Beat Liverpool at Wembley on Sunday and they can write their names in immortality
It is 51 years since the last time there was a black and white victory lap at Wembley.
In the 1970s the Football Association used to hold an athletics invitational meet before the FA Cup final and in 1974 Sir Brendan Foster was the star attraction, running against European champion Juha Vaatainen in a black and white Shaftesbury Harriers vest he had borrowed from his friend Dave Bedford.
Foster recalls the afternoon ruefully. It is a moment etched in the memory of the former Olympic medallist, whose enthusiasm for Newcastle United is almost as acute as his love for the sport that he has dedicated his life to.
He won the race but a few hours later he was drowning his sorrows as the Magpies failed to turn up in the final. The opponents that day? Kevin Keegan’s Liverpool.
Foster’s tale of woe will resonate on Tyneside, where the desperation to end nearly half a century without a trophy is felt acutely. “It has been a bloody long time, hasn’t it?” he sighs.
A day after Foster recounts this tale, there is energy at Newcastle’s training ground. Alexander Isak, Bruno Guimaraes and Eddie Howe are speaking on Friday morning. The Magpies are outsiders for the final but there is a sense of purpose as they map out a route to victory.
Eddie Howe’s ’emotional control’
26 February, 2023. It is a date etched in the memory of Newcastle’s manager and an evening where he broke the habit of a lifetime.
Long after the last dejected Newcastle fan had trudged out of Wembley, Howe made the short trip from the dressing room to the executive box. The mood there was funereal, with one former club director in tears. As much as the tone struck in those conversations was defiant, Howe was deflated.
A man of habit, he usually seeks solace in those moments by rewatching the match into the small hours of a Saturday or Sunday night. Friends say it is Howe’s way of coping with the crushing low of defeat: his spirits somehow lifted as he picks out points in the game where his team can improve in the future, making mental notes on what needs to change.
That night Howe immediately wanted to be with his family and sons Harry, Rocky and Theo, who were full of questions for their dad.
“They take you away from that feeling of defeat,” he said. But Howe did not sound like a man who has truly extinguished the lingering remnants of the yawning despair he felt that night.
In Howe Newcastle have an exceptional manager (Photo: Getty)
There are two objectives on Sunday for Newcastle. The first is matching a Liverpool side that Guimaraes believes is the “best in the world”, which will require a flawless tactical plan and his best players to crescendo at the same time.
The absence of Lewis Hall means he is pondering playing a back three – “Although we are running out of defenders,” he said – and he will leave it late to make a call on which of his interchangeable goalkeepers Nick Pope and Martin Dubravka he will play. Tino Livramento has been filling in for Hall but had moments of uncertainty at West Ham on Monday.
The second aim for Howe is managing the emotional load around the fixture and there has been a business-as-usual feel to the week. There will be no abandoning of Howe’s usual tracksuit for a suit, no altering of schedules to accommodate media requirements. Broadly that has matched fan sentiment: last time it felt as if Wembley was a big deal itself. Winning seems to be on everyone’s mind two years on.
“It does feel different this time,” Howe said. Internally there is a feeling that Newcastle’s 2023 final came a bit too early in “the journey”. This group has now experienced Champions League nights together and, ironically, has tended to perform better against a higher calibre of team this season.
Howe’s north star performance at Newcastle is when his team played Paris Saint-Germain in the group stages of 2023’s Champions League. A buccaneering 4-1 victory under St James’ Park lights was the apex of Howe’s football philosophy, an intoxicating mixture of intensity and discipline. Newcastle rode the waves of crowd enthusiasm perfectly and if they manage to replicate that Liverpool could be in trouble.
“I wouldn’t say [we’re] taking emotion out of it but controlling it is the key,” he said on Friday.
“You need emotion. You need to feel all the excitement, the potential ‘what ifs’ from the positive side but you just need to control it.
“If you’re too emotional you won’t perform at your best, if you’re under stimulated – which I would be very surprised if anyone was – of course you won’t perform at your best. So it’s getting that sweet spot, it’s getting that balance absolutely right and that’s what we’ll try to do in our preparation.
