Eddie Howe has challenged his Newcastle United players to seize the moment and follow in the footsteps of the side who defeated Barcelona in 1997.

Newcastle are preparing to welcome Barcelona to St. James' Park in the first leg of their Champions League last 16 tie on Tuesday.

It is the second time the two teams have squared off this season, with Hansi Flick's side opening their league phase campaign with a 2-1 win over the Magpies. 

Newcastle have faced Barcelona five times before in Europe, with each of those coming in UEFA's flagship competition. 

The Magpies' only victory came in the first clash, 3-2 at home in the group stages in September 1997, with Barcelona winning each of the following four games.

Faustino Asprilla's hat-trick sealed a memorable victory for Newcastle, and Howe urged his team to try and deliver another huge result in Europe. 

"You couldn't not watch that game," Howe said of his memory of that clash almost 30 years ago. "It was on terrestrial television. It was one of those legendary games.

"You want people in future years to be talking about this team. Tino Asprilla gets the hat-trick, a couple of them from Keith Gillespie's delivery on the right.

"I want our players to be talked about in the same way in 20, 30, 40 years."

Newcastle have faced Spanish opposition in the Champions League on six occasions before, winning twice and losing four times.

Both victories during that time have come at home, though, in that aforementioned triumph over Barcelona and a 2-0 victory against Athletic Club back in November last year.

Newcastle are on their longest ever unbeaten run in the Champions League (five matches – W3 D2), and have only lost one of their last nine games in the competition (W6 D2). 

However, the Opta supercomputer has only assigned them a 36% chance of reaching the quarter-finals, with their probability of going all the way to the final rated at 4%. 

"I want the club to break new ground and to keep going in this competition having worked so hard to get here," Howe added.

"We are going to need to break new ground in terms of performance levels and when we need to perform, there is no better time than these two games.

"There's only 16 teams left and we are one of them. We don't want to waste that opportunity and this is a moment for us to grab it.

"Over my time of four years, we have worked really hard to get to this point."