Key events
Half-time advertisement break. It’s out!
HALF TIME: Newcastle United 2-0 Paris Saint-Germain
Newcastle go off to another huge roar of appreciation. They’ve earned every decibel. This scoreline doesn’t flatter them at all. They’ve been as effervescent as PSG have been poor.
45 min +7: Newcastle launch one last first-half attack. Guimaraes tussles with Ugarte, who seems to overpower him in a footrace. He’s booked, and is fairly lucky the referee is in a good mood, because as Ugarte passed him, he seemed to make a slightly strange chopping motion with an arm that caught his opponent on the back of the head. Could easily have been a red.
45 min +6: Kolo Muani drives down the left to win a corner. The set piece is worked to Mbappe, who cuts back for Ramos. A shot is deflected wide left and nothing comes of the second corner.
45 min +4: Nothing comes of the free kick. PSG counter through Dembele, who skedaddles down the right and whips in low. It’s a dangerous ball, but there’s nobody in blue taking a chance on a run. Dembele indulges in some righteous frustration with his buddies.
45 min +3: Hakimi tugs back Gordon as the Newcastle winger drifts in from the left. Free kick, and the PSG defender, having just been booked, wants to watch himself here.
45 min +2: Longstaff brings down Hakimi, just to the right of the Newcastle box. Dembele loops towards the far post, where Pope punches confidently clear. Everything going right for Newcastle at the moment. PSG are clearly rattled now.
45 min: There will be seven extra first-half minutes.
44 min: Hakimi was booked in the aftermath of the VAR decision for arguing the toss. Not sure why it took so long, given Uefa’s semi-automated system. Still, gotta trust the process, huh?
GOAL! Newcastle 2-0 PSG (Burn 39)
Marquinhos was playing Guimaraes onside with his trailing foot! St James’ explodes again, and what was left of the roof after the first goal heads towards Sunderland.
41 min: The VAR check for offside is interminable. But it’s worth the wait, because …
39 min: Trippier curls it into the mixer … and then bedlam, bedlam, bedlam! It initially looks as though Lascelles handles before heading, but no whistle. PSG pause. Ugarte slices towards his own goal. Donnarumma claws it away. Guimaraes, by the left-hand corner of the six-yard box, tries to catch the keeper out from a tight angle. Donnarumma parries. Guimaraes take two: this time he chips to the far stick, where Burn rises and bashes a close-range header towards the top right. Donnarumma claws it out again, but the ball’s gone well over the line. The offside flag goes up, but someone’s going to have to unpick all that. Over to VAR!
38 min: Trippier creams a delicious long pass down the right touchline to release Almiron into acres. He zones in on the box, but before he can reach it, Hernandez cynically brings him down. The PSG right-back goes into the book, and this is a free kick in a very dangerous position, just to the right of the box, 25 yards out.
37 min: Isak back on, to a great wave of affection.
36 min: Poor Isak felt that, and it takes a while to wrap a Terry Butcher bandage around his head. But it looks like he’ll be good to continue.
34 min: Isak hits Gonçalo Ramos late with a forward’s challenge. Just mistimed, no malice. But he comes off worse, somehow, taking a whack upside the head as the pair fall. On comes the trainer to mop the blood and fix him up.
32 min: PSG, who have had 66 percent of possession so far, continue to pass and probe to no effect.
30 min: PSG are seeing more of the ball. But they’re doing very little with it.
28 min: Gonçalo Ramos attempts to burst past Schar and into the box down the left. Schar stands firm and takes the hit of an opponent running at full pelt. Brave, and a well-timed clearance too, because the players were just inside the area.
27 min: Gonçalo Ramos drives at goal. His shot is deflected wide left. From the resulting corner, Mbappe attempts to take on Almiron down the left, but his cross is flicked out of play by the Newcastle midfielder’s studs. However the home side get the goal kick, and Mbappe’s frustration betrays him. Diddled out of a corner, his team a goal down, he’s not happy. All going very nicely for Newcastle so far.
