Three things we learned from Crystal Palace win as star shines on historic European night | OneFootball

Eagles will play in their first ever European final later this month

Showing flagrant disregard for the perimeter of his technical area, Oliver Glasner went skidding onto the pitch on the soles of his all-white trainers and shook Yeremy Pino, whose brave turn had set Crystal Palace on their way to Leipzig.

Pino was down and hurt after a robust challenge but had played a decisive role in the decisive goal, scored, naturally, by Ismaila Sarr, who led from the front again. Palace led Shakhar Donetsk 5-2 by that point and the chants of “We’re on our way” started back up again at Selhurst Park.

They are UEFA Conference League finalists in their first-ever season in Europe.

Their opponents in Leipzig’s Red Bull Arena on May 27 will be Rayo Vallecano, the team sat 11th in La Liga, one place below Osasuna. The Eagles will fancy their chances now more than ever.

Favourites showing no signs of flopping

Pitch up in the Conference League as England’s sole representatives and you’ll almost certainly be labelled the favourites to win the whole thing. That is the privilege — or added challenge, depending on your perspective — afforded to Chelsea last season and to Palace, in turn, this time round.

For Palace, that always felt fair enough. Yes, this is the club’s maiden voyage in Europe. Yet Fiorentina, Shakhtar and Strasbourg were the only real challengers for the 'favourites' tag. Eliminated. All of them. Palace have had to live with that pressure since they opened their campaign in the autumn and have done so superbly.

Last season’s FA Cup triumph was about the club proving they could, at long last, win major silverware, and that they could be more than always 12th in the table.

Winning European silverware in Leipzig and qualifying for the competition they were originally in before demotion would be new and novel again. And possibly even greater.

Wharton pulls the strings

Not every pass came off. One intended for Tyrick Mitchell was far too straight and went straight out. Wharton, though, is not a pass-completion-rate type of midfielder, his game not reducible to numbers. He looks forward, plays forward, tries things, takes risks.

Thomas Tuchel will have liked what he saw from the England World Cup hopeful. Wharton was tidy and slick and integral to Palace’s 2-1 win on the night.

Instrumental: Adam Wharton

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The winning goal was made by his intelligent, instinctive spread of play out to the right. When he got it back, he cut inside a defender cutely and unleashed a fine strike. The save from Dmytro Riznyk led to Daniel Munoz finding the net via a deflection, an own goal, by Pedro Henrique.

The leveller on the night was a sumptuous effort passed into the net by Eguinaldo. To the credit of Wharton, the electric Daichi Kamada, and Palace, it mattered not.

Glasner’s tactical tweak works a treat

He knew what he was doing. He may be on his way out of Palace’s corner of south London at the end of the season, but Glasner has guided them through two historic seasons during his tenure.

His tactical acumen has been the foundation of so much of it. The wing-backs bombing on in his 3-4-2-1 system, and a near-faultless clarity of mind for when to dominate possession and when to cede it instead and catch the opposition on the counter.

What worked in the first leg, the Austrian figured, would work in the second. The Eagles were inches from a tenth-minute 4-1 aggregate lead but had Yeremy Pino’s ruthless goal on the break ruled out by VAR for offside at the point when Jean-Philippe Mateta had so craftily nodded him clean through.

Palace played on the break in the first leg in Krakow and goals by Jorgen Strand Larsen and Sarr — at 21 seconds, the quickest in the Conference League’s (short) history — vindicated it. That Shakhtar arrived at Selhurst 3-1 down and had to go for it only played into the hands of Palace and their wily manager.

The full minute of added time was just a cacophony of Selhurst noise, applauded by Glasner, who may now close this chapter with European glory.