By Daniel Ojukwu
The goal feast was unbelievable but that was the reality at the James’ Park of Newcastle football Club of England last night. Newscastle 4 Paris St Germain 1. The score line sent the 52,000 capacity stadium into state of delirium. That night goals spectacle will never be forgotten by both Newcastle and PSG fans present at the stadium.
The Eddie Howe’s tutored side were just too hungry for the French Ligue I giants. They were too quick and too clever. More importantly, they were just too good for the Paris based club to stop. The English Premier League club were in their best form on the night with beautiful football display to the delight of their fans at the jam-packed stadium and football fans globally who stayed glued to their television screens seeing the humbling and demolition of the French club.
Lucas Hernandez scored a goal from nowhere for PSG with half an hour left a proper comeback never looked likely. But Newcastle changed the tide of the game in a remarkable fashion.
And when Newcastle central defender Fabian Schar, the hero of the night strode forward to nestle fourth goal in to the top corner in added time, a French humiliating defeat was completed. This was a performance lacking in soul and spirit. PSG players were fully backed by their noisy and vocal supporters but unfortunately the players gave them absolutely nothing in return for this. It was a calamitous defeat.
Kylian Mbappe helpless and never in the game at all. His coach Luis Enrique looked helpless on the torch line bereft of ideas of how to stop the goal carnage.
It is indeed a miserable night for the French club have spent millions hiring coaches with the sole aim of bringing the ultimate cup in European Football to Paris and nestled in their trophy cabinet. But as the things stand, PSG dream of adding the only missing title in their trophy cabinet will be a mirage, unaccomplished mission. If this poor trend continues in their two remaining matches, they will bade farewell to the elite European football competition in the group stage. If this happens, it will be a sad commentary to the oil rich backed team.
Newcastle players went on rampage on this memorable night. They were like a moving train crushing anything on their way. Anthony Gordon charging like bull charged down a PSG clearance in the first minute
Twenty minutes later, Bruno Guimaraes and then Burn won successive tackles by the near touchline and the feeling was much the same.
By then, Newcastle were in the driving seat. PSG had actually wasted the first chance of the game, Ousmane Dembele volleying across goal and wide from an Mbappe cross.
That apart though, they were in retreat and when their Brazilian defender Marquinhos passed a short clearance straight on to Guimaraes’ head in the 17th minute they were in trouble.
Aleksander Isak was the recipient of his team-mate’s instinctive headed pass and when goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma saved his first time low shot, Almiron opened up his body to side-foot the rebound across goal and in to the corner with his left-instep. It was a good and clinical finish.
As Almiron celebrated wildly by the corner flag, Howe and his assistant Jason Tindall were rather calmer in their seats. It was clear that, for them, this was merely the sight of a plan coming together to yield positive result. Indeed it yielded positive result.
PSG looked perplexed throughout the game. They cannot find way to stop the rampaging Newcastle players. Guimaraes was the best player on the field at this point with Longstaff behind him. In the key central areas, the French team could not get a foothold right but wrongly throughout the match. So, it was, therefore, not a surprise when they crumbled like a pack of cards at James’ Park. Defeat was inevitable to the French club.
Briefly PSG threatened to come back into the match. Warren Zaire-Emery and Goncalo Ramos were not far away from distance. But it was still Newcastle who carried the real threat and in the 39th minute they scored again. And at the end of the memorable match, Newcastle players went home smiling, while their opponent fly back to Paris, France capital ruminating in their minds the catastrophic and humiliating defeat they went through in the hands of the Champions League newcomers.
Source: Daily Mail Football