*De Bruyne Pulled Out Early
*Newcastle 1 Barcelona 2
*Manchester City 2 Napoli 0
By Louise Taylor, at St. James’ Park, & Jamie Jackson, at the Etihad
A little more than 24 hours before kick-off on Thursday night, Hansi Flick spoke about how lucky he felt to have acquired Marcus Rashford on loan from Manchester United.
Barcelona’s manager was not remotely bothered that his stock had fallen so far at Old Trafford. Rashford, he said, was a forward he had long admired and now believed he could help improve.
In the 82nd minute, Rashford walked off wreathed in smiles before being wrapped in Flick’s heartfelt embrace. He had just scored two splendid goals that rendered Eddie Howe’s highly effective gameplan academic and silenced St James’ Park.
With Faustino Asprilla – the scorer of a hat-trick for Newcastle as Barcelona succumbed 3-2 on Tyneside in 1997 – having flown in from Colombia to help cheer his old team on, it was not supposed to be like this but not even Anthony Gordon’s 90th-minute consolation could upstage Rashford.
It was no night for slow coaches. Not with so many explosions of pace occurring all over the pitch and on the respective right wings in particular.
While Raphinha’s rapid accelerations down that flank for Barcelona sometimes stretched England’s Tino Livramento to the limit, the sprinting powers of Newcastle’s Anthony Elanga often seemed utterly irresistible.
From one such advance, Elanga scorched past Gerard Martín before crossing for Gordon but Newcastle’s out-of-position centre-forward failed to make contact. Might Nick Woltemade have done better? Quite possibly but Newcastle’s £70m Germany striker began on the bench after Howe sensibly decided three games in a week might be beyond the 6ft 6in new boy at this stage.
Nonetheless, Howe could certainly have done with Woltemade’s sureness of touch as Harvey Barnes succeeded in dinking the ball over Joan García but wide of a post. On that occasion Barnes’s blushes were spared by a linesman’s offside flag but he would later be denied by the keeper when clean through on the counterattack.
Yet if their finishing was found wanting, Newcastle refused to allow the La Liga champions to put their foot on the ball and assert any real semblance of midfield control.
Howe had instructed his players to press hard and sometimes riskily high and it frequently succeeded in ruffling the visitors.
The danger was that if Newcastle, even momentarily lost concentration, Raphinha – a scorer on his last two visits here with Leeds – or Rashford would race away from them.
Rashford looked razor sharp and the Manchester United loanee had home hearts in mouths after tricking Kieran Trippier before leaving the former England full-back trailing. Rashford ultimately shot wide but across in the technical area, Howe knew it represented a reprieve.
With Flick’s brightest and most precious talent, Lamine Yamal, back at home in Barcelona nursing his injured groin, opportunity beckoned for a Newcastle XI cleverly mixing booming long balls with bouts of slick, short passing.
Yet as well as they did to keep the game evenly and intriguingly balanced, goalie García was exposed to precious little danger.
The same could equally be said of the largely well-protected Newcastle goalie Nick Pope.
Fabian Schär generally did such a good job of minding Barcelona’s much-decorated centre-forward that Robert Lewandowski resorted forlornly to demanding that the referee book the centre-half.
Schär’s partner, Dan Burn, did collect a yellow card on the brink of half-time after catching Jules Koundé’s ankle late. Some referees might have deemed it a red card and Flick certainly seemed to think it was.
With Sandro Tonali once again an almost elemental, not to mention elegant force in central midfield, Flick’s side could not quite manage to join their attacking dots.
Tonali invariably prompted Newcastle’s best moves but cross after cross flew into Barcelona’s box and, with no proper home striker on the pitch, came to nothing.
In contrast, Rashford is no stranger to scoring and the England forward revelled in jogging a few memories by connecting with Koundé’s fine left footed cross and flashing an unstoppable glancing header past Pope.
A perfect fusion of power and accuracy, it was Rashford’s first goal for Barcelona and arrived after he cleverly manoeuvred himself clear of Schär.
It served as the signal for Howe to finally introduce Woltemade as part of a quadruple substitution also involving Jacob Murphy, Joe Willock and Malick Thiaw, but, before the newcomers could make a difference, Rashford struck again.
If his opener was good, his second was sublime. On the eve of the match, Flick had said that his shooting in training had been “unbelievable” and, after dodging Tonali this time, Rashford proved it courtesy of a 20-yard shot that singed the underside of the crossbar en route to the back of the net.
He always enjoyed scoring against Newcastle for Manchester United and it seems switching to a Barça shirt has only sharpened his appetite on Tyneside.
Although Gordon finally proved he can score after all by polishing Murphy’s cross off at the far post, it was too little too late. Rashford had already done enough.
