STAR
For the 4th season in a row and the 5th season
out of 6 Newcastle United have qualified for Europe but this time by the
skin of their teeth. For reaching the F.A. cup final the reward was a place
in the UEFA cup a competition that Newcastle reached the quarter final stage
in 1996/97. Last year Newcastle travelled to Belgrade in the cup Winners
cup but were knocked out. The year before it was Tino delight when we were
in the Champions League and Faustino Asprilla scored a memroble hat-trick
against F.C Barcelona at St. James' Park.
In 1996/97 in the second round, second leg at St. James' David Ginola scored one of the best goals in the UEFA competition against Ferencvaros.
Newcastle are 1 of 121 clubs competing in this years UEFA cup because the Cup Winners Cup was phased out of existence so as well as clubs that qualified through the position in the countries leagues the new look UEFA cup now accomadates all clubs that qualified through their domestic cups like Newcastle.
But it was to take a mighty treble by Manchester United for Newcastle to qualify. Yes we had to rely on the team we loved to hate to get us into Europe. If Manchester United came 4th in the Premiership, lost to Munich in the Champions League final then beat us at Wembley Newcastle would not be competing in this years competition. But luckily Manchester United had won the Premiership so what ever happend at Wembley in May Newcastle were in Europe for another season.
In the two seasons that Newcastle were in the UEFA cup we have showed that we had the potential that we could win it. But that was when we had the likes of Asprilla, Ginola, Watson, Beardsley, Ferdinand and Batty. But is the current squad strong enough for European competition. We have drawn CSKA Sofia from Bulgaria, have we got anyone in the squad who knows how that team plays. Well Silvio Maric might have a few ideas but if we were to win that round and draw a Western European team we would have a very strong case. With the likes of Goma, Marcelino, Domi and Ketsbaia we will have the knowledge on how to play on the continent.