Barcelona coach Hansi Flick happy with result after seeing his side play poorly
Newcastle goalscorer Harvey Barnes says Lamine Yamal’s last-minute penalty to equalise for Barcelona in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie is “really hard to take”, while Manager Eddie Howe felt the penalty was “soft” and that his team deserved more.
The Magpies went ahead in the 86th minute after Barnes capitalised on poor defending to sneak in and prod home from Jacob Murphy’s cross and Newcastle looked like they would be heading to Camp Nou for the second leg next week with a valuable goal’s advantage.
But defender Malick Thiaw kicked Dani Olmo in the box as he tried to tackle and Yamal converted the resulting penalty to grab a draw for Barcelona at the death.
“It’s tough,” Barnes said. “You score and it’s an amazing feeling – you can feel the fans. We’d played really well. To concede late on is really hard to take, but the score is level and we have a second leg to come.”
How said: “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.”
Barcelona coach Hansi Flick felt his side played poorly and that made the draw all the more important.
“If you had asked me before the game with a 1-1, I was always happy,” 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.”