Doku Decorates Manchester City’s Win Over Napoli
Pep Guardiola said of drawing Napoli and having Kevin De Bruyne return: “It was always going to happen, right?”
But he might have spoken of his No 9’s ruthlessness, as Erling Haaland broke this game open with Champions League goal No 50 in a record 49 matches, a feat that handsomely beats Ruud van Nistelrooy’s previous 62-appearance mark.
Thursday night’s strike was a seventh in five for Manchester City – form as ominous as the Norwegian’s in the immortal 2022-3 treble season.
Once Napoli had Giovanni Di Lorenzo sent off on 21 minutes, it was the longest of nights for an XI containing all the returning-to-Manchester three – Scott McTominay, Rasmus Højlund and De Bruyne – before the last’s sacrifice when his captain saw red.
“Once A Blue Always A Blue” was one banner greeting Super Kev though Napoli’s star turn was Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, a goalkeeper defiant until the second-half intervention of Haaland and Jérémy Doku, whose solo effort had shades of Ricky Villa’s 1981 FA Cup final barnburner.
On a temperate night more akin to a venue somewhere in southern Europe, a Tijjani Reijnders stinger was beaten out by Milinkovic-Savic for a first corner.
Napoli’s response came via a raking 45-yard De Bruyne diagonal that dropped sweetly on to Leonardo Spinazzola’s boot: he turned Abdukodir Khusanov inside, then out, so the makeshift right-back did well to recover.
Before this a Rodri touch, pirouette, and pass to Doku had the left wing-man racing down the centre, and warned how City also hoped to hit Napoli: on the break.
Now, a similar foray caused the game’s first notable moment. A Gianluigi Donnarumma hoof upfield came to Phil Foden whose early release took Haaland galloping in – Di Lorenzo scythed him down and after the pitchside review, ref Felix Zwayer went from adjudging no foul to a wave of the referee’s red card at the visiting captain. Advantage City.
After Reijnders’ free-kick spun away off the wall, and a Haaland flick went close, Napoli’s regroup featured Conte bringing on Mathias Olivera for De Bruyne: his 25 minutes were greeted with an ovation and a rendition of “Oh Kevin De Bruyne”. The Belgian poker-faced his removal but was surely seething.
Conte spoke of the contest being his “students” against Guardiola’s “tutors” and with Di Lorenzo’s early shower we settled in for City’s long siege of the Neapolitan goal.
Rodri rolled to Foden and he unloaded and Milinkovic-Savic saved. A loose pass aimed at Alessandro Buongiorno had blue shirts scurrying after the ball with him but the centre-back beat these – just.
A rat-a-tat sequence involving Rodri-Foden-Haaland had the No 9 squeezed out just inside Napoli’s area.
Then, Dias’s curving cross drew a flying Haaland, who marginally failed to connect near-in.
Rodri flitted about in prompting, metronomic mode and when stepping forward hit a 20-yard banger that had caused Milinkovic-Savic to dive low and right to repel.
He repeated the act – twice – to tip away headers from Nico O’Reilly and Josko Gvardiol, the Serb a one-man resistance to the ever-surging blue wave. Through all this his counterpart between City’s posts, Donnarumma, was a spectator on easy street.
From the Naples area, the 26-year-old had close-to-zero to do before a break the team from his childhood locality managed to reach intact.
City’s last effort before the refreshments was a Reijnders’ attempt that Matteo Politano nearly turned into his own goal when sticking out a boot. But, yet again, Milinkovic-Savic was alert and he gathered and saved the stand-in skipper’s blushes.
A first-half shot-count of 16-1 to City told the tale of the tie thus far.
Conte’s interval instruction to his men was surely simple – “suffer and defend” – while saying too, maybe, internally, “cross everything”.
The head coach certainly prayed when Doku fed Foden and he let fly and the ball bounced from the left, across goal, narrowly missing.
Now, following a yellow card for Politano for grabbing Gvardiol, Conte took him off for Juan Jesus but the Brazilian defender could do nothing to stop what happened next.
He repeated the act – twice – to tip away headers from Nico O’Reilly and Josko Gvardiol, the Serb a one-man resistance to the ever-surging blue wave. Through all this his counterpart between City’s posts, Donnarumma, was a spectator on easy street. From the Naples area, the 26-year-old had close-to-zero to do before a break the team from his childhood locality managed to reach intact.
PHOTO CAPTION: Rashford in a lung-bursting scream after scoring against Newcastle… tonight.
Other Results
Club Brugge KV – Monaco 4:1
FC Copenhagen – Bayer Leverkusen 2:2
Eintracht Frankfurt – Galatasaray 5:1
Sporting CP – Kairat Almaty 4:1
