Are we ready for Newcastle United's comeback? Thanks to new Saudi ownership, English football is poised to have a credible rival to its big six

If it were not for football, I don't know how many reasons there would be to see Arab sheiks in Newcastle upon Tyne. It is a city in Northeast England almost as big as Bologna and with no particular tourist attractions, with the Tyne River, lots of industry, and buildings and bridges featuring modernist architecture. One could say, with a hint of provocation, that it is only famous in the world for Newcastle United. Granted, we are not at the levels of Manchester City or Chelsea, but for Millennials Newcastle is a team with a bittersweet taste, split somewhere between the glamour of the 2000s football aesthetic and the anonymity of the last decade. But after Prince Mohammed Bin Salman's Public Investment Fund took over the club in 2021 with a nearly 300 million pounds price tag, the Magpies are facing their first real season of rebirth. With an ownership that can spend so much in the market, expectations are high for the team that was Alan Shearer's once. So in these months Newcastle will change its face, and from the swing between 10th and 16th place in the standings, the Magpies now see a chance to return to the top eight in the Premier League. Of going back to the days when Santiago Munez was summoned to the first team to lead them to Champions League qualification. 

A technical revolution that, see Paris Saint-Germain, needs strategy and planning - as well as a certain balance and technical backing for the coach's ideas - but which allows Newcastle to bypass so many Premier teams and place itself just below the English Big Six. By reaching, in practice, that upper middle class to which Leicester and West Ham have joined. Work has begun on the new sports center and in February, although more unofficially than officially, there was talk of plans to expand St. James' Park. Not to mention that from now on, tournaments and exhibitions in Saudi Arabia will be wasted while controversy has already started over the Magpies' second jersey in Saudi Arabia's own colors. In a sporting decade in which football storytelling has reached the highest level, with documentation of every step (the docu-series All or nothing or Sunderland 'till I die) and dozens of biopics and docs about footballers and coaches, we await Newcastle's entry into this strand of storytelling. Although, speaking as Millennials, it would be more nostalgic to have a film not about this Newcastle but dedicated to that of Alan Shearer's team and jerseys with the coolest sponsors ever.