A sea of black and white greeted the teams at St. James’ Park, and an extremely partisan crowd roared Newcastle to swarm all over Barcelona in the early stages.
Only Anthony Gordon will know how he didn’t connect with Anthony Elanga’s inviting cross to make the Magpies’ early superiority count, while Harvey Barnes needed the offside flag to save his embarrassment two minutes later after the winger allowed Joan Garcia to get a hand to his shot.
At the other end, Rashford almost silenced the home support with a driving run into the box, but his poor effort didn’t match the build-up.
As the match developed, Barça saw the lion’s share of possession but found it difficult to deal with the hosts’ much more physical game. A stunning break and cross from Elanga only needed Barnes to slide home for the opener, but Garcia was equal to it once more.
Pedri’s influence began to grow, and just before the half-hour, Joelinton’s pull back on the midfielder earned him the first yellow card of the match.
With Newcastle’s intensity starting to fade as half-time approached, the visitors looked to seize the initiative, but Raphinha’s free-kick was wayward and epitomised their attacking woes before HT.
An early second-half corner caused Barca problems as the hosts threatened once more, whilst Fabian Schar took the full force of a Rashford rocket at the opposite end as the game began to open up.
As the hour mark approached, the England international’s powerful header from Jules Kounde’s cross nestled in the far corner and opened his account for the Blaugrana.
It was Barcelona’s first shot on target and prompted four substitutions from Eddie Howe, one of which was new striker Nick Woltemade.
Just nine minutes later, a stunning individual effort from Rashford thundered into the top corner and had Nick Pope rooted to the spot to silence the home crowd, giving the Manchester United loanee a 10th goal in 12 career starts against Newcastle (G7, A3) including six in seven starts at St. James’ Park.
Follow Rashford with Flashscore's brand new feature
The hosts needed inspiration from somewhere, and Bruno Guimaraes almost provided it with a shot on that García was again equal to.
Then, right on 90 minutes, Anthony Gordon managed to guide home a last-minute riposte from Jacob Murphy’s cutback to inspire hope of a last-gasp comeback.
Barcelona held on though, leaving Newcastle with just one win in five matches across all competitions this term.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Marcus Rashford (Barcelona)
Click here to see all the stats of the match
