Newcastle United history with our Champions League opponents | OneFootball

Thursday saw Newcastle United discover their Champions League opponents.

In the league phase, eight matches to be played by each club, with four opponents to face at home and four different ones to play away.

This Champions League Draw leaving NUFC with some tough, but exciting fixtures. Barcelona at home being the obvious standout.

Saturday morning then brought details of dates and times for the eight games.

So here is the past history between Newcastle United and the eight Champions League opponents they are set to face:

The full list of matches are as follows:

Home:

Newcastle vs Barcelona (18th September)

Newcastle vs Benfica (21st October)

Newcastle vs Athletic Bilbao (5th November)

Newcastle vs PSV Eindhoven (21st January)

Away

Royale Union Saint-Gilloise vs Newcastle (1st October)

Marseille vs Newcastle (25th November)

Bayer Leverkusen vs Newcastle (10th December)

PSG vs Newcastle (28th January)

Here you go – I’ll be going through our competitive history with each of these clubs, including our head-to-head record, famous games, and most recent encounters. However, pre-season games, including things like the “Eusebio Cup” or testimonials won’t be counting in the tally.

Barcelona (H)

Newcastle wins: 1

Barcelona wins: 3

Barcelona. St James’ Park. Champions League. The most potent memory for most toon fans should be that famous Faustino Asprilla hat-trick to give us a 3-2 win back in 1997.

Newcastle were underdogs going into the match, having sold stars such as David Ginola, Peter Beardsley, and Les Ferdinand, a serious injury to Alan Shearer meant ‘Tino’ had to step up and lead the line. Did he do that alright.

A penalty and two great headed goals via Keith Gillespie crosses put the Magpies 3-0 up by the 49th minute, before the lads clung on at the end to prevent a late Barca comeback, which included a goal by current PSG manager Luis Enrique.

To this day, certainly one of the best games in the club’s history, and I can’t wait to play them again for that reason.

Back to 1997 though, we’d lose the away fixture 1-0 at a largely empty Camp Nou, however, we did finish above the Spanish Giants in the final group stage.

We were drawn to Barcelona again in the 2002-03 season after heroically reaching the old second group stage, however this time we lost in both legs, 2-0 at home and 3-1 away. Although, we would be treat to a famous Camp Nou goal by the great Shola Ameobi, a side-footed finish into the bottom right corner after a lay-on by Kieron Dyer.

However, that game was also infamous for some utterly bizarre defending by the latter, the likes of which I don’t think have ever been seen again. As Thiago Motta headed the ball goalwards after a Barcelona corner, Dyer, who was leaning against the post, decided to simply watch the ball bounce off the part of him that was behind the goal line, allowing Barca to score their third. Possibly one of the laziest attempts to defend a goal ever witnessed by man, and a moment that would be parroted by football coaches and PE teachers alike for years to come.

The second leg in Newcastle featured another shocking piece of defending, after a long ball over the top by Barcelona, Titus Bramble appeared to have thought he was much closer to goalkeeper Shay Given than he actually was, he attempted to shield the ball for Given to collect, only for Patrick Kluivert to easily slip past him and side-foot the ball home. Motta would add a second fifteen minutes later and Newcastle were out.

Benfica (H)

Draws: 1

Benfica Wins: 1

The 2012-13 season was mostly an underwhelming season for the club, however, a positive was our Europa League campaign, as we reached the quarter-finals, experiencing some memorable games along the way.

The quarter-final was against Benfica, who would go on to reach the final that year.

We took the lead in the first leg through Papiss Cisse, but three Benfica goals, including one after a failed Davide Santon back pass that I’d rather not talk about, meant they were heading to SJP with a 3-1 advantage.

Few expected us to even play our first team in this game, as we were struggling in a more important relegation battle, but we did, and after a forgettable first half we really went for it in the second.

Another Cisse goal with 20 minutes to go narrowed the visitors’ lead to just one, and we spent most of the remaining time pounding on the door for an equaliser, Ben Arfa coming the closest after a blistering counter-attack in the 88th minute, his shot sailed over the bar.

Heartbreak struck in the 91st minute though, Benfica took the ball straight down the pitch after a Newcastle free-kick was saved, eventually leading to Eduardo Salvio streaking past a leaden-footed Sissoko to latch onto a cross and score to equalise on the night and make it 4-2 on aggregate.

A draw was still a respectable result back then, nowadays though we’re in a much stronger position as a club. Eddie and the lads will be searching for some long overdue revenge when we face the Eagles once again in October.

