Mes que un club, goes the Barcelona motto. More than a club. For Newcastle, this is more than a match. It is the richest in their history. Win, and it’s worth close to £15million. Win, and it keeps the season alive. Win, and it betters all of their greatest nights. Lose, and a chapter closes on the club’s most successful and storied period of recent times.
To go out of the Champions League, with the unlikelihood of qualifying for next season’s edition and all of the fallout that entails, would feel like a punctuation mark on this version of Newcastle.
What a glorious period it has been, this week marking the one-year anniversary of their Carabao Cup win. And here they are, in Barcelona, with 10,000 of their own hoping that the ink does not dry beneath the Spanish sun.
Can they do it? Logic would tell you not. Since returning to the Nou Camp, Barcelona have won 12 from 12. They have Lamine Yamal, Raphinha and Pedri. They have, after lobbying the local council, a new capacity of 62,000.
But logic may not have an answer for the speed and incision of Anthony Gordon. Logic has no place in the second leg of Champions League knockout ties, either.
As Eddie Howe said in the shadow of the building site that is the Nou Camp: ‘We are in as good a place as we’ve been all season.’
This is the team who have beaten Manchester United and Chelsea in back-to-back Premier League games and drawn with Barcelona in between.
Newcastle’s players take in the magnificent Nou Camp on Tuesday night ahead of the game
Nick Woltemade (left) and Sandro Tonali are all smiles as they prepare for the big match
They have four players almost certain to be in the England squad this week – Gordon, Dan Burn, Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento. The latter pair could be Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup full backs.
Their most recent memory of playing Barcelona, just over a week ago, is of their pace terrifying a young backline. At the other end, Yamal was spotted at Barcelona’s training ground on Tuesday, finally free of the darkness of Hall’s pocket. So there is hope, there is reason to believe.
‘You want the size of the game to lift the players and to make us grow,’ said Howe. ’Certainly we can’t shrink. We will enjoy the game when it comes but we will only truly enjoy it if we deliver what we know we need to deliver. I think we’re in a good place to do that.
‘The players are probably as confident as they’ve been at any stage this season. Our recent performances have been really strong. The individuals in our team are performing at a really high level and that hasn’t always been the case this season, so hopefully we are peaking at the right time. There’s been a much better feel.’
But even a well-timed run can end with a face-plant against opposition of this class. That is why the alternative needs to be considered. Exit, even with pride, and the season then hinges of Sunday’s Tyne-Wear derby. Beyond that, talk will continue of a summer of high turnover. Some stars, such as Sandro Tonali, Gordon and Livramento, will likely have interest from elsewhere.
I asked Howe about the consequences of the result. Mes que un match.
‘I understand the question,’ he said. ‘But for me, in these moments, you can’t think too deep about outcomes or what happens after or what it may lead to in the summer. It’s about the here and now and preparing for a game as best we can. Win or lose, the game goes on. I don’t want to heap too much pressure on the players. I just want them to try and execute the best performance they can.’
Howe did admit that this was the biggest game of his 17-year managerial career and would be, in turn, the biggest win. But, win or lose, there needs to be appreciation for the four-and-a-half-year journey he has taken the club on. This season, there has been strong online criticism from a small section of the fanbase.
Lewis Hall got the better of Barcelona wonderkid Lamine Yamal in the first-leg draw
‘A year ago yesterday we won the Carabao Cup,’ said Kieran Trippier. ‘I just block out all the noise, especially about the manager. It goes in one ear and out the other. What he’s done for this club is remarkable.’
Trippier is out of contract in the summer and unlikely to sign a new one. He was Howe’s first signing in 2022 and arguably his most important.
‘When I arrived, I never thought we’d be playing Champions League football,’ he said. ‘We’ve been to the Champions League twice and two cup finals. We can’t forget how far we’ve come in a short period of time. When you’re 19th in the league and only have one win (in 2022), I don’t think anybody expected us to be here!
‘Most importantly, we’ve earned the right to be here. This is where we want to be. This is where the football club needs to be, in Europe. We’ve seen what these special moments mean to the club. This can still be a fantastic season.’
For Howe, Trippier and Newcastle, this is more than a match.
