The moment has finally come for Newcastle United fans and the Champions League.
It has taken eight months of the season and now into April 2026, before we see a round of matches in the competition taking place without NUFC.
Tuesday and Wednesday sees the Champions League quarter-final first legs taking place.
Real Madrid v Bayern Munich and Sporting Lisbon v Arsenal tonight, then Barcelona v Atletico Madrid and PSG v Liverpool tomorrow.
What might have been…
As they say though, better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Just look at Sunderland.
The shortest book ever written, Sunderland in Europe.
The Mackems experiencing two European ties, four matches, 53 years ago. That is it.
To put it into perspective, Middlesbrough have played 25 matches in European competitions in the history of their football club.
For Newcastle United, it is now up to 152 European competitive matches, thanks to the 12 Champions League games this season.
I have seen some Newcastle fans rather bizarrely claim that it has all been a waste of time as we were never going to win the Champions League this season. Really?
In that case, why bother entering any competition you are unlikely to win?
Why try to finish top five in the Premier League if this is how you see the Champions League?
Let’s just try and exist in a meaningless flatlining coma, as was the case under Mike Ashley for a decade and a half.
The uber critics of Eddie Howe (and pretty much everything and everybody else…) will also now say why waste any time on any of the knockout competitions, when it has impacted on the Premier League form so much. The 51 matches that Eddie Howe and his players have faced so far, is more than any other team has played that also competes in one of the major European leagues.
I hate this attitude
The attitude that dismisses getting to the semi-final of the Carabao Cup as an irrelevance. That it is something we shouldn’t give Eddie Howe and the players credit for.
Just ridiculous. The teams that regularly get to the later stages of competitions are the ones who then end up winning trophies regularly. The odd exception simply proves the rule.
Having only ever got to one League Cup semi-final in 60+ years of the competition, under Eddie Howe we have done so three times in four years (it would have been four in four if only United had held on in those final seconds at Chelsea).
Would Newcastle United have lifted the trophy on 16 March 2025 if not having been losing finalists two years earlier? I don’t think we would have done. In 2023 it was all new and a big adventure, two years later I think the collective experience for both fans and players (and manager) meant that we were all far better prepared and mentally focused. From the first whistle, indeed before it where the fans were concerned, Newcastle United had silverware in their sights. If we are honest, even the support for the team wasn’t really what it should have been at Wembley in 2023. It wasn’t terrible but it felt like a case of so many of our fans having experienced a class trip to the capital, with the actual match a step too far. Collectively so many of us just felt like a lie down after enjoying ourselves too much, we had put in our best efforts in the hours and days before the 2023 Carabao Cup final.
Last season, Newcastle United dominated Chelsea, Arsenal (twice) and Liverpool in all four matches played against that trio in order to lift the League Cup.
I honestly think that if Eddie Howe and his players had got past Manchester City in the latest semi-final, then Newcastle would have done the same as last year against Arsenal in the competition and what Man City did in this final against them. I think NUFC would have, like Man City did, prove much the better side on the day at Wembley and won against an Arsenal side that has developed a habit of losing at key moments under Mike Arteta. He does the opposite to Eddie Howe, instead of going brave in key matches late on in competitions when up against strong opposition, Arteta instead retreats into his shell and goes more defensive.
Glorious failure
Which brings me back to the Champions League.
For Newcastle United it was ultimately failure. As in, NUFC didn’t win the competition, but it was glorious failure.
We had a blast. Twelve matches played, six wins, three draws and three defeats. Two of the three defeats against the club with the second highest revenues in world football, a club that has so many huge advantages currently over Newcastle United.
Yet for three-quarters of the last 16 Champions League tie, Newcastle United more than matched Barcelona and could and should have been ahead in the tie after the final whistle at St James’ Park, as well as on aggregate by the time we arrived at what proved to be that final 45 minutes of football in the competition.
A bit like the 2023 and 2025 Carabao Cup finals, I do think Eddie Howe and indeed the fans, were far better understanding of the challenges of competing in the Champions League, compared to two years earlier. The results and the performances speak for themselves. Even allowing for the altered format and the different opposition faced, I still think NUFC dealt with the Champions League far better this time.
A case though of what might have been. Eddie Howe could have been even more successful if he hadn’t been let down so woefully by the Newcastle United owners last summer, due to incompetence and a lack of care and attention the NUFC owners totally undermined Howe’s preparations for this huge 2025/26 season. The Newcastle United hierarchy totally mismanaging the Alexander Isak situation and the summer transfer window overall. As we all know, Eddie Howe urged the club’s owners to ensure that they got his top transfer targets landed ASAP, instead only one of the eventual six summer 2025 signings had any pre-season under Eddie Howe and with their new teammates. As for the identity of those signed, Eddie Howe clearly in certain cases getting signings who were nowhere near the top of his preferred list, if indeed they were ever on it originally in the first place!
The ridiculous number of injuries on top of that shambles of a summer, meant that for Eddie Howe to succeed with his and our ambitions this season, it became effectively all but impossible.
At the same time though, that in no way means that this Champions League campaign has been pointless, far from it.
I see every match in every competition as something to enjoy on its own, as well as the implications that match and result might have in a wider sense. All 12 of these Champions League games this season were very much looked forward to and I found them enthralling. Especially the UCL games I attended.
As well as experiencing and enjoying the moment(s), it goes way beyond that of course.
There are the obvious financial benefits of course, helping to get our club ever more competitive in terms of revenues. The money paid out of the central UEFA pot, plus the revenues from the six home matches, plus all the indirect attendant spin-offs that increase money coming in across merchandise, sponsorship and so on.
Beyond that though, having experienced the Champions League in two of three seasons, a bit like the cup finals, it doesn’t satisfy you, it simply leaves you desperate for more.
The Newcastle United owners will feel the same and they finally do seem to be getting their act together behind the scenes, starting with training ground sponsorship and training kit sleeve sponsorship. With the promise of many more such deals, plus of course the infrastructure (stadium, training ground etc) progress that is essential.
As we are all fully aware of and have been from the start (post-Ashley), regularly qualifying for and playing in the Champions League is key to Newcastle United standing a chance of making the progress needed, on and off the pitch, to be long-term competitive against the usual suspects.
Doing so two times in three seasons and coming so close to reaching the last eight of the Champions League has been a great effort, however, this needs to be just the beginning.