“We’ve got a lot of experienced players, players that have played for their countries, Champions League games, won big competitions. I’m not worried about us on that side.”
Howe is an impressive character who, despite being something of an introvert, has tapped into the spirit of the club. He is admired by players and fans alike. He would be a fitting manager to end the long wait.
This means more to Bruno Guimaraes
Guimaraes is not just passing through. “I have envisaged walking up those steps to collect the trophy many, many times,” he said on Friday of the possibility of becoming the first Newcastle captain since Bobby Moncur to lift a trophy. And the Brazil international is genuine about it, likening the Carabao Cup showpiece to the World Cup final in terms of importance to the city and club.
He has been some signing, not just a player capable of turning games but also a personality able to galvanise a squad of many nationalities and backgrounds. He has embraced Newcastle as a place and – in his words – “plays every game as a fan”. It is rare to hear an overseas signing talk as he does and actually mean it.
The Newcastle captain was in tears in 2023 at the missed opportunity against Manchester United. This time he wants the tears to flow “out of happiness”.
Alexander Isak is ice cold
Isak is arguably the best striker in the world at the moment (Photo: Getty)
At times this season the speculation has almost been as prolific as his goalscoring.
Arsenal, Liverpool, Barcelona and PSG are among the striker’s admirers and the best way to describe Isak was laconic. Yes he is open to contract talks but no, he insisted on multiple occasions, he does not think about his future during the season.
It was put to him that he is the best striker in world football at the moment, something that prompted a nodding Guimaraes to agree, but Isak stuck to his line of saying nothing of note. “All of our focus is on bringing a trophy back,” he said.
He is as ice cold off-the-pitch as he is on it and that lack of fear is surely an asset. If Newcastle are to win on Sunday he will need to be at his very best.
Dan Burn’s England call-up tells a story
Is there a more remarkable football tale in the Premier League this season than Dan Burn’s England call-up at the age of 32?
When The i Paper spoke to Burn more than two years ago, he had almost given up hope of an international call-up. When it was mentioned to him earlier this season he laughed it off.
But here he is, 16 months out from a World Cup finals and with an opportunity to persuade Thomas Tuchel that he should be in contention. It would be the best week of his life if he was part of the group that ended Newcastle’s long wait for major silverware.
Howe called Burn a “model pro” in a glowing tribute on Friday and the admiration is genuine, the respect absolute. He has truly journeyed along the path less travelled to make an England squad and we can expect to hear a lot next week about how he was pushing trolleys around Asda in Blyth just over a decade ago, having dropped out of the professional game.
He is the fourth player that Howe’s coaching has helped into the England set-up, following Livramento, Hall and Anthony Gordon. For anyone who doubts how impressive the Newcastle manager is, here is proof.
‘We know how to lose’ these games
Foster is a recent convert to the idea of Newcastle ending the long wait for silverware. “I’ve not held out much help but the last week or so I’m absolutely convinced we’re going to do it,” he says.
He was seven years old in 1955 when Newcastle last won the FA Cup. His dad took him to the last home game before the final, which earned him a place in the ballot for a final but the family only got a couple of tickets and his younger brother went instead.
“We’d grown up watching Newcastle actually win the FA Cup on telly so we said I’d go next time. I just assumed it would happen again soon. I didn’t think it’d be another 20 years before we made Wembley,” he says, ruefully.
By the time Newcastle were back, in 1974, he was an international athlete and ran after the FA promised him a dozen tickets for his family.
“I’d actually been asked the year before in 1973 but there was no way I was going to see Sunderland in the Cup final,” he chuckles.
He is going with the rest of his family on Sunday and believes that in Isak, Newcastle have the closest thing to an heir to Jackie Milburn, Malcolm Macdonald or Alan Shearer. “I really believe he can be the difference,” Foster says.
“We’ve had plenty of experience of not winning at Wembley so we’ll take it in our stride if we don’t. But if we do win it, imagine.”