Tino Asprilla is hanging in the Tyneside night sky. The Colombian possessed a natural spring and an unusual hang time, but he has remained there for almost 28 years. In many an imagination in Newcastle, anyway. Newcastle against Barcelona conjures memories, though some of them were never forgotten.
Asprilla’s penalty against Louis van Gaal’s Barcelona can be obscured by what followed; by the two headers that completed his hat-trick, by the sight of Keith Gillespie tormenting Sergi and standing up crosses, by the sense of the spectacular and the surreal. It only has one rival for the title of St James’ Park’s greatest Champions League night: a 4-1 demolition of Paris Saint-Germain two years ago that has come to look like a still better result since then. No one else has beaten Luis Enrique’s PSG in European competitions by more than two goals. Such is the power of St James’ Park on such occasions. A quarter of a century earlier, Luis Enrique had been a scorer for Barcelona in that 3-2 defeat to Newcastle. Then he got to witness an altogether more ungainly header, an airborne Dan Burn helping condemn PSG to defeat.
Now a reunion between Newcastle and Barcelona comes coated in history and footballing romance; two clubs bound together by Sir Bobby Robson meet, with Newcastle once again the underdogs. In 1997, Barcelona’s forward line included Luis Figo and Rivaldo. Now it is Lamine Yamal, fitness permitting, and Robert Lewandowski. Alexander Isak has passed up his chance to be the Asprilla of the 2020s, though Newcastle may note the Colombian was actually a deluxe alternative for a team missing the injured Alan Shearer.
Newcastle might reflect, too, that two wonderful European nights ultimately counted for naught. In both 1997-98 and 2023-24, they failed to qualify from old-style group stages, furnished with more jeopardy; in the first, Barcelona propped up a pool topped by Dynamo Kyiv. Now there is more protection. Newcastle are entitled to feel it could have been different two years ago: Isak, with his lone Champions League goal for them, gave them a lead they long held in the Parc des Princes before Kylian Mbappe’s controversial 98th-minute penalty cost them two points.
Now, in another nod to the past, their group stage finishes in Paris. There are blockbuster ties, reminders of what Newcastle missed for two decades, but there is also a different reality. Their fate may be determined by their results against the competition’s middle class, by meetings with clubs like Athletic Bilbao, Bayer Leverkusen, Benfica and Marseille, not the glamour ties that bookend their participation in the league phase.
Does that strip some of the significance of it? Perhaps. But a club with a lone experience of winning major silverware since the 1960s knows the importance that one result, one night can hold.
There is also an underlying question: will such occasions become more commonplace in the future, even annual events? Newcastle’s last taste of the Champions League was both uplifting and draining. Naivety may have been a factor in their elimination: in the final-day virtual table, they were on course to qualify when they led AC Milan, attacked too much after conceding an equaliser, and ended up losing.
A lesson of Eddie Howe’s meticulous career is that he tends to learn from mistakes. A theme of Newcastle’s 2023-24 campaign was injuries. A challenge now is to rotate better, either in Europe, England or in both.
It was overshadowed by the Isak saga, but Howe’s summer recruitment was underpinned by a quest for strength in depth, by a bid to fill in the gaps in the squad. Which, by and large, he has done, even if two of his additions are sidelined already. But if Yoane Wissa and Jacob Ramsey watch on from the treatment table, they cost the best part of £100m. Whereas Barcelona’s summer spending was limited to €28m (£24m), Newcastle spent around £240m, though more than half of it was funded by Isak. The modern-day Barcelona have the allure to loan Marcus Rashford but would not be able to afford to buy Wissa.
Newcastle’s newcomers are revealing in other aspects. There will be no belated European debut for Wissa. Nick Woltemade has had his own wait: his fortunes have changed so swiftly that Stuttgart did not even register him in their Champions League squad last season. Now he is Newcastle’s record buy and could earn an immediate place in club folklore if he can do an Asprilla. For Howe, though, there could be a different test: could he do an Alan Pardew? Because he remains the last manager to take Newcastle to the final eight of a European competition. Aston Villa can provide a comparison for Newcastle and a role model. Ramsey reached the Champions League quarter-finals with his hometown club last season; is that a realistic aspiration for Newcastle?
Another arrival, Malick Thiaw, was a semi-finalist with AC Milan in 2022-23. So was Sandro Tonali, who has unfinished business with this competition; two years ago, his ban for gambling came partway through the group stage. Newcastle took four points from the two games he started, one from the four he did not. Now Anthony Gordon is available despite his domestic suspension; the chances are that Howe will look to the winger to be the tone-setter.
If Newcastle look to unsettle Barcelona, there could be a clash of styles: the Spanish champions are the byword for short passing in midfield, whereas Newcastle have Joelinton’s bruising physicality. When the English champions visited Tyneside last month, Arne Slot said he was “not too sure I saw a football match”. Liverpool still won then. Twenty-eight years ago, on another electric night at St James’ Park, the score was another 3-2 but Newcastle were celebrating. They would settle for a repeat now or the sort of game that means mentions of Barcelona will require an explanation, of 1997 or 2025.
