LEIPZIG, Germany -- In the end it was a rather comfortable night.
Oliver Glasner's final frontier as Crystal Palace boss was a successful one. A tap-in from Jean-Phillipe Mateta was all that was required to get past Rayo Vallecano on the biggest occasion that the south London side have ever experienced. Glasner's fairytale ending is now a reality and he leaves Selhurst Park not only with the club having secured a Europa League spot and with their glass ceiling smashed (for a third time), but as their greatest ever manager. Quite the impact.
After a year that saw the Palace faithful venture to the depths of the continent, Leipzig was perhaps a more attractive destination, or at least that was the general consensus. There were over 11,000 in the Red Bull Arena on Wednesday night, as well as the hundreds without a ticket who came via Berlin, Frankfurt, Wroclaw, Prague or simply drove over in a rather lengthy journey direct from Croydon, which is now the stomping ground of European champions.
The night before the game itself saw ugly scenes as Palace and Vallecano supporters clashed in the city-centre. Bottles, chairs and other objects were thrown as one of the unfortunate hallmarks of a big European occasion arrived -- fan trouble. 60 "known Palace troublemakers" were ordered to leave the area while some police officers came away with injuries. With thousands of other Palace and Vallecano fans mixing without incident, it was a shame their behaviour was overshadowed by nasty scenes which spread like wildfire on social media.
An undeserving prelude to Palace's big night. But they didn't let it affect them. After a nervy start, with no shots on target registered by either side in the first half of a European final for the first time in 16 years, the floodgates threatened to burst open in the second with Palace emerging a side transformed from a lacklustre opening. But after getting the first and despite creating chances, including a double-hit on the post from a Yeremy Pino free-kick, they couldn't get another.
Mateta's tap-in the 51st minute was the only goal of the night with Palace pushing to wrap up the game in the closing stages to no avail, but more notably closing out the biggest game in their history with no real fuss at all.
For Mateta to get the matchwinner only adds to the novelty of this Palace tale. After a move to AC Milan broke down on deadline day in January over issues with his medical, he had one foot out of the door. That fiasco contributed to the dark days of midseason where Palace fans chanted for their own manager to get sacked. That is all forgotten now.
In his final pre-match news conference as Palace's manager, Glasner spoke of wanting to earn back the Europa League spot that the club "should have" got this year. After winning the FA Cup and securing a Europa League spot, Palace were demoted from the competition after being found guilty of breaching UEFA's multi-club ownership rules. It is a decision that their supporters still haven't forgiven with many carrying anti-UEFA banners and flags throughout their European journey. The majority of their support also boycotted the UEFA fanzones on the day of and before the final, choosing to organise their own meet-ups, including a march to Red Bull Arena on Wednesday.
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In typical Glasner fashion, he wasn't thinking of a perfect send-off or adding another trophy to his own ever-growing list of them but wanted the best for Palace on his way out of the door. And to add the cherry on to the top of his European sundae, Palace earned back that Europa League spot at the colloquial home of multi-club ownership in the east of Germany. The stage of their historic triumph, known helpfully as the Red Bull Arena is home to Red Bull Leipzig, one of the many teams including fellow European side RB Salzburg and MLS team New York Red Bulls, under the umbrella of (you guessed it) energy drink conglomerate Red Bull GmbH.
It's almost as if Glasner wrote the script himself.
"This is what I see as my job to get everybody aligned in the way we are playing, in the way we are defending and the way we are attacking and to get everybody aligned in the mindset we have," Glasner said. "And therefore you need great, of course, talented football players, but you need great characters because they have to follow and so they deserve all the credit.
"And at the end it's now one year delayed at Crystal Palace [Europa League spot], the players, the club and the supporters get what they deserved last year after winning their FA Cup and that's a spot in the Europa League."
Glasner's skills as a knockout specialist have come to the fore throughout Palace's European campaign but no more so than the big day itself. The usual three at the back and two in front was in effect but this time with a slight tweak as they looked to try more balls over the top. Palace were also seemingly happy to let Vallecano have more of the ball.
It proved a masterstroke with Adam Wharton and Daichi Kamada running the show from the base of midfield and not giving Vallecano a sniff in the most important area of any football pitch. And in defence, with star man Chris Richards not fit enough to play any part from the bench, it was Chadi Riad who earned the most significant start of his Palace career alongside the ever-composed Maxence Lacroix and Jaydee Canvot. Glasner's philosophy, improved and adapted for another final -- a solid back three with a midfield pairing that stepped up to control the game in the opposition's half and wing-backs running high and wide as options for a switch beside them -- was in perfect form at the most important time. Wharton ended as player of the match leading the winners for touches and chances created while leading the game as a whole for progressive passes (10), a particularly impressive skill of his.
