It was a night when the Tyneside passions pulsed; the nervous energy, too, because this was something unprecedented – a first Champions League knockout tie in Newcastle’s history. It was not just the gilded level of the opposition that fired the excitement, the imagination. Eddie Howe was in little doubt that it was the biggest game Newcastle had ever played.
Newcastle had to do more than subdue Barcelona, the top team in Spain last season and so far this time out. They had to manage the occasion because it was one that came to rest on the edge of a knife. As the minutes ticked down, the chances so scarce, they knew that one moment was always likely to be decisive. At either end.
When they made it happen towards the end of regulation time, it was the prompt for their hopes to surge. Harvey Barnes had been denied by the post on 75 minutes after a lovely move, with Joelinton flagged for offside when he put the rebound into the net.
Barnes refused to believe that it would form the basis of his story and there was joy in the home stands when he ghosted unmarked on to a cross from the substitute, Jacob Murphy. Nobody in a Barcelona shirt had tracked him, the finish was true and the Newcastle fans had all kinds of optimistic thoughts ahead of next Wednesday’s Camp Nou return.
