Lamine Yamal’s late Barcelona goal ‘hard to take’ for Newcastle

Newcastle United winger Harvey Barnes said Lamine Yamal’s penalty to deny them victory with the final kick in the first leg of their last-16 tie with Barcelona was “really hard to take.”

Five-time European champions Barcelona was seconds away from defeat when Malick Thiaw brought down Dani Olmo in the box.

Referee Marco Guida pointed to the spot and 18-year-old Yamal had the composure to beat Aaron Ramsdale with the home fans baying for him to miss. His goal was timed at 96 minutes and the fulltime whistle was blown immediately after his spot kick.

It was the second-latest game-tying penalty kick scored in Champions League history, after Kylian Mbappé also denied Newcastle victory with Paris Saint-Germain in the 98th minute in 2023.

Newcastle led through Barnes’ close-range effort in the 86th. The forward had also hit the post with a curling effort earlier.

“It’s tough. You score and it’s an amazing feeling — you can feel the fans. We’d played really well,” Barnes said after the 1-1 draw. “To concede late on is really hard to take, but the score is level and we have a second leg to come.”

Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe described the equaliser as “soft” and, asked if he felt his team deserved more, said: “Yes, we do.”

He added. “A really good performance from the team, very, very good in all phases, really. I thought we limited them with a really good defensive performance from the team and I thought we attacked really well too.

“Although we didn’t create an abundance of clear-cut chances, I thought there were chances all through the game for us.

“It was great to see us finally score and then the last attack of the game, the last kick of the game, it’s a tough one to take.”

However, Howe said he is confident they can make life intensely difficult for Hansi Flick’s men on their own pitch when the second leg takes place at the Camp Nou next week.

“In the cold light of day when we wake up tomorrow, we’ll see the positives. The tie is very much alive, we played really well,” he said.

“We showed our qualities. We’ve been really competitive. The challenge is we need more on a consistent basis. We’ve showed we can play against the very best when we’re at our best.”

Barcelona who won 2-1 at St James’ in the first fixture of the group phase back in September, showed flashes of their brilliance and eventually emerged with something to show for their efforts.

However, they were under pressure for long periods and were happy to leave on level terms.

“If you had asked me before the game with a 1-1, I was always happy,” head coach Flick said.

“I am more happy with the result, to be honest. With the ball we made not a good game. We lost too many balls, easy mistakes.

“It was not easy. We make too many mistakes. You saw it in the game. When we have the control with the ball, it was much easier for us. But it wasn’t enough. We have to do it much better next week.”

The Associated Press, PA and ESPN’s Sam Marsden contributed to this report.