"And second half we said, okay, keep going. We will get our chances," Glasner added. "And the goal was, I don't like to praise an individual player, but I think both No. 6s Adam and Daechi played very, very well today because we knew they would press us with minus one player and to keep a plus one in the back.
"And I think this goal gave us a lot of confidence because then we were electric ... But yeah, we defended them so well as a team. And so at the end I think we deserved to win."
Before the game the travelling Palace supporters unveiled a banner that read: "Liquidation cancelled, FA Cup landed, Europa League boarding." A nod to the darkest days at Palace when they were close to going under amid financial trouble in 2010. There was a banner underneath too that quoted a William Shakespeare play, not the man you'd expect to be involved in a European final. "This story shall the good man teach his son," it read. Palace will feel they have righted the perceived wrongs done to them by UEFA last year and will have another season in Europe to show for it, thanks to the miracle man that is Glasner.
On the other end of the pitch, as Palace celebrated a night they will hope to replicate next season, Rayo's players and staff stood crestfallen in front of their fans. There were tears both on the pitch and in the crowd, but for Vallecano to even have made it to this final is an achievement that Spanish football will surely never forget.
The night before their league phase Conference League game against Lech Poznan, the Polish side's kitman posted a video showing the away changing room and it quickly went viral. No light, plastic chairs and lines of cardboard boxes against one of the walls -- it was clear to see why Vallecano's facilities have long ranked rock bottom in LaLiga. But their football? Nothing to scoff at there. As a banner unveiled before kick off detailed, they play for their Barrio, or neighbourhood, and have battled adversity all season. Their humbleness has often ventured a little too close to farcical, with the electricity, VAR and hot water at their ground all malfunctioning at times this season but not stopping another respectable eighth-place LaLiga finish.
Yet, here they were, in Leipzig for a European final with facilities that cannot even be labelled as top-flight standard. Several Rayo fans told ESPN ahead of the game on Wednesday that they "didn't care" if they won or lost the final, simply the occasion of it all was more than enough for a club who have spent their lives in the enormous shadows of Atletico and Real Madrid in the capital. Ultimately they fell to a Palace side with a wage bill five times theirs and Premier League money that is foreign to a club that still have no form of online ticket sales. Their coach Iñigo Pérez even alluded at full-time that returning to a final like this would be difficult for the club.
"Well, we feel pain, anger, we feel sadness of course, that we let a chance like this go, of course its very complex for us to come back to a situation [final] like this," he told reporters.
"When you lose of course you feel hurt, it takes all your strength away, we know what our people have done for us, they are crying out of emotion, it's very hard to cope with something like this for us.
"So we are going to try and focus on getting this pain away. Ambition cannot be measured in a press conference room, but only with actions and hopefully my players will keep playing the way they are playing and maybe next time the result will be more favourable."
And while to many in the upper echelons of European club football, the Conference League is simply a third-rate European trophy, to others it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. One 80-year-old Vallecano fan told ESPN that he had left Spain for the very first time in his life to attend the final. Vallecano's home stadium has a capacity of just over 14,000, they would have had a number similar to that in Leipzig this week with over 11,000 in the Red Bull Arena itself. Palace are a club that have experienced big games, notably their two days out at Wembley last summer to win the FA Cup and the Community Shield. But like with Rayo, in their debut season there is a novelty about European success. While Rayo fell at the final hurdle, Palace now know what that tastes like.
Speaking on the pitch after Palace's final day Premier League defeat to Arsenal, Glasner said that best day in the club's history was still to come in Leipzig. He was right. But now, with a season in the Europa League looming, it is a big summer ahead for the south London club. First, of course, is the monumental decision that is Glasner's replacement, while there must also be improvement in the transfer market. Steve Parish and Co.'s transfer dealings led to Glasner hitting out at the hierarchy in January as his squad dwindled and it has often been a flashpoint.
Palace must ensure the squad this summer is built to withstand the rigours of a Europa League campaign alongside that of a Premier League season, with Palace's domestic form this year largely unimpressive, a result of Glasner simply not having the depth to put his eggs in both baskets. And despite that, the Austrian manager could hardly have done more to ensure the squad he is handing over is in rude health.
The celebrations will continue in Leipzig and in south London all the same. But those at the top end of the club must now start working to ensure these last 12 months, Palace's greatest ever, aren't just a flash in the pan, but the start of a continued era of success.
