Lamine Yamal’s 96th-minute penalty denied Newcastle a famous win over Barcelona in the first leg of the Champions League Round of 16.
Raising their game as they have in Europe all season, Newcastle came out swinging and had Barcelona on the ropes on a couple of occasions early on – but that promising start was almost undone by one of their own, Dan Burn poking the ball just wide of his own goal.
With 50,000 Geordie hearts descended from mouths, Newcastle continued to take the game to the LaLiga leaders, Anthony Elanga carrying the bulk of their threat with some tantalising balls from the right as the Magpies looked to exploit Barca’s high line with the Swede’s lightning speed.
Eddie Howe’s only real half-time disappointment will have been that Newcastle failed to truly trouble Joan Garcia in the Barcelona goal, especially having seen his side restrict the visitors to 0.34 xG during the opening 45 minutes – their lowest return in the Champions League this season.
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While it was a case of defences on top for much of the second half, both sides had good chances to break the deadlock – but Robert Lewandowski and Jacob Murphy were both well off target.
Joelinton then briefly thought he’d opened the scoring as he followed in from Harvey Barnes’ shot against the post, only to see the flag raised for offside – a frustrating moment for Newcastle but one which seemed to spur them on.
And the ever-raucous Toon Army would finally get their moment on 86 minutes: finding himself in acres of space in the box, Barnes met Murphy’s cross from the right with a first-time volleyed finish that Garcia couldn’t get enough on to keep out.
A VAR check for offside had hearts in mouths once again, before the referee’s all-clear sparked a cathartic second wave of celebration.
With Newcastle seconds away from beating Barcelona for the first time since 1997, the champagne was on ice, but there was to be an agonising twist in the tale.
The Magpies’ ill-advised push for a second goal came back to bite them right at the death, Malick Thiaw tripping Dani Olmo and Yamal coolly sending Aaron Ramsdale the wrong way from 12 yards with the final kick of the game.
And with that, Newcastle’s quest to reach their first-ever Champions League quarter-final went from hopeful to daunting: Barcelona have won 11 games out of 11 since returning to the revamped Camp Nou.