25 min: … Almiron pulls back for Schar, who pelts a low drive inches wide of the bottom right. Had that been on target, Donnarumma was beaten all ends up. Half the ground celebrate, the side netting having been rippled. So close to doubling Newcastle’s lead.
24 min: Trippier sends Almiron into space down the right. Almiron attempts to shuttle further on to Isak, but the PSG defence half clear. Newcastle come back down the same flank, whereupon Marquinhos, attempting to usher the ball out for a goal kick, confuses himself and hacks out for a corner. From which …
22 min: Mbappe accelerates down the inside-left channel, then lays off to Kolo Muani to his left. Kolo Muani fizzes a low cross into the mixer. Newcastle clear. PSG come again, though, Zaire-Emery pearling a long-distance riser towards the top right. Inches wide. Burn was beaten. That was a proper potential net-ripper, and a reminder that while PSG have started slowly, they’ve got plenty of scope to improve quicksmart.
21 min: The noise at St James’, though! The sudden, explosive end of 20 years of yearning.
19 min: That’s Newcastle’s first Champions League goal since Alan Shearer breached Internazionale in San Siro in 2003. Dembele tries to counter it with a dribble down the right, but his low cross disappears into a pocket of home defenders and is cleared accordingly.
GOAL! Newcastle 1-0 PSG (Almiron 17)
Newcastle press and press, and refuse to allow PSG out of their final third. Marquinhos’s poor pass out is headed straight back by Guimaraes. Isak slams goalwards. Donnarumma parries well, but the ball breaks right to Almiron, who opens his body and steer-slams a curler into the bottom left! What a finish! The roof at St James’ copters off towards Berwick.
15 min: Almiron is clanked to the ground by Ugarte, who comes sliding in with great feeling, in the time-honoured Uruguayan style. The great Obdulio Varela would have appreciated that no-nonsense challenge, one suspects. No booking, and nothing comes of the resulting free kick, but no matter, because …
14 min: Hakimi ships possession carelessly 40 yards from his own goal. A pass towards nobody. Almiron takes up possession and immediately zips down the middle, before hoicking a wild effort miles over the bar. He had options either side, too.
12 min: Isak briefly looks like breaking clear down the inside-right channel, but the referee spots his not particularly subtle push in the back of Skriniar, and there goes that whistle.
11 min: It is tipping down all of a sudden. “When Dan Burn was playing for Fulham in the lower divisions I don’t suppose he could have imagined facing someone like Mbappé in the Champions League,” writes Richard Hirst. “The lad has certainly done well for himself.” Up up and howay?
9 min: Hernandez attempts to release Mbappe into space out on the left touchline. Lascelles reads the danger, coming across to blooter clear. Had he arrived on the scene one second later, Mbappe was most likely tearing free. Fine defending.
7 min: Tonali, Guimaraes and Gordon look lively down the left wing. They combine with some crisp passes and eventually Gordon is skittled. The resulting free kick is launched into the box, Lascelles winning a header that Donnarumma claims adroitly. Both teams attempting some front-foot football here.
5 min: PSG nearly take the lead with a wonder goal. Mbappe strides down the left and, upon reaching the corner of the box, swings a ball towards Dembele, rushing in from the other flank. Dembele opens his body and steers a glorious first-time shot inches wide of the left-hand post. Had that been on target, the rooted Pope was beaten. That would have been a picture-book goal.
4 min: Marquinhos gets on the home fans’ nerves by putting his foot on the ball and standing stock still for a good few seconds, the professional drawing of some early sting. Eventually he passes the ball backwards and Newcastle launch their press again. Gordon hares after it down the left but Marquinhos sees it out for a goal kick. Gordon immediately waves his arms to demand more cheering. The crowd grant his wish with another roar.
2 min: PSG come out swinging too, though, Dembele nearly releasing Hakimi on the overlap down the right. Burn ushers the ball out for a goal kick.
1 min: Just 40 seconds in, and Newcastle’s press has already forced the visitors into shipping possession on three occasions. A hectic start, in other words.
PSG get the ball rolling. Over to the players, then!
