For a manager not given to hyperbole, Eddie Howe’s billing of Barcelona’s visit as ‘the biggest game in the club’s history’ was no throwaway soundbite. He doubled down on it when challenged and, last night, trebled that assertion.
It offered a revealing insight to his thinking, particularly within a season of competing priorities and opinions as to which matters most.
For Howe, the answer is clear – Barcelona and the Champions League is No 1. The 48-year-old has been drawn in by the romance, and why shouldn’t he be? There is also the colder reality of financial incentive, of course. But in a climate of long throw-ins and corners, even longer seasons and bloated formats, judgment should be swayed by nights that quicken the pulse and bring a city to a standstill.
Never before have Newcastle United played knockout Champions League football at this stage. And against Barcelona, too, the opponent who, in these parts, captures better than any the glamour and possibility of European football.
Last week, as part of Prime Video’s build-up coverage for this evening’s game, I was asked by presenter Gabriel Clarke if Newcastle’s 3-2 victory over Barcelona in 1997 was the greatest night in the club’s history. Two of the stars of that game, John Beresford and Keith Gillespie, were asked the same.
Instinct told me no, there had to be greater. Considering the alternatives (and sticking to the inference of a ‘night’ fixture) I eventually answered yes. Gillespie and Beresford did so in a flash. They were right. Barcelona, on Tyneside, is one word that conjures a thousand memories. It needs no context.
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In September, Tino Asprilla, in his broken English, told stories to a sell-out crowd at one of Newcastle’s most iconic hotels. Why? Barcelona. Gillespie spends as much time here as he does his native Belfast. Why? Barcelona.
They will both be at St James’ Park tonight. It was Gillespie who supplied the crosses for two of Asprilla’s three goals nearly 30 years ago. The Colombian never scored again for Newcastle. He did not have to. What is football if it is not about moments? About legend. About legacy.
That is why Howe prioritising this game over Saturday’s FA Cup fifth-round tie at home to Manchester City is OK. He did not risk his spine of Dan Burn, Joelinton and Anthony Gordon at the weekend and Newcastle lost 3-1. It was afterwards, when pressed on their non-inclusion, that he made his claim about this being the club’s biggest-ever game. Is it? It does not matter, really. Rather, it is the possibility that is the allure.
The counter-argument is that the FA Cup represented Newcastle’s best chance of a trophy this season, and a route back into Europe via the Europa League. Port Vale may have been drawn in the quarter-final. But this is the Champions League. This is Barcelona, in a knockout bout. This is, literally, once-in-a-lifetime stuff. The FA Cup comes around again in January, just like it will the year after.
At St James’ last night, Howe himself gloved up. It was one of his most impassioned addresses in more than four years as head coach.
‘This is an opportunity to grab a moment that we may never get again,’ he said. ‘You never know what life brings tomorrow, let alone future seasons. We don’t want to waste that opportunity. We don’t want to kick ourselves or think, “What if?”. In my time here, just over four years, we have worked to get to this point.’
In ’97, Howe was a 19-year-old professional at Bournemouth when he looked to the North East from his home on the South Coast.
‘You couldn’t not watch that game,’ he said. ‘It was on terrestrial television. Tino Asprilla. Keith Gillespie. In 20, 30, 40 years’ time, I want our players to be talked about in the same way.’
The template has been set, and not just by the boys of ’97. In September, in the opening game of this season’s Champions League, Newcastle battered Barcelona for half an hour. They could not take the lead and lost 2-1 when Marcus Rashford produced a pair of wonder strikes in the second half.
Newcastle fans produced a tifo with Eddie Howe’s face on it for the second leg of their tie against Qarabag last month
Marcus Rashford’s double condemned Newcastle to a 2-1 defeat when Barca last came to town, in September
‘The start of that game was red hot,’ said Howe. ‘The atmosphere was incredible. We just couldn’t carry it through. It is all on us. I know the crowd will be there when needed to help us.
‘And there is a reason they say the game in 1997 had the best ever atmosphere – that is because the team played so well, scored three goals and could have scored more. That is why – because the team gave the crowd what it needed. That’s what we have to do tomorrow.’
When Gillespie was asked for one word to describe what quality his team had that his predecessors need most, he offered: ‘Fearlessness.’ He did add that his own audacity, repeatedly tearing by Spain left back Sergi, was in part because La Liga was shown on TV on a Sunday night when he was down the Bigg Market. ‘I had no idea how good he was supposed to be!’
Newcastle know much more about Lamine Yamal, who missed the league phase meeting because of injury. Back then, when the stakes were not as high, Howe said he wished the teenager was playing. To listen to the head coach here, gone is that feel of this being an exhibition to enjoy. He would much rather Yamal was still in Spain. Tasked with keeping him quiet will be left back Lewis Hall.
‘We need to win our individual duels,’ said Howe of that match-up. ‘We need to win the tussles in those big moments. Then, we’re looking for one moment of magic from an attacking player. We’re going to need to break new ground in terms of performance level. If there’s a time for us to be at our absolute best, it’s now.’
This is their chance to create a new ‘Barcelona’.
