March 17 – After 70 long years, the wait is finally over for Newcastle United as they upset Liverpool to win the English League Cup on Sunday and end a trophy drought stretching back generations.
One of the best supported clubs in the English game and now under Saudi ownership, Newcastle’s delirious fans turned Wembley into a sea of black and white as they inflicted a 2-1 defeat on the runaway Premier League leaders to round off a miserable week for Arne Slot’s side.Goals from Dan Burn and Alexander Isak put Newcastle in dreamland with Federico Chiesa’s strike in the closing minutes coming too late to save the defending champions. It was Newcastle’s first major trophy since the now defunct 1969 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and their first significant domestic prize since lifting the FA Cup in 1955.
After losing the 2023 League Cup final against Manchester United, manager Eddie Howe, who will now for ever be revered in the north-east city, admitted he was overwhelmed to finally bring silverware back to the club.
“I’ve been emotional all day to be honest, which is very unlike me around the game day,” he said. “But we just knew what was at stake today for all the people here, all the people back in Newcastle and we just wanted to do them proud. We were desperate to try and win the trophy after all the years of hurt.”
Howe is the first English manager to win a major domestic trophy in England since Harry Redknapp lifted the 2008 FA Cup with Portsmouth.
Sixth-placed Newcastle are 23 points behind champions-elect Liverpool and hadn’t beaten them in all competitions since 2015. But they thoroughly deserved their victory which rewarded them with a Europa League spot next season, however they finish domestically.
Significantly, silverware for one of England’s most iconic clubs, who beat Arsenal in the semi-finals, arrived four years after the club was given a massive cash injection by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Having lost in the final two years ago, victory surely tasted even sweeter.
As for Liverpool, defeat in what was an unusually flat performance ended a painful week having been knocked out of the Champions League by Paris Saint-Germain in a penalty shootout.
“It took us 7, 8, 9 months to lose twice in a row,” Slot said defiantly. “You know that if you go far in tournaments that the opposition you face gets stronger and stronger. And even Liverpool can lose football games.”
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