Eddie Howe hailed Newcastle United’s meeting with Barcelona as the “biggest game” in the club’s recent history, urging his players to replicate Faustino Asprilla’s heroics of 1997 and write their names in the history books.

Almost thirty years on from the Magpies’ historic group stage victory over Barça in September 1997, Newcastle United welcome Hansi Flick’s men to St James’ Park for a mammoth round-of-16 tie.

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Quizzed as to whether it is the biggest game in the club’s history, Eddie Howe admitted that “someone could trip me up, and going way back I’m sure they will, but in recent history, for me it is.

“I think that’s very much the mentality that we need, rising to the occasion and embracing the size of the game. These are things that have helped us this season and we’re looking for the same again,” he told reporters gathered for his pre-match press conference on Monday.

“There are only 16 teams left and we’re one of them, so it’s very much an opportunity to grab a moment we may never get again. You don’t know what life brings tomorrow, let alone in future seasons. We don’t want to waste that opportunity and kick ourselves thinking ‘what if’.

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“I think this is a moment for us to try and grab. In my time here, just over four years, we’ve worked to try and get to this point so as long as we perform to our maximum, we’ll have to accept the result but we’re going to try and get as close as we can to our very best.”

Newcastle met Barcelona under the St James’ Park lights earlier this season, too, falling to a 1-2 defeat as Marcus Rashford bagged a brace before Anthony Gordon scored a 90th minute consolation.

Howe explains: “When you go through that experience as we’ve said quite a lot before when you’re playing the very best teams, you take a little bit of that game with you going forward because there’s so much to take from that.

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“I thought that they played well, we played well, especially for the first half of the game I thought we were right in it. It swung on sort of big moments in front of goal, they took theirs and we didn’t take ours but I think we take a lot of confidence from our performance for the majority of the game and obviously take little bits away from what we need to improve.”

Reflecting on another group stage meeting between the sides back in 1997/98, when Faustino Asprilla scored three goals in a dramatic win against the blaugrana, Howe revealed that “you couldn’t not watch that moment.

“It was on terrestrial TV, it was one of those legendary games.

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“We want people in future years to be talking about this team. Of course Faustino Asprilla gets a hat-trick, mainly off Keith Gillespie’s delivery from the right, and I want our players to be talked about in the same way 20, 30, 40 years later.”

While they may be viewed as the underdogs against a team sitting four points clear at the top of LaLiga, Howe insists that “has helped us at many times when we’ve been in that position where we feel the odds are stacked against us.

“We are going to need to use every psychological tool that we can to help us in this game because it’s undeniable that we’re playing a very, very good team… an outstandingly well coached team, I have to say as well, from having watched them thoroughly in both games preparing for them as we have done. They’re a top team.

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“They proved very recently against Atlético Madrid that probably the game isn’t going to be dead regardless of the outcome in this game. I think for us we just have to focus on trying to win. You can’t overthink it. Having watched both of those games, it was really intriguing.

“They had a big deficit to try and claw back and they nearly got there, so it was two really good games against Atlético. Again, I think their recent record in the league has been very consistent and their style of play is consistent, so I think we know what we’re going to face,” he explained.

Newcastle United host Barcelona at 20:00 UK on Tuesday 10 March.