**Newcastle United host Benfica at St James' Park on Tuesday night in the Champions League. The kick-off is 8 pm live on TNT Sports.**
The Magpies won their last Champions League game on the road in Belgium, beating Union Saint-Gilloise 4-0 and will be hoping to get back to winning ways after being beaten by Brighton on Saturday.
There are a few things going in Newcastle's favour for this one. The fact that it's a Champions League game at St James' Park and that usually means an electric atmosphere should help spur the lads on.
Jose Mourinho is the manager at Benfica, and his record at St James' Park isn't exactly stellar, so that's another bonus.
> [](https://twitter.com/DomScurr/status/1980185039053688911)
The referee and VAR for Tuesday's game have a history with Newcastle
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However, it's not all good news, as journalist Dominic Scurr has pointed out on X, given that the officials selected for this game have a bit of history with Newcastle in this competition.
> 👉Szymon Marciniak, the referee who awarded PSG a controversial stoppage time penalty v NUFC in 2023, will be referee for the Benfica match.
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> 😳Tomasz Kwiatkowski, the VAR who prompted the penalty overturn, also on VAR duty on Tuesday night.
The handball that never was sent Newcastle crashing out of the Champions League
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That penalty, which was scored by Kylian Mbappe, sealed Newcastle's Champions League fate that night as the Magpies were on course for their second win over PSG in the group, which would have been enough to see them progress to the knock-out stages.
While the penalty was awarded to the letter of the law according to UEFA's rule book, the way the ball hit Tino Livramento's hand would have seen VAR declare that it was not a penalty in the Premier League.
Let's hope Mr Marciniak doesn't have any controversial calls to make on Tuesday, and if he does, they fall in our favour this time.