PSV (H)

Draws: 1

PSV Wins: 2

If you were wishing for more happier European memories by now, then you’ll enjoy this section.

Although we lost both fixtures in the 97-98 Champions league, our performances during the 2003-04 Uefa Cup quarter-final were a lot more memorable.

Jermaine Jenas scored the only goal for us in the away tie which ended 1-1, building a good foundation for the home game just six days later.

In that game, Alan Shearer would open the scoring nine minutes in with a header from a Laurent Robert corner, before PSV would equalise in the second half via a spot kick, PSV’s Mateja Kezman seemingly dedicating his goal to Jesus Christ.

Another Robert corner would save us, this time swerving straight onto the head of Rob Lee, who headed home to send us to the semi-finals, and our opponents would be..

Marseille. More on that later in this list.

Athletic Bilbao (H)

Newcastle Wins 1

Bilbao wins 1

We have an interesting history with Athletic Club. Outside of football, the city of Bilbao took on a lot of English influence, especially in the 19th century. Their industrial past, and its decline in the 1980s, almost mirrors our own.

During the first European adventure of the Keegan era, we faced them in the UEFA cup second round, winning the first match at St James’ Park 3-2, before a 1-0 defeat away put Bilbao through on away goals.

Issue 65 – July 1994

Although I’m not counting this in the official tally, Rob Lee selected the Basque club as the opposition for his testimonial in 2001, which cemented a friendship between the two clubs.

We faced them again in a 2022 friendly, during which a “friendship banner” was unveiled depicting both club badges, and the Basque County flag as the backdrop. The flag remains in the ground today, after recently being moved from the Gallowgate Milburn corner to the East Stand.

Athletic Club president Jon Uriate even recorded a special video for the Newcastle fans before the game, in which he paid tribute to the bond between both sets of fans.

PSG (A)

Newcastle Wins: 1

We all remember this one.

Our first competitive fixture against the French champions was one of our greatest ever European nights, a 4-1 demolition job on Tyneside.

Mbappe was absolutely pocketed by the United defence. Whilst Dan Burn, Miggy Almiron, Sean Longstaff and Fabian Schar were the four somewhat unlikely goalscorers in an utterly dominant night.

The away fixture at the Parc des Princes was just annoying. After taking a 1-0 lead through Alexander Isak in the first half, we proceeded to spend the rest of the game desperately defending. Luckily for us, PSG didn’t exactly bring their shooting boots, racking up 31 shots with the majority of those going off target. Nick Pope also stood firm to keep a few of them out.

A win would’ve put us in an automatic spot, which surely would’ve given us a morale boost going into the final game against Milan, however, after all our hard work, PSG were awarded an utterly ludicrous penalty by referee Szymon Marciniak, who despite having a look at the VAR monitor, declared that Livramento had handled the ball, despite it clearly hitting his chest. Mbappe, who had done nothing all night, stepped up to score from the spot. Equalising in the 98th minute.

Since then, PSG have gone on to become arguably the best side in the world and are the current competition holders after they hammered Inter Milan 5-0 in last year’s final.

Bayer Leverkusen (A)

Newcastle Wins: 2

Bayer Leverkusen Wins: 0

Another team which we’ve only played twice, and for the first time on the list, both games consist of 100% happy memories.

The two games took place in the second group stage of the 2002-03 campaign, and both ended in a 3-1 win for the Magpies.

In the first game, Ameobi perfectly filled Alan Shearer’s boots with two great goals before a young Lomana LuaLua added a third before half-time, along with his trademark summersault celebration.

Eight Weeks later and Bayer were facing us at St James’ Park, this time with Shearer back in the starting XI.

Big Al would hit the ground running with his first and only Champions League hat-trick inside 36 minutes, before the away side scored a late consolation goal.

Marseille (A)

Marseille wins: 1

As I mentioned back at the end of the PSV section, Newcastle would face a Marseille side that featured a young Didier Drogba in the semi-final of the Uefa Cup, and he would go on to utterly boss us in this tie.

A 0-0 draw at home meant we were going into the away fixture with everything to play for.

Within 17 minutes Drogba took the lead with a great solo goal, cutting inside past Aaron Hughes with a Ronaldo chop in the box, before tucking the ball past Shay Given.

Despite an improved second half for Newcastle, Drogba would score again to put the game to bed with ten minutes to go, firing an absolute rocket past Shay Given in the box to send Marseille to the final.

That summer, Drogba would make his move to Chelsea for £24million, making him the most expensive Ivorian ever at the time.