{"id":184034,"date":"2025-10-02T02:44:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T02:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/184034\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T02:44:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T02:44:07","slug":"crystal-palace-embark-on-european-quest-as-glasner-plots-path-to-leipzig-crystal-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/184034\/","title":{"rendered":"Crystal Palace embark on European quest as Glasner plots path to Leipzig | Crystal Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crystal Palace supporters may have waited a lifetime for this moment but, for Oliver Glasner, it\u2019s business as usual. After winning the FA Cup<\/a> and Community Shield<\/a> \u2013 the first major silverware in the club\u2019s history \u2013 the Austrian manager who arrived in south London 18 months ago promising he was \u201cno David Copperfield\u201d is preparing his next trick: guiding Palace to the Conference League final next May.<\/p>\n

Having been demoted from the Europa League<\/a> after Uefa deemed Palace part of a multi-club network, Glasner\u2019s side edged past Fredrikstad<\/a> in the qualifying round and the road to Leipzig starts for real against Dynamo Kyiv in Poland on Thursday evening. It is a fixture that has been greatly anticipated by 3,500 travelling fans, with an extra 900 tickets quickly snapped up for the match at Lublin Arena, which has hosted the Ukrainian side\u2019s home matches in Europe since Russia\u2019s invasion in 2022.<\/p>\n

Glasner has been keen to play down the significance of Palace\u2019s astonishing 18-match unbeaten run since losing 5-0 to Newcastle in April, stressing after the thrilling late victory over Liverpool<\/a> on Saturday that \u201cwe\u2019re still in September, so there\u2019s nothing more to say\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yet with his team boasting the longest sequence without defeat in all of Europe\u2019s top five leagues by some distance, ahead of Barcelona and Bayern Munich, it is not an achievement to be sniffed at. The captain, Marc Gu\u00e9hi, gave an insight into the belief coursing through the Palace squad at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of mentality, yes for sure it\u2019s there,\u201d said Gu\u00e9hi, who did not want to comment on his failed \u00a335m move to Liverpool on deadline day<\/a> other than to thank Palace fans for their continued support. \u201cWe\u2019ve tasted success but we\u2019re definitely not satisfied and we do want more. Every single person at the football club strives for more \u2013 from the manager all the way down to the players. We\u2019ve seen what we can do. There\u2019s no saying that if we keep our heads down, hopefully we can have many more opportunities. Many more chances to do even greater things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what Glasner\u2019s impact has been, he added: \u201cIf he wasn\u2019t there on the sidelines, I think we\u2019d all know what to do. There\u2019s one thing that he mentions all the time: it\u2019s not what we do, but it\u2019s how we do it. I think the approach of anything that we do is really, really important. Going down to the pitch, with that mindset that we were talking about, that mentality, and if we approach things that way, it always helps us and keeps us in good stead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oliver Glasner is no stranger to European success. Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The problem for Glasner is that the majority of his first XI has played almost every minute of a busy campaign so far, with Gu\u00e9hi and Maxence Lacroix, Daniel Mu\u00f1oz and Jean-Philippe Mateta having already racked up 10 club appearances by the end of September. Against a Dynamo Kyiv team who have plenty of pedigree in European competition over the years, and won their first league title since the war broke out last season under Oleksandr Shovkovskyi, the former goalkeeper who won 92 caps for Ukraine, Glasner is expected to take no chances and select a strong lineup.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always play the best available team,\u201d said Glasner. \u201cWe reward the good performance, because everybody who played, but also the players who came on in the last games, deserve to start, and that\u2019s the best for a manager. We have many players who deserve to start, because they are in very good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

This competition is also uncharted territory for Glasner, who would have fancied his chances of repeating his 2022 success with Eintracht Frankfurt<\/a> in the Europa League if Uefa hadn\u2019t had other ideas. Yet Palace are rated as the bookmakers\u2019 favourites to follow in the footsteps of West Ham and Chelsea by becoming the third London club to win the trophy that was introduced in 2021.<\/p>\n

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Glasner acknowledged Palace could face a different challenge against sides who sit deep. \u201cWe have the skills to break this block on the other side,\u201d he said. \u201cYou could see yesterday in the Champions League, Liverpool struck out to score in Istanbul and even Chelsea against Benfica, they\u2019re both in close to 70% possession. But that doesn\u2019t mean you score four or five goals. But we think we have the skills to score goals, independent of how Dynamo Kyiv will play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crystal Palace supporters may have waited a lifetime for this moment but, for Oliver Glasner, it\u2019s business as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-184034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}