After being denied their rightful place in this season’s Europa League, Crystal Palace finally have their revenge. In Oliver Glasner’s final match in charge, it was fitting that Jean-Philippe Mateta should score what turned out to be the winning goal after his January move to Milan was scuppered by a failed medical. It has been that kind of season.
Having rescued the south London club from the brink of extinction only 16 years ago, how Steve Parish must have relished this occasion. The Palace chair found himself sitting next to the Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, for the biggest night in their history and he can now start planning for the Europa League campaign that was denied to them as last year’s FA Cup winners were adjudged to have broken European football’s governing body’s rules on multi-club ownership. As for Glasner, who performed a full-length dive on the pitch before going up to collect his winners’ medal, it ends any debate over whether he is the greatest manager in Palace’s history.
