a 1-0 win over Wolves:

“Massive, massive win for us. The lads performed very well. Hard-fought, disciplined, we could have scored more – but we’ll take the win however it came. They put us under pressure in the first five minutes, but after that we got control of the game. A great cross from Murphy and great to see Nick score. It was a great moment for Nick. I was very pleased with how he played. You saw his qualities, his technical qualities that we’ve been discussing and his intelligence but most importantly for a striker, when the ball comes into the box, you need to be there – and he was. It was a great finish. I’m really pleased for him personally because that just settles him down and relaxes him. He wants to do well and he’s delighted to be here. I think it’s a great start. Nick’s very intelligent, very, very humble and a very good communicator. He understood everything we wanted him to do tactically. It was great to see him scoring, he took his goal brilliantly; it was a very strong debut.”

Hansi Flick after a 6-0 battering of Valencia:

“The starters were fantastic and the subs made a big impact as well. Everything went perfectly. From the first minute I saw us playing exactly the way we wanted and that led to a superb team performance. Everyone fought hard and you can see how much they enjoyed playing together”.

Charity

Newcastle United fans food bank will once again be collecting opposite the Gallowgate end and gratefully receiving food, money and toiletries for those in need. Of particular interest are non-perishable food and drink items (such as noodles, pasta, rice, canned food, soup, cereal, cordial, long life milk etc) as well as toiletries such as shower gel, shampoo, toothpaste and sanitary products. Please give whatever you can, any donation is very much appreciated.

For further info and/or to donate online go HERE.

Beating Barcelona 3-2 in 1997 remains one of my favourite ever memories as a Toon fan.

Being behind the goal when Tino completed his hat-trick will live with me forever, especially with it being only my fourth ever match.

I’d be delighted to think of a whole new generation of NUFC fans experiencing the same. I don’t think anyone will score a hat-trick this time around but I do fancy a famous victory Newcastle 2-1 Barcelona.