PREVIEW: Newcastle seek Champions League revenge against Barcelona | OneFootball

Barcelona will once again travel to St.James’ Park tomorrow night as they look to repeat their superb performance and result from the peague phase.

Barça picked up a 2-1 win that night with Marcus Rashford netting a brace before Anthony Gordon scored a late goal for the hosts. Newcastle United didn’t finish in the top eight of the league phase, which meant they had to go through the play-off round, in which they thrashed Qarabag FK 9-3 on aggregate, to reach this stage. Meanwhile Barcelona finished 5th in the league phase which meant they received a bye to the last 16 alongside Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea, Sporting CP and Manchester City.

Domestically, Newcastle find themselves 12th in the Premier League and having gone out of both the Carabao and FA Cup to Manchester City within the last month. By contrast, Barcelona sit four points clear at the top of the La Liga table and having already lifted the Supercopa De España this season, however they were knocked out of the Copa Del Rey by Atletico Madrid last week.

The Catalonian side have previously lifted the European Cup/Champions League title five times, the fourth most of any club in history, with their last one coming in 2015 where they beat Juventus 3-1 in the final. Meanwhile, this is already the best run Newcastle have had in the Champions League, marking another milestone of success for the club since their ownership change in October 2021.

Magpies manager Eddie Howe has described tomorrow night as “the biggest game in the club’s history” when speaking with the press, he also went on to add that “We need the supporters to think that way and we need to try and find some energy from somewhere. That will elevate our performance to a level that we’ve not seen before this season, because I think that’s the only way we’ll get through.”

This will likely just be like any other game for the La Liga giants though, having only not made the last 16 of this competition twice in the last 17 years, however it is still one they will need to win if they are to take an advantage back to the Nou Camp for next week’s second-leg.

The game is due to take place on Tuesday March 10th and kick-off is scheduled for 8pm (UK time.)