Oliver Glasner and Jean-Philippe Mateta embraced in Leipzig.The final whistle had just blown and Crystal Palace had capped a momentous season, emerging through one last storm to claim a European trophy. The manager who masterminded the FA Cup win last season and the player who scored the winning goal in the UEFA Conference League final took a moment to appreciate each other and let reality sink in. Around them it was bedlam. Chadi Riad dropped to the turf in disbelief. Ismaila Sarr said a prayer as the Palace substitutes and coaching staff rushed onto the pitch, a delighted mob. Many made a beeline for Mateta. Others simply sought out the nearest team-mate. The scene was euphoric. Hugs were delivered to whoever was closest. Four groups became two. Mateta made his way around the pitch with his Go-Pro, just as he had post-match at the FA Cup final, and gratefully received a yellow bucket hat bearing his image and handed to him by a supporter. The match winner Jean-Philippe Mateta (Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images)With the turf greased by his players, who had emptied their water bottles in anticipation, Glasner slid through the guard of honour on his belly to mimmic his celebration after winning the Europa League with Eintracht Frankfurt in 2022. He later joined the Palace chairman Steve Parish in holding the Conference League trophy aloft — a symbolic moment given the awkward relationship they have endured at times this season.That disquiet is all merely a footnote now, though.The Glasner slide 🏄‍♂️#UECLfinal pic.twitter.com/oNcXwwdPMP— UEFA Conference League (@Conf_League) May 27, 2026Over on the far side of the pitch, the Austrian took a moment with the trophy, lifted it three times, then placed it down and bowed to all sides of the Palace support. This was farewell. He blew kisses to those who had decked the RB Arena in red and blue while Parish’s young son escaped adult supervision to enjoy a moment with some of the fans behind the goal.His father eventually joined him to receive the crowd’s adulation. Oliver Glasner bows to the crowd (Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images)And so it went on. Dean Henderson, so often the song-starter, took a second to quieten the fans then launched into a rendition of: “We’re having a party…”, allowing the supporters to take up the chant. They sang it deliriously.They departed Leipzig with a slight tweak to their song of the moment. “We’re on our way, to Frankfurt, we’re on our way.” The competition and target destination will change next season. The Europa League beckons. For Glasner, especially, but also Mateta, Parish, Jaydee Canvot and the club as a whole, this season has been a story of redemption. From their exile to the Conference League, the fracture of Glasner’s relationship with the board and sections of the fanbase, and Mateta’s mid-season desire to leave, it has all turned around for the better.As the dust starts to settle in Leipzig, this is the story of Palace’s tumultuous campaign.Dean Henderson leads the chants in Leipzig (Alex Grimm/Getty Images)Bridges rebuilt in a Soho restaurantIt was a conversation over dinner at the Ham Yard restaurant in London’s West End, a few days after Palace’s 3-1 home defeat by Chelsea on January 25, that ultimately made the scenes in Leipzig possible. The FA Cup holders had been knocked out at the third-round stage by Macclesfield of the seventh tier a fortnight earlier. Captain Marc Guehi was then sold to Manchester City and Glasner, dismayed, announced he would be leaving in the summer upon the expiry of his contract. The club may have been aware of his intentions since the previous October, but the ownership were caught off guard by the manager’s decision to go public, with the risk it carried to destabilise the team further.But Glasner did not stop there. That actually proved the prelude to an even more extraordinary attack on the board in his post-match press conference just 24 hours later, following a 2-1 defeat by Sunderland. The team, he told reporters, “felt abandoned” by the hierarchy. Whether Glasner was justified or not in his complaints, a prolonged period of poor form, stretching back well over a month, coupled with his outbursts, led to questions over his future.Oliver Glasner consoles Chris Richards after Palace’s 2-1 defeat on Wearside (Stu Forster/Getty Images)Many on the outside looking in wondered if the Austrian was provoking the board, hoping they would relieve him of his duties mid-season. Sources familiar with the situation, granted anonymity like all those consulted for this article to protect relationships, acknowledged there was consternation at the top at his behaviour and wondered whether Glasner’s position was becoming untenable.Rather than instigating a change, Palace instead held firm. That decision was both emotional and pragmatic. Who knew these players better than Glasner, the man who had inspired that first trophy success in May 2025 at Wembley? Who could they possibly recruit mid-season who might do a better job? One option considered was the former Burnley and Everton manager Sean Dyche, whose brief stint at Nottingham Forest already felt doomed. He might have arrested the slump in league form and