It was a thrilling night at St. James Park as visitors, Barcelona scored twice through the efforts of Marcus Rashford who is on loan from Manchester United.
The two sides last met in 2003, a game which the Catalans were away and went away with two points and two goals.
Newcastle had hoped for a positive result after being boosted by their first league win of this season against Wolverhampton. They were, however, disappointed by the repeat of their fate from their last encounter with the Spanish side.
Team lineups
Newcastle boss, Eddie Howe made two changes to his squad as Anthony Gordon and Anthony Elanga came on for record signing, Nick Woltemade and Jacob Murphy. Howe described as having a “magical feel to it,” and expressed much optimism for a favorable outcome.
Meanwhile, Barcelona made four changes as Ronald Araujo, Frenkie De Jong, Raphinha, and Robert Lewandowski were in the lineup. Marcus Rashford also started on his return to England since he joined Barcelona in the summer.
How the match went
Fermin got the first effort of the game but sent it wide of the left post. The tempo of the game became frenetic for a while but Barca was able to stall slightly with a more thoughtful approach of possession. The visitors looked quite reactive and Rashford was able to move forward down the left make a cross into the box but Raphinha could not connect with his head properly inside the box, and put the ball out for a goal kick.
The Catalans kept on mounting pressure on the host’s defense and were through in the 58th minute when Rashford headed a smart clipped ball from Kounde into the bottom-left corner from the centre of the box.
Barcelona still kept the pressure up after scoring and almost got another reward from a Rashford corner which was headed out at the near post.
A few minutes afterwards, Rashford doubled the lead for Barca as he darted onto a knockdown, jinked to the right outside the area and whipped a treacly strike past Pope into the net. This raised Rashford’s goal tally against his favourites to play in England to seven goals.
Barcelona still kept the energy and pace up till the 85th minute when it began to falter and five minutes later the Magpies were able to reduce their deficit after a lovely fluid spell of passes before Gordon was able to slot in Murphy’s cross.
Newcastle ultimately underperformed and will look forward to a better result in their next game in the competition against Union Saint-Gilloise in October.
Meanwhile Barcelona will host Paris Saint Germain on the same day in October.
Watch highlights of the game here:
