{"id":559964,"date":"2026-05-01T04:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T04:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/559964\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T04:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T04:57:10","slug":"shakhtar-collapse-hands-rangers-huge-champions-league-lifeline-as-crystal-palace-blow-open-door-to-30m-payday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/559964\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakhtar collapse hands Rangers huge Champions League lifeline as Crystal Palace blow open door to \u00a330m payday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shakhtar now face a mountain to climb if they want to catch Rangers in the fight to guarantee Champions League qualification\"Crystal<\/p>\n

Crystal Palace celebrate in Krakow(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Crystal Palace blew Shakhtar Donetsk away with a 3-1 win in Poland \u2013 and handed Rangers<\/a> a huge boost in their battle to guarantee a \u00a330m Champions League payday.<\/p>\n

The Ibrox side are in contention to qualify directly for next season’s tournament should they win the Premiership<\/a> this term.<\/p>\n

The governing body will hand direct entry to the highest-ranked domestic champion whose country coefficient doesn’t qualify them automatically. At the minute, that’s between Rangers, Shakhtar Donetsk and Olympiacos should the trio all win their domestic divisions.<\/p>\n

The latter have fallen behind in the Greek title race so unless there’s a dramatic turnaround there, it’s a straight race to the finish line between Gers and Shakhtar.<\/p>\n

Defeat to Motherwell at the weekend leaves Danny Rohl’s men with no more room for error on that front, while Shakhtar are eight points clear domestically and all-but set to win the title..<\/p>\n

In the coefficient table though, Shakhtar are the chasers went into tonight’s Conference League semi-final first leg with Crystal Palace on 56.25 \u2013 three points behind Rangers who sit on 59.25.<\/p>\n

Wins earn two points and draws earn one, so a victory would have been enough to cut the gap to one point \u2013 with a maximum of two games left to play.<\/p>\n

But they didn’t manage to get it as Palace took a big step towards making next month’s final.<\/p>\n

The first leg, played in Poland due to UEFA<\/a> requiring Ukrainian teams to play their ‘home’ games at neutral grounds, saw Shakhtar go behind before a minute was even on the clock, Ismaila Sarr netting a rapid-fire opener for the Premier League side.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainians fought back and equalised shortly after half-time through Oleg Ocherenko.<\/p>\n

But Daichi Kamada struck again for Palace before Jorgen Strand Larsen added a third late on \u2013 and anything other than a thumping defeat next week will send them into the final against Rayo Vallecano or Strasbourg.<\/p>\n

What does it mean for Rangers?<\/p>\n

The defeat means nothing has changed on the coefficient front. Shakhtar still sit three coefficient points behind the Ibrox side.<\/p>\n

Next week in London, there are 2.5 points up for grabs; two for a victory within 120 minutes, and a bonus 0.5 for making the final.<\/p>\n

Should Shakhtar overturn it, and make the final, then, they would sit on 58.75 \u2013 half a point behind Rangers.<\/p>\n

It would then come down to how the Ukrainians get on in the final. If they lose that, they’re out of the running; if they win, they overtake them at the last possible opportunity.<\/p>\n

Of course, it only carries meaning for Rangers should they come out on top in the Premiership. Defeat to Motherwell at the weekend leaves them four points behind leaders Hearts and a point behind Celtic, and find themselves away to their rivals in their next two matches.<\/p>\n

Monday’s clash at Tynecastle and the May 10 Old Firm derby at Parkhead, then, hold even more weight to the club with the increasing likelihood of guaranteed Champions League<\/a> entry on the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shakhtar now face a mountain to climb if they want to catch Rangers in the fight to guarantee…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1669,1228,1725,2336,218,2714,101,2335,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-559964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-champions-league","tag-crystal-palace-fc","tag-english-premier-league","tag-europa-conference-league","tag-football","tag-rangers-fc","tag-sports","tag-uefa","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}