Newcastle were behind but very much still alive.
Eddie Howe’s side may have been 3-2 down on the night, but they were far from out of it at half-time.
This critical period gave Newcastle the chance to regroup and gather their thoughts. Instead, the visitors lost their heads on a painful night.
Where do you even begin to start with Newcastle’s awful defending?
Newcastle kept a rare clean sheet against Chelsea at the weekend, but there is a reason this side have only kept one shutout since February.
As devastating as Barcelona were, Newcastle’s defending made it easy for Hansi Flick’s team.
Lewis Hall and Malick Thiaw were punished for slips in the build-up to Raphinha’s first, while Dan Burn was furious with his team-mates for their poor marking at a set-piece for Marc Bernal’s second.
Yet leaky Newcastle got even more porous after the break.
There were huge gaps for Barcelona to exploit for Fermin Lopez’s fourth while Robert Lewandowski got ahead of substitute Tino Livramento far too easily to make it 5-2.
Thiaw failed to cut out Lamine Yamal’s pass to Lewandowski for Barcelona’s sixth and Jacob Ramsey played a dangerous ball across his own box that Raphinha pounced upon for the hosts’ seventh goal.
By that stage, Newcastle will have just wanted to get on the plane home.
It was a bruising end to what has been a memorable campaign in Europe for Howe’s team, who reached the last 16 for only the second time in the club’s history.
For three of the four halves of this tie, they also went toe-to-toe with Barca before capitulating.
It may not feel it right now, but they will learn a lot from this chastening experience at the Nou Camp. They certainly have to.
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