steered them clear of relegation trouble. But would he have taken the job without assurances that he could continue in the role into next season and beyond?In the end, there was an acceptance that sticking rather than twisting was the most sensible option. Glasner was best suited to continue as manager, particularly with his knowledge of the playing staff and, given the team were still in the Conference League, his experience in European competition. The club had learned to accept that the 51-year-old is extremely demanding and ambitious, qualities which actually made working with him a challenge at times.Emotion builds inside Glasner until it reaches boiling point. Then it erupts.Oliver Glasner is an emotional character (Lewis Storey/Getty Images)It happens during matches where those on the bench takes the brunt of it. When he is especially angry, he switches instinctively to speak in German, his native language. Those public blow-ups may have bewildered the board and fanbase — many were riled by his suggestions that they should remain “humble”, with the Austrian’s name duly dropped from chants — but they had seen what happened towards the end of his time at Eintracht Frankfurt and Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga. They knew he could be combustible.But genuine affection for him remained among the ownership, and an appreciation of everything he had achieved since taking up the reins back in early 2024.Sporting director Matt Hobbs initially moved to calm things down, holding conciliatory meetings with the management to draw the sting from the situation. Then came that dinner with Parish and a chance to talk, reflect and consider what could still be achieved over the rest of Glasner’s time at the club. The commitment remained. Manager and chairman could still work together. This was not the time for a divorce.And, in the period since, a sense of normality has returned. The league form picked up sufficiently to banish thoughts of relegation. Progress in Europe provided a focus for the rest of the campaign.When Glasner delivered his farewell speech at Selhurst Park as Arsenal’s away support impatiently awaited their Premier League trophy lift, the home fans broke out into a chorus of “Oli Glasner’s red and blue army” — a chant that had been modified to “South London’s red and blue army” when his stock had fallen mid-season. His relationship was repaired.Europe, and the promise of a trip to Leipzig, had brought fans, board and management back together. Chairman Steve Parish and Oliver Glasner are reconciled (Sebastian Frej/Getty Images)The mid-season regroup On December 7, Palace won 2-1 at Fulham to go fourth in the Premier League. A defeat by Everton in September may have ended their club-record 19-game unbeaten run across last season and this, but results largely held up in the months that followed and, ahead of the cluttered festive season, they were flying. Three days after Craven Cottage, they won 3-0 against Shelbourne in the Conference League.But that was to be the last victory for 11 games.There were reasons aplenty for the disintegration of their form. Daniel Munoz, such a key player in Glasner’s 3-4-2-1, suffered a knee injury that required surgery. Mateta was struggling with his own knee complaint and Ismaila Sarr, their most important attacking player, was absent for six weeks from mid-December with Senegal at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).They lost Daichi Kamada to a torn hamstring, and Eddie Nketiah, who admittedly had been close to moving to West Ham for £27million ($36.3m), to a similar injury. He has not played since December 28.That excellent start to the season had rapidly become a useful buffer against the drop. But a fear of being dragged into a relegation scrap still drove their January transfer business, together with an acceptance they needed more bodies to cope with a season that would eventually stretch to 60 matches in all competitions. As a result, they broke from their normal policy of recruiting youth and potential to target players who might make an instant impact.Glasner championed Brennan Johnson’s mid-season arrival from Tottenham (Julian Finney/Getty Images)Glasner had been keen on Brennan Johnson, out in the cold at Tottenham Hotspur, and Palace broke their transfer record to bring him in for £35million as soon as the winter window opened. Their fortunes did not change in the weeks that followed and, by the time they trumped that record again to buy Jorgen Strand Larsen from Wolverhampton Wanderers for an initial £43million on deadline day, the concerns over relegation had intensified.That humiliation against Macclesfield, 117 places below them in the pyramid, had not helped. Nor did the sale of Guehi for £20m and Glasner repeatedly rocking the boat.Throw in Mateta’s desire to leave for Milan, a move which collapsed in the last few days of the winter window, and a sense of turmoil was prevalent. He sat out almost two months, recovering from a persistent knee problem.For a while, it felt as if the writing might be on the wall. But the players, led by the most experienced in their number, took it upon themselves to regroup. “We switched really quick,” Maxence Lacroix told reporters last week, reflecting on the fallout from Guehi’s departure. “We said: ‘OK, guys, we have a Conference League to win, we are still in the Premier League in a good shape. We have to continue.’