Newcastle vs Barcelona

Barcelona have won their opening UEFA Champions League match in 21 of their 30 seasons in the competition (D6 L3), with this the first time they’d kicked off a campaign against an English side since beating Leeds United 4-0 in 2000-01.

Since beating Paris Saint-Germain 4-1 in October 2023, Newcastle United have lost all three of their home UEFA Champions League matches.

Marcus Rashford became the fifth player to score twice or more on his UEFA Champions League debut for Barcelona - the others are Txiki Begiristain (1993), Cristian Tello (2012), Robert Lewandowski (2022, hat-trick) and João Félix (2023).

This will be the fifth competitive meeting between Newcastle United and Barcelona, with the Magpies winning the first clash 3-2 in September 1997, before losing each of their next three against their Spanish opponents.

Barcelona have won 12 of their last 16 UEFA Champions League games against English opposition (D2 L2), scoring 2.1 goals per game on average during that run.

Newcastle have previously faced Spanish opposition 11 times in major European competition, winning six of those matches (L5), including each of their last three in succession.

Barcelona were defeated in their last away UEFA Champions League game on English soil (4-0 v Liverpool) and have only lost consecutive such matches on one occasion previously (v Arsenal in 2011 and Chelsea in 2012).

Newcastle have won just one of their last eight UEFA Champions League games (D3 L4), a 4-1 home win against Paris Saint-Germain during the 2023-24 group stage.