How Eddie Howe has chanelled anxiety and fear into limitless ambition

Eddie Howe’s drive saw him struggle to switch off over the summer as he opens up on the power of fear, the pressure he puts on himself … and how his attempts to escape football on holiday resulted in him watching Iceland face Slovakia!

• The coach has guided Newcastle to the Champions League in just 18 months
• But the club’s owners are ambitiously preparing to be ‘number one’ as a next step
• Big-money signings such as Sandro Tonali have only ramped up pressure on him

Eddie Howe was in Reykjavik this summer, educating himself and his eldest son on volcanoes – and trying to escape football, if only for a moment – when a taxi driver let slip that Iceland were playing Slovakia.

‘Every holiday I go on, I naturally morph back to football,’ says the Newcastle boss. ‘So we were in a taxi and the driver said Iceland were playing. I was like, “Ooh, should we go?”. My three sons were like, “We have to go!”. Martin Dubravka was playing for Slovakia, so at least I got to see how he was doing.’

The line between work and leisure has long been blurred for the Howe family. Last year, in California, Dad was jumping off waterslides to take calls on transfers. Why? Fear. Not a fear of waterslides, more so missing the one piece of information that could make the difference for his club.

‘There were no waterslides this year, which was disappointing, I do like one,’ says the 45-year-old. ‘This time, would you believe, our hotel in Greece had a football academy. So, I was watching my boys play football and walking away from the other parents, phone in my hand, to find out what was going on.’

He needed his phone during that second break in Iceland, too – the £52million signing of Sandro Tonali was bubbling away – but it was also useful for other reasons.

Eddie Howe has long blurred the line between work and play as his intent grows at Newcastle

The English manager has enjoyed a promising spell at the helm of the club since joining in 2021

The Magpies have just called time on a promising pre-season campaign in the United States

‘My eldest boy, Harry, was doing tests when he returned to school – chemistry, rocks – and it couldn’t have fitted better, being a volcanic island. We loved the geysers, that was the highlight. 

‘We spent all day on a coach tour. It is so picturesque, so beautiful. The science behind the volcanoes was very interesting. So we were talking about igneous rocks, metamorphic rocks… but did I remember it from school? No, I had to study again!’

Howe used his last free weekend to take the boys and their camper van to the new Lilidorei play park in Northumberland, the world’s biggest.

‘We couldn’t risk not having somewhere to stay, so I booked a campsite on my phone, thinking it was nearby – turns out it was an hour away!’

There is little time to spare for Premier League managers.

‘You think, “Right, I’m going to have some really good time with my wife and kids”. And we did, but it went by in a flash. Time goes so quickly, and that is true of life in general.’

Howe is reflecting on his summer from New Jersey, the last leg of Newcastle’s Stateside tour. He is sheltering from temperatures of 35C to talk with us, while his Brazilian duo of Bruno Guimaraes and Joelinton happily play keepy-up on a mini-soccer pitch nearby. It feels a long way from Iceland.

But could this season, amid simmering levels of expectation and Champions League football, feel much like living beneath a volcano? Howe winces at our contrived analogy, albeit with a smile.

‘The dynamic this year is very different,’ he says. ‘Last year we were coming off a relegation battle and expectations were quite low. I don’t think we had huge pressure on our shoulders. Now, Newcastle are expected to do certain things.

‘The most important thing is not to think about it, to be ourselves. We want the team spirit, togetherness, the fight for every point and not to change our mentality, which was one of being on a journey to have a successful season.

Newcastle reached the Carabao Cup final in February and will continue to fight for silverware

After a dazzling 2022-23 campaign, pressure is rising for Newcastle to improve next season

‘Pressure is only a thing created by other people, not ourselves. We have to remain very humble and committed to success. Our thoughts about how good we are can’t change. Don’t believe the hype. We have it all to prove. We haven’t yet arrived. We need that mentality from every training session.

‘That is what I have been trying to impress on the players. It is all about the hard work we delivered last year. If we work with the same intensity, we will be fine.’

Howe once remarked that he feels lonely when stood on the touchline, which seems bizarre given the goodwill he has banked among the 52,000 who sit behind him every other week. But the germ of that loneliness is fear. Again, though, what has he to be scared of? It is fascinating to learn how inner anxiety drives him to external success.

‘I don’t have one point of fear where I am looking at it and thinking, “I fear this”,’ he says. ‘It is more the fear of not being successful, which is a bigger picture. Fear of not doing my job well. Fear of letting the players down. Fear of letting the people of Newcastle down. That drives me.

‘It sounds negative, but it’s not, for me it is hugely positive – because it makes me work as hard as I do. I don’t want people to think, “Poor guy, he is constantly fearful!”. I am not. But yes, there is definitely an internal stress. I am not in a comfortable place right now.’

Newcastle chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan stated in the trailer for the club’s new Amazon documentary that his ambition was to be ‘number one’. The reason we are here now in the States, and not somewhere like Austria, is the need to drive commercial revenue and the global fanbase. Does Howe feel the pressure, then, of Al-Rumayyan’s declaration?

‘The pressure I feel is from myself,’ he says. ‘Even if Yasir could sit me down and have a talk, I would welcome that. And if he wanted to give me direct objectives, no problem, that wouldn’t create a fear in me. The fear comes from myself.

‘I know the expectations of the club. I know his thoughts and aims and ambitions and I want to hit those targets for him. Ultimately, I have to look at myself. I can only do what I can do. That is what I mark myself against – what I am giving? If I am giving my all, that is all I can do.’

The existence Howe describes sounds as intense as the sun that scorches the rooftops of the Manhattan skyline. Do you even enjoy it? 

Saudi’s Public Investmund Fund governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan has been open about his unbridled ambition for the side – and will hope to establish Newcastle as a top European club

Sandro Tonali (left) arrived from AC Milan this summer in yet another coup for the Magpies

‘I try to enjoy it. I love coaching. I love being on the training pitch, I really do. If I have delivered a good training session, that was a good day. I think, “We have got better today”. That is the most enjoyable part of the job.

‘The game days are intense. They are a reflection of your work. You enjoy the win, for a small period of time, then it is on to the next one. You are caught in that cycle all the time. 

‘You don’t have a chance to sit back and say, “Haven’t I done a great job?”. Because there is always another day, always tomorrow – and if you sit back and relax, even for a second, whatever part of the season you are in, you are going to fall behind.’

Newcastle, under Howe, have moved only forwards so far. The challenge is to maintain that direction, and prove that the eruptions and volatility of yesteryear really do belong in the past.

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