2025-26: Crystal Palace’s Year of Miracles

This article was originally published in Penny Post.

I’ve only been to two FA Cup Finals: both replays; and both involving Manchester United winning after previous drawn matches that they should have lost. In 1983 I saw them beat Brighton 4-0 and, in 1990, Crystal Palace 1-0. The fact that (a) I’ve never liked Man Utd and (b) the people who’d taken me to the games were die-hard fans of the losing clubs made the journeys back to London quite long ones.

Crystal Palace was for some time a yo-yo team, like Leicester, Wolves and Sunderland, seemingly forever bouncing between divisions. Since 2013, however, Palace have quietly established themselves as PL regulars. Even so, a hundred and twenty years and not one major trophy is a long wait. Why would that ever change?

The change came, unexpectedly, in February 2024 when veteran manager Roy Hodgson – who’d won domestic trophies in several European leagues and taken both Inter and Fulham to European finals – was taken ill. Palace were at that time fast falling down the PL table.  The Austrian Oliver Glasner was rapidly appointed in his place. He’d already got a European trophy in his cabinet when managing Frankfurt in 2022.

However, not even the most extreme Palace fans felt that was likely to be repeated at Selhurst Park. To get into Europe, you either had had to finish high enough in the top division or win a cup. And this was Palace, remember, to whom such things didn’t happen. For such teams, a good league position was one free of the fear of relegation by Easter while a cup run meant getting to a quarter-final.

Winning the league is officially impossible for a small side. The only explanation for Leicester’s triumph in 2016 is that we’d all slipped into a parallel universe. Picking up a cup is easier, though the odds are increasingly stacked in favour of the big dogs. The FA Cup dominance of the big five of Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal has only been broken four times in the last thirty years. The chances weren’t in favour of its happening again in 2025.

Glasner’s reign didn’t start well. However, he kept the support of the fans, the players and the board. Slowly, the cohesion and attitude he was trying to create started to work. A series of increasingly impressive cup performances, during which they only conceded one goal, sent them to Wembley where they’d face the trillionaires of Man City.

Nobody gave them a chance. And yet, as Wigan had done in 2012, Palace outplayed their illustrious opponents, scored a glorious goal and ran out 1-0 winners.

Next up was the season-opening Community Shield against defending champions Liverpool, whom many thought (wrongly, as 2025-26 has shown) would dominate for years. Palace won that too.

Then the hammer blows started to fall. First, due to multi-club ownership rules involving Olympique Lyonnais, Palace were demoted from the Europa League to the Conference League.

It got worse. Eberechi Eze, their star player, left for Arsenal in the August transfer window. Glasner was publicly livid, saying that the timing left Palace no time to sign a replacement.

Then it got even worse. In January, Glasner announced he’d be leaving at the end of the season. Only a few days later, captain Marc Guéhi was sold to Man City. Glasner’s response was a copy-and-paste of that following Eze’s sale. Many thought he might walk himself (but he didn’t).

Meanwhile, another top player, Jean-Philippe Mateta, was also wanting away, this time to Milan. He failed a medical, returned and was booed by the fans in the his next game.

It could all so easily have unravelled. Instead, the squad came together and performed magnificently in the knock-out stages of the Conference League. Suddenly, they were in another final; and favourites against Rayo Vallecano.

Palace won that too, with the previously derided Mateta scoring the only goal after a shot from Adam Wharton – Palace’s serious emerging talent of the last couple of years – was parried by the goalkeeper.

Three trophies in twelve months – but hang on: this doesn’t happen to teams like Crystal Palace…

Well, yes it can. With the right people in the right places at the right time, a clear view of what you want to accomplish and a slice or two of luck, you might conjure up some unexpected magic. Leicester, Wigan and Palace did so it in England recently. Palace then went and did it in Europe as well.

Magic is one of the things that football has the capacity to create. It used to do this regularly. Now it’s rarer – but it could happen again. Why not your unfancied team next time? Palace’s experience in the last twelve months has given us all hope to dream – and we all need a bit of that right now…