“When you start to have negativity in the group, when you start to have some words… we can’t, we can’t. This is not good. The role of a leader is to show the way to work. And this is what we did with Will (Hughes) and with Dean (Henderson).”He was told by Glasner that he was a ‘second captain’, a responsibility he relished.A much-needed flurry of four wins in seven matches, starting with a 1-0 success at rivals Brighton and Hove Albion in early February, eased them away from trouble. That those were the only victories in the team’s last 23 league games of this season will be a concern for the next manager to address, but domestic matters had effectively taken a backseat once Premier League status was assured. “We’ve been through it all,” Dean Henderson told reporters last week. “They (the players) have done so well to get to where we are in the Premier League, then to keep pushing on. People don’t realise the toll the schedule takes on them. I’m so proud of the lads.“The narrative had to change. When you’ve got six players out, you’ve got arguably our best player this season at AFCON… the competition’s so difficult. Every three games coming back from wherever we were, it’s tough. To do what we’ve done in the Premier League has been incredible.”Dean Henderson leads the chants (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)Away from the transfer market, other mid-season tweaks were applied more subtly.Glasner’s two main assistant coaches, Michael Angerschmid and Ronald Brunmayr, had long since been responsible for set pieces but, earlier this year, that responsibility was shifted to Paddy McCarthy with greater success, resulting in the Irishman taking up the duties full-time.As the season progressed, the overall role played by Glasner’s staff, those he knew from back in Austria and with whom he worked at previous clubs, gradually reduced and McCarthy took more of a prominent position, effectively as second in command.Palace have held onto their former centre-half despite interest from English Football League (EFL) clubs who have been interested in appointing him as manager. Indeed, former manager Roy Hodgson, who took interim charge at Bristol City towards the end of the season, recommended him for the vacant manager’s job at Ashton Gate.Now, though, McCarthy is considered integral at Palace not just for his long-standing affinity to the club — he joined as a player in 2008 and has been at Selhurst Park ever since in various coaching roles, and caretaker manager on two occasions — and the continuity he provides, but for his burgeoning coaching ability.Paddy McCarthy has played a more significant role in the coaching setup since the turn of the year (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)How the Conference League galvanised the groupPalace’s maiden foray into UEFA competition was driven by a burning sense of injustice after being denied entry to the Europa League, for which they had qualified by claiming the FA Cup, after issues with general partner John Textor’s multi-club shareholdings in Palace and Lyon. Palace took their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport over the summer, more in hope than expectation that they would overturn the decision. They threw everything at the panel, all to no avail.Perversely, that decision, for all the rage it induced and the protests it still provokes, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Success in the Conference League has delivered the club’s third trophy in 12 months, and a chance to play in the Europa League next season instead.Not that life in UEFA’s lesser competition has been straightforward. Palace have found it distinctly awkward at times.A 1-0 aggregate play-off victory over Fredrikstad in the play-offs set the tone. Playing teams operating with considerably lower budgets and less quality meant Palace invariably confronted opponents who sat deep and refused to go toe-to-toe for fear of offering the space in which Palace might flourish in transition. Young Canvot’s error against AEK Larnaca at Selhurst Park in late October, a game in which Palace were profligate — the story of their season — meant they were beaten by the Cypriot side.They lost, too, at Strasbourg and a much-changed side failed to beat Finnish side KuPS in December, with Glasner prioritising a Premier League game at Leeds United just 48 hours later. Palace still looked exhausted and lost that match 4-1 at Elland Road.Jubilant AEK Larnaca players celebrate their 1-0 win at Selhurst Park (Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images)For all the positives of this European campaign, there were less savoury moments to endure, too. In Strasbourg, groups of Palace supporters clashed among themselves in a square in the city centre, marring the occasion.In Dublin against Shelbourne, the song that closed out the game for 10 minutes unbroken had decreed: “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, the very next day you gave it away. This year, to save me from tears, I’ll give it to Oli Glasner” to the