Fans of Newcastle have waited 70 years to see their club win silverware and in the end the Toon Army has something to celebrate.
Goals of Blyth born Dan Burn and Star Striker Alexander Isak Sonen Liverpool 2-1 to lift the Carabao Cup at Wembley.
Newcastle completely earned the victory and explained the blueprint for how you can stop Arne Slot's Reds and cancel the Mo Salah target machine.
In the latest episode of Sunssport's Tactics, our expert Dean Scoggins explains 'Howe', it is done …
1. Burn Baby Burn
A local lad that scores in a cup final is that dreams have been made.
But this was conceived by Howe and his coaches, so that Liverpool's zonal marking system shattered.
They used burns perfectly. Slot leaves five big boys in front of the six-year box by the goalkeeper and then he sends the other players to Mark, such as the smaller Alexis Macallister.
So Newcastle placed Fabian Schar, Joelinton and Big Burn in those positions to hit cut, flat corners, causing them to win air duels, while Bruno Guimaraes stands in the way of the big boys of Liverpool on the edge of the six-yard box.
Liverpool defends this much and it is fantastic from Howe and Jason Tindall because they have taken the two best headers from Liverpool in Ibrahima Konate and Van Dijk from the photo because they cannot get to the ball.
There is a square for them that it becomes Newcastle's territory and it is completely wrong for the end.
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Once pushing trolleys on Asda, now in the English team, which had burned for a week.
2. Isak let VVD in a spider
Isak's classic “Go, Stop, Go” movement was fooled Van Dijk. An outburst of movement before he stops and goes again to create a garden with space.
He made it 2-0, it was Van Dijk's fault, he was caught under the ball and he knew it.
The cross arrives from the left and the ball is about both Isak and Van Dijk to Jacob Murphy.
While the ball goes to the winger, Isak makes his movement to create three or four meters of space.
While the ball goes over the head of the Liverpool skipper, his position is wrong. He gets himself in a situation where Isak can almost see his shirt number and he gets his eye from the Swede.
Van Dijk must be in a position, so when the ball falls to Isak, he can sprint and close the ball to block the shot in the worst, the worst. Instead, he is not caught nowhere near the goal scorer.
3. Three midfield heroes
First and foremost they were the embodiment of the Geordie Nation, the Toon Army. Everything came through them.
Joelinton, Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali – the blocks, the double successes, the headers, the tackles and above all, they work together as a three.
In the competition, Tonali is the one who breaks out of the three to join Isak in the press. And then the other two are ready to jump behind.
It is man-for-man, but when they get through the press, they work hard to retreat to a compact form.
Liverpool had no control and their midfielder had no time on the ball – you look around thinking: “As soon as I receive the ball here, I will be broken by one of these physical three.” It felt like three against one.
But apart from tactics, to implement a plan in the right way and to have the required levels, there is a tribute to those three players.
You can tell a team how to play and you can talk about tactics, but if the players do not trust it and do not connect it, it will not work.
4. 'Howe' they broke Liverpool
Eddie Howe takes an arc, this was a blueprint of how to stop Liverpool – after PSG did something similar in the Champions League.
Newcastle pressed four or five players and forced Liverpool to go for a long time.
The most important thing is that the fifth player makes a good decision, because if he goes and there is too much – that is the press gone and you are in the minority in midfield and for the back four.
In the coaching manual we are told to make the field small when you defend and make the field great when you attack.
But what Newcastle does is throwing out the window and going: 'We are going to make it enormous and force the keeper and defenders to go into the space behind the press for a long time.
Their man-for-man urgent system forced Liverpool to go immediately and when they went for a long time, those duels were easily won by Burn, Schar and Joelinton.
Midfield made it chaotic and it was very, very difficult for the Reds to get out.
5. Slow Mo – How Salah was stopped
In Salah's eight games at Wembley he scored in just one of them.
Again, he was a shadow of his usual self in the house of English football and he touched the ball only once in the box against the magpies.
Liverpool likes to use Salah in the structure, which comes along the sidelines to receive passes in his feet that let him run and drip Liverpool into the field.
But the tone created a black -white wall around him through swarms while the balls were fired at him.
They stopped that these passes were effective and every time he got the ball, he touched him back to his own half.
Liverpool was unable to insulate Salah One-VS-One against Tino Livramento, who is a good one-about-one defender anyway and did an excellent work if the Egyptian king once had room to meet.
Most of Salah's touches came from chasing long balls over the top in the canal after the brilliant press of Newcastle.
Newcastle had the effort and application to make this a perfect final performance and to make the dreams of their fans come true.
Liverpool is 12 points ahead and has won the Premier League – but their route to the title would not be that simple if Howe had explained this master plan earlier in the season.
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