Newcastle United latest news: Eddie Howe’s side begin their Champions League campaign with a clash against Barcelona at St James’ Park.
Newcastle United’s 2025/26 Champions League campaign gets underway at home to Barcelona on Thursday night. The reigning champions of Spain are familiar opponents for the Magpies in this competition, having met them on four occasions.
Barcelona, unsurprisingly, have the upper-hand in those meetings with three victories and one defeat. Memorably, though, that one loss came at St James’ Park when a Tino Asprilla inspired Newcastle United won 3-2.
Eddie Howe’s side will be desperate to replicate that result and will be keen to harness the atmosphere at St James’ Park atmosphere to drive them to victory on Thursday. Hansi Flick is set to be without star man Lamine Yamal on Tyneside, but the German still has a number of world class players at his disposal.
One of those include former Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund striker Robert Lewandowski. Lewandowski may have turned 37-years-old last month, but he remains one of the world’s top strikers - and has been in that category for well over a decade.
The Polish international scored 42 goals in all competitions last season for Barcelona, including 11 in 13 games during their run to the Champions League semi finals.
Robert Lewandowski’s shock Newcastle United admission
In a recent interview with the Times, Lewandowski revealed that as a child he owned a Newcastle United shirt with a certain striker’s name and number printed on the back of it: “When I was growing up I remember I had the jersey of Newcastle, with Shearer No9 on the back,” Lewandowski said.
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“It was a family present and I wore it a lot because at the time he was right on the top. Of course, I did the celebration as well, it was unique.”
Newcastle United will be desperate to stop Lewandowski from pulling out that celebration on Thursday night and that task will likely fall on the shoulders of Dan Burn and Fabian Schar. Burn and Schar, alongside Tino Livramento, Kieran Trippier and Nick Pope, have formed a very solid back-five this season and have kept three clean sheets in four games.
Keeping Lewandowski at bay, though, will be up there with one of their toughest tasks to date.
Howe also has Malick Thiaw and Sven Botman at his disposal. Both players have Champions League experience - although only one of those matches have come in the black-and-white shirt.
If Lewandowski does breach the Magpies’ defence and find the net on Thursday, he won’t be doing it in front of Alan Shearer. That’s because Newcastle United’s all-time record scorer has revealed that he will not be at St James’ Park on Thursday night because of a pre-arranged Premier League event in the USA: “Can you believe it? The fan fest that the Premier League do in the United States, this has been arranged for such a long time,” Shearer told the Rest is Football Podcast.
“I'm going to Kansas and my flight's on Thursday. Can you believe that? I'm going to miss the game.
“I can't believe it. Nightmare for me, unfortunately.”
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