Manager has helped players rediscover their form and they want to repay him with a fitting farewell in Europe
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t’s an occasion Crystal Palace supporters have waited a lifetime for. Around 6,000 are expected to make the pilgrimage to southern Poland for the first leg of their Conference League semi-final against Shakhtar Donetsk on Thursday evening, with many travelling in expectation of eventually adding more silverware to the FA Cup and Community Shield they have already won under Oliver Glasner. Not that Glasner is thinking that far ahead.
“The road is shorter now,” said the Palace manager, who has consistently played down his side’s chances of adding to his Europa League triumph with Eintracht Frankfurt in 2022. “But of course when you get to this stage of the competition everybody wants to win – nobody wants to play a semi-final and lose. That is the goal but whether we can achieve it I don’t know. We have a huge desire, we have really the confidence and the belief that we can win against Shakhtar Donetsk, but we also have huge respect for the team we are playing.”
Palace’s demotion from their place in European football’s second-tier competition after falling foul of Uefa’s rules on multiclub ownership now feels like a distant memory. While a tifo unveiled before their league-stage match against Larnaca in October predicting their path to next month’s final in Leipzig was proven a tad presumptuous as they were embarrassed by the Cypriot side at Selhurst Park, Palace were able put that behind them and their expertise in European matches has been growing ever since.
