Newcastle indirectly responsible for Champions League semi-final showdown

It won't have escaped anyone's attention that one of the Champions League semi-finals contained two sides from Newcastle United's Champions League group.

Newcastle were drawn in the 'group of death' for this year's Champions League. Group F was where Newcastle were placed alongside European giants in the form of Paris Saint-Germain, Borussia Dortmund and AC Milan.

As far as Champions League draws go that was pure nightmare fuel, but Newcastle ultimately held their own and were unfortunate to not qualify from the group stages thanks to a very questionable VAR decision in Paris.

It wasn't meant to be for Newcastle on their return to Europe's elite club competition and PSG went through along with Borussia Dortmund with the two later meeting again in the semi-finals.

If we can beat Newcastle we can beat anybody

Dortmund got the better of PSG over the two legs and now head into the Champions League final, however, certain reports have highlighted Newcastle as the side that made the semi-finalists up their game to progress in the competition.

Ben Jacobs quoted Dortmund boss Edin Terzic on X saying "We had a great performance and win away at Newcastle, and from there we could see everything is possible." Which essentially boils down to "If we can beat Newcastle we can beat anybody."

Praise doesn't really come much higher than that, does it?

Newcastle had PSG on the ropes twice

Meanwhile, Get French Football News brought attention to something in a recent L'Equipe article citing PSG's struggles against Newcastle as the catalyst for their players to hire personal trainers to get in better shape after being gassed by the Magpies.

As we alluded to before, PSG were lucky against Newcastle in the game at Paris, needing VAR to come to their rescue, whereas at St James' Park, they were thoroughly outclassed as Newcastle ran riot winning 4-1.

Real Madrid and Bayern Munich face off tonight to see who will join Dortmund in the final. We're supporting Dortmund now. It makes the whole Champions League thing easier to deal with when you can say you were beaten by the winners.