The teams are out! Newcastle in their famous black and white stripes, PSG first-choice blue and red. Anyway, the fans have waited two decades for this, and it won’t be shock breaking news to tell you that they’re seriously up for it as a result. The entire place is briefly transformed into a sea of rippling black and white stripes, everyone giving it plenty with their cleverly co-ordinated flags. The Leazes End spells out “Hello hello, we are the Geordie Boys”; everyone’s put in the effort tonight all right. What an atmosphere! We’ll be off in a couple of minutes!
Pre-match soundtrack. There’s the wild Uefa reimagining of Zadok the Priest, of course, but nothing ever tops the traditional St James’ Park airing of the theme from one of the greatest movies ever made.
Time for some sepia-toned memories of old-time PSG (est. 1970) with Chris Paraskevas. “I’m glad somebody mentioned the criminally underrated Intertoto Cup: the look on Scott Parker’s face during the trophy presentation (click below) is still iconic/haunting to this day. I also seem to remember a time when PSG had that slightly hipster-cool feel to them: Pauleta, Ronaldinho, the baggy jerseys. Now it’s very mainstream: it’s all Jordan crossover-this, and Kylian Mbappe-that. By the way, Ronaldinho’s only trophy with PSG? You guessed it… the Intertoto Cup.” Chris Paraskevas, ladies and gentlemen, also known in literary circles as The Weaver.
You want more on that aforementioned 3-2 win over Barcelona … as well as Newcastle’s last home Champions League game, a 2-0 defeat by the same opponents in 2003? We got it.
Eddie Howe speaks to TNT Sports. “It’s very special … you come here and see what it means to everybody … we want to succeed, do well, it’s going to be a big night for us … it’s about the detail, we’ve got to get it right … we have to be tactically aware of what we have to do … hopefully we have a fast start and it will settle us down … we come into this game in good form … we’ve got some very good players … underneath that ability, team spirit and commitment … a really tight group … we’ve come together as one … we’ve done our work on Kylian Mbappé, it depends on where he plays, out left or in a more central position, we’ve prepared for both.”
Newcastle have made one change to their starting XI from the 2-0 won over Burnley at the weekend. Sandro Tonali comes in for Elliot Anderson, who drops to the bench. The future Scotland/England international will be sitting alongside 17-year-old midfielder Lewis Miley, who started the recent League Cup victory over Manchester City. Joelinton and Callum Wilson are injured.
PSG boss Luis Enrique returns to the scene of his first Champions League appearance in a Barcelona shirt. He improvised Barca’s first goal in a 3-2 defeat to the Toon in 1997, the Faustino Asprilla match, forcing a Luis Figo cross past Shay Given from close range with the old nips. Tonight he makes four changes to his team from last weekend’s draw at Clermont: Warren Zaire-Emery, Lucas Hernandez, Manuel Ugarte and Goncalo Ramos replace Danilo Pereira, Vitinha, Fabian Ruiz and Bradley Barcola, who are all benched.
The teams
Newcastle United: Pope, Trippier, Lascelles, Schar, Burn, Longstaff, Guimaraes, Tonali, Almiron, Isak, Gordon.
Subs: Dubravka, Dummett, Targett, Karius, Hall, Livramento, Murphy, Anderson, Miley.
Paris Saint-Germain: Donnarumma, Hakimi, Marquinhos, Skriniar, Hernandez, Dembele, Ugarte, Emery, Muani, Ramos, Mbappe.
Subs: Navas, Fabian, Pereira, Vitinha, Mukiele, Soler, Barcola, Tenas.
Referee: Istvan Kovacs (Romania).
Preamble
Newcastle’s return to the Champions League after a 20-year wait produced a highly encouraging draw away to last season’s semi-finalists …
… so can they go one better at home against the 2020 runners-up? PSG can assert some real dominance over Group F with a win at St James’ Park tonight, having won their first match 2-0 at Borussia Dortmund thanks to goals from Kylian Mbappé and Acharaf Hakimi. Newcastle will fancy their chances, though, having not lost at home in Europe since Deportivo La Coruña came to town in the 2006 Intertoto. Could be a cracker. Kick off is at 8pm BST. It’s on!