tune of Last Christmas by Wham! By the time the team travelled to Bosnia and Herzegovina to take on Zrinjski Mostar in the first leg of their play-off in February, Glasner was being heckled by those same fans.There were even calls for his sacking at the final whistle after an unsatisfactory 1-1 draw. Even the subsequent progress beyond Zrinjski and AEK Larnaca in the knockout stages felt vaguely underwhelming, as teams continued to sit deep and clog up the play. Palace lacked the guile of an Eberechi Eze or Michael Olise to unlock them regularly.Yet the mood changed from the quarter-finals onwards. It was the 3-0 home win over Fiorentina when the club truly started to believe they might win a competition for which they had long been classed as favourites. Glasner consistently railed against that tag, questioning how a team playing in its maiden European campaign could be seen that way. But the financial might of the Premier League club compared with that of virtually every other club in the competition said otherwise.The jubilant Palace players celebrate an aggregate win over Fiorentina in Florence (Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images)Glasner’s own personal experience of winning the Europa League with Eintracht Frankfurt in 2022, and that of some of his players — Daichi Kamada was in that Eintracht side, while Yeremy Pino and Johnson have also won the Europa League, with Villarreal and Tottenham in 2021 and 2025 respectively — told in the end. They lost on the night in Florence but always felt in control of the tie, before progressing beyond Shakhtar Donetsk to reach Leipzig.“We’re on our way, we’re on our way. To Leipzig, we’re on our way,” sang the Palace fans jubilantly, pockets of them springing up all across the home ends in Poland as Shakhtar were beaten at their adopted home in Krakow.It was not just a catchy tune. They really were going to Germany.Leipzig, redemption, victoryAnd so to the final itself.The opening 30 minutes at the RB Arena were cagey. Rayo slowed the pace of the game and the tempo did not suit Palace. Without the injured Chris Richards at centre-back, there was an unfamiliar feel to the defensive unit. Chadi Riad and Jaydee Canvot began nervously. Palace were fortunate Rayo failed to convert two good first-half chances.But, gradually, things started to change. Control was wrested back towards the end of the period, a sign of better things to come, even if that profligacy that has dogged them so much reared once again in stoppage time at the end of the half. The outstanding Wharton clipped a glorious pass into the penalty area, but an unmarked Tyrick Mitchell mistimed his header and could only direct the ball wide from close-range. Crystal Palace fans set off flares in the stands in Leipzig (Oliver Hardt/Getty Images)Wharton was not to be denied his match-winning contribution. Rayo offered him time and space after the interval, into which he glided. Speaking in his post-match press conference, Wharton said he was initially looking to play in Munoz at the back post rather than to shoot, but the space opened up invitingly in front of him and he changed his mind.Augusto Batalla could only parry his powerful strike straight into Mateta’s path and he made no mistake, guiding the ball in with his knee. Cue pandemonium from the Palace fans behind that goal.The substitutes warming up on the touchline raced over to join their team-mate, as did most of those already on the pitch, and almost in sync they copied his trademark corner flag kick. One last Conference League flag to add to the collection. Jean-Philippe Mateta. Another goal. Another corner flag (Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images)That was to be the deciding moment, but it was a catalyst for a three-minute spell in which Yeremy Pino was desperately unlucky to see his free kick crash back off both posts, and Batalla do well to turn aside another effort from Mateta.A second would have eased the nerves, but that is not this team’s way. Rayo exerted some pressure but were largely restricted to shots from distance. Palace’s defence, so staunch for much of this campaign, snuffed out any serious danger.They refused to wilt. Their determination would not slip. The final whistle brought ecstasy.Crystal Palace fans celebrate their Conference League triumph back at Selhurst Park (Andrew Redington/Getty Images)Back at Selhurst Park, 500 miles away, a crowd of 10,000 had gathered to watch the game on big screens erected on the turf. Victory saw the vast majority spill on to the pitch to celebrate.So much of the success this club has enjoyed over the last 12 months comes down to Glasner, who has achieved more in two and a half years as Palace manager than anyone has in the club’s history.That faith in his ability and focus had faltered at times over the course of this tempestuous and trying campaign, but it has been restored at the last.Oliver Glasner bids farewell (Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images)A figure who might have exited under a cloud mid-season ended his time at the club being applauded by his players as he slid through their guard of honour on his front, then clasping yet another piece of silverware. He departs in glory.