Take a few short steps from Newcastle’s central station and you can’t help but be reminded of what a big weekend awaits for the city’s football club.
On the side of a smart craft beer bar called the Gunner Tavern – resplendent, ironically, in gleaming green and white, the colours of Saudi Arabia – there’s a towering poster wishing the city’s beloved team good luck at Wembley.
Next to a silhouette of a pint glass, with black and white lettering at the bottom, the billboard reads: “Good things come to those who wait.”
Eddie Howe will certainly hope so. Newcastle United‘s manager stands at the pinnacle of a football career that has seen him traverse the path less travelled to a major cup final.
“It would mean the world to me to be the person to end the (trophy) wait but it would be not necessarily for me. It would be more, genuinely, for the supporters, for everyone connected with the club to embrace that moment if we were able to do it,” he said.
“They’ve had a long wait for that moment and I know just from my very limited dealings with people around the city, with people that I see, the love they have for the football club. I’d love to return that love with a trophy.”
More from Football
'I'm in a club I don't want to be in', says Newcastle's last cup-winning skipper Bob Moncur25 February, 2023
'Ten Hag's winning culture and discipline are just like Sir Alex Ferguson was at Man Utd'25 February, 2023
Graham Potter: 'Chelsea fans have said they want me and my kids to die but that's football'24 February, 2023At Old Trafford, there is a hunger to win something and spark off a new era of success. In Newcastle, it sometimes feels more like a deep, unfulfilled yearning.
No-one really knows what it’ll be like if they actually win on Sunday and few dare to speculate about it, given previous Wembley disappointments in 1974, 1976, 1998 and 1999. In the past, there is a sense that desire has shackled the club but this group believe they can make history, not become it.
“I don’t feel they are burdened by it, they feel it as a potential motivation for them,” Howe says.
“We made them aware before the start of this competition that there has been a long wait for a trophy and I think especially in the early rounds we tried to put pressure on the team.
“The early rounds can be difficult. We found that at Tranmere. We needed every ounce of motivation or talent or whatever word you want to use to get through that tough round.
“In the latter stages you almost want to do the reverse and take the pressure off and treat it as a normal game. I think that’s probably where we are right now.”
Manchester United’s recent resurgence, which has dovetailed with Newcastle’s form tailing off, makes them clear favourites for the trophy. But the Magpies do not travel with an inferiority complex, having kept Sunday’s opponents at arm’s length in a 0-0 draw last year. Nick Pope’s absence is a blow but Bruno Guimaraes, the midfield talisman missing since his red card in the second leg against Southampton, returns.
In Howe, they also have a man for the occasion. He had no prior connection to Newcastle but plenty of shared values: an obsessive will to win, a fierce work ethic, pride in the club and a deep resentment of defeat.
Perhaps only Erik ten Hag has bettered the job done by the Magpies’ manager this season but Howe wants prizes, not plaudits. They are going there to win.
His team have kept a similar itinerary to a normal match week, two days off followed by the usual training routine. They flew to London on Saturday. There’ll be no stadium walk the day before, no cup final suits, there’s been no talk of a trophy parade and the club opted to fulfil their media commitments in one fell swoop on Tuesday rather than stringing it out.
However much they try to shut it out, though, this feels different. Howe perhaps gave the game away when he opened up a fraction talking to the media ahead of the match.
More on Newcastle United FC
'I'm in a club I don't want to be in', says Newcastle's last cup-winning skipper Bob Moncur25 February, 2023
Man Utd and Newcastle injury latest, expected line-ups and key battles for Carabao Cup final24 February, 2023
Forget Kyiv and focus on the next save - how Loris Karius can thrive in the Carabao Cup final24 February, 2023Normally his focus is solely trained on the game but in Newcastle’s cavernous indoor training barn he recalled the “loss” and “isolation” he felt as a 24-year-old when he suffered a serious knee injury that robbed him of two years of his career.
“I felt like my world had ended,” he said of the moment a specialist told him he would have to retire. “If I transport myself from that person there to this moment here, I’d be like, ‘Absolutely no chance that’s possible I could do that’.”
Diminished by injury, he retired at 29. But the shy and introverted player who didn’t believe he could coach caught “the bug” at Bournemouth’s centre for excellence.
He credits a unique inner steel passed on by his mother Anne, who passed in 2012 when he was managing Bournemouth, as the reason he has prospered as a top-level manager.
“She’ll be in my thinking on Sunday. To be honest, she’s in my thinking before every game, but I think undeniably she’ll be in my thoughts even more, probably, this weekend,” he says.
“She took me for a tour around Wembley as a five, six-year-old, I can’t remember the exact date, lifting the fake FA Cup, walking out with the fake crowd noise. She was there doing that with me.
“Those memories as a kid, I’ve never forgotten that day. Wembley for me was an amazing place, a place I was desperate to come back to in some capacity in football.
“My football opportunity is all down to my mum, really, so certainly during this week, I’ll be thinking a lot about her and the part she played in my life.”
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/Psl2GzE
Post a Comment