The Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou received an adoring welcome home to Melbourne but Newcastle United rained on his parade by beating the Londoners on penalties in a friendly at the MCG. James Maddison’s goal in the 31st minute, after a sustained period of dominance from Spurs, broke the deadlock before Alexander Isak responded just before the break on Wednesday night. Australian young gun Garang Kuol made his Newcastle debut in the 71st minute and with the scores locked at 1-1 at full-time, the game went straight to penalties. In front of a bumper crowd of 78,419 fans, 19-year-old Kuol took Newcastle’s fourth penalty and converted, with Eddie Howe’s charges winning the shootout 5-4. “I thought it was an enormous effort from them, when you consider the travel we needed to do to get here and obviously straight after a pretty important Premier League game for us, to play tonight,” Postecoglou said. He said many of the players would be heading back to Europe while some would have a few days off before the Euros or Copa America. As for himself, Postecoglu indicated he would quickly get back to business after a short break. “I got the bus ride back to the hotel and that’ll be it, mate, and then we get going. It never really stops, the reality of it is,” he said. “But I’ll have some time off. I’ll meet up with the family on the weekend and we’ll go to Greece and switch off for a couple of weeks.” While on paper this was a friendly between two Premier League clubs, it also delivered a warm welcome home for Postecoglou, one of Melbourne’s favourite sons. A highlights package of Postecoglou’s playing and coaching journey played on the MCG big screen, to the delight of the home fans. Perhaps the only person in the MCG to upstage Postecoglou was South Korea’s Son Heung-min. The star forward received a raucous applause when named and there were squeals of delight whenever he touched the ball during his hour on the park. Just three minutes into the game, Son had a shot blocked and appeals for handball off Emil Krafth fell on deaf ears. In the 25th minute, Son contentiously didn’t receive a penalty after he was flattened when he attempted to beat Kieran Trippier. Spurs took the lead via a howler from Newcastle goalkeeper Nick Pope, whose attempted clearance picked out Maddison. The playmaker danced around Newcastle’s defence and finished with aplomb. Newcastle appealed, claiming Maddison had controlled the ball with his hand, but referee Alireza Faghani awarded the goal. Trippier was withdrawn for Jacob Murphy after just 37 minutes, before Son should have had an assist when he curled a wonderful ball around the Newcastle defence in the 40th minute, but Brennan Johnson shot straight at Pope. Newcastle equalised on the counter on the stroke of half-time. Murphy’s cross forced Brandon Austin to clear the ball away but the Tottenham goalkeeper parried it straight to Isak, who tapped home. Kuol, who has had tough loan stints at Hearts in Scotland and Dutch club Volendam since joining Newcastle last January, entered the fray with 20 minutes to go. He played as a central striker but saw little of the ball during regular time, before taking his moment in the shootout. The post-season friendly was Spurs’s last game before their break, while Newcastle will back up against the A-League Men All Stars at Marvel Stadium on Friday evening.