It was a night when the Tyneside passions pulsed; the nervous energy, too, because this was something unprecedented – a first Champions League knockout stage 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 champions in Spain last season and league leaders 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 clear chances so scarce, they knew that one moment was likely to be decisive. At either end.
