Celebrations again in south London: Crystal Palace also takes the Conference League a year after the FA Cup | Sport

Crystal Palace has won its third prize in a year. After winning the FA Cup and the Community Shield at Wembley in 2025, the south London club won the Conference League on Wednesday evening. Rayo Vallecano, from the Madrid working-class district of Vallecas, was defeated 1-0 in the final in Leipzig.

The final was between the number 15 of the Premier League and the number 8 of La Liga. It was a great football celebration in the city center of Leipzig and it looked great in the stands, but the final itself was a bit disappointing. The winning goal was scored on the rebound by Jean-Philippe Mateta six minutes after halftime. The 28-year-old and 1.92 meter tall striker can now prepare for the World Cup with France, but will first celebrate in Leipzig and south London.

Mateta seemed to be making a transfer to AC Milan on February 2, but the late bloomer did not pass the medical examination. At that time, Crystal Palace had already bought Jørgen Strand Larsen for 50 million euros from Wolverhampton Wanderers. Mateta has not played all his games at Crystal Palace in recent months, but will forever be in the hearts of the fans because of these goals.

Shortly after Mateta’s goal, Yéremy Pino seemed to make it 2-0, but the Spanish playmaker saw his free kick hit both posts. Shortly afterwards, Pino passed the ball wide to Mateta, but now the Argentinian goalkeeper Augusto Batalla made a good save.

From south London, 18,000 fans traveled to Madrid, and 11,000 fans came from south Madrid. Thousands of fans watched on big screens in both clubs’ stadiums, Selhurst Park and the Campo de Fútbol de Vallecas. It was the first chance for both clubs to win a European prize.

Not surprising, because only Rayo Vallecano already had history in a European context. Madrid’s third club, from the enormous Vallecas district (300,000 inhabitants), reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup in 2001.

Crystal Palace even played European football for the first time this season. On May 17, 2025, Palace only won the first major trophy in the then 119-year club history, when they beat Manchester City 1-0 in the FA Cup at Wembley. Eberechi Eze then scored the winning goal after fifteen minutes, but the graceful playmaker was sold to Arsenal for 70 million euros at the end of August, with whom he became champion last week. On August 10, Eze had won the Community Shield with Palace by taking the penalties at Wembley better than champion Liverpool.

In January, Crystal Palace also sold captain Marc Guéhi to Manchester City for 23 million euros, after which Austrian coach Oliver Glasner decided not to renew his contract in south London. Glasner already won the Europa League in 2022 as coach of Eintracht Frankfurt, which then won on penalties against Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s Rangers in the final in Seville.

It is not yet known who will be his successor at Selhurst Park, but Palace will at least play in the main tournament of the Europa League next season. Andoni Iraola, the Basque coach who finished sixth with Bournemouth, would be at the top of Palace’s list.

Palace, as FA Cup winners, was actually going to play in the Europa League this season, but Evangelos Marinakis (the Greek owner of Nottingham Forest) made a case to UEFA about the bond between Olympique Lyon and Crystal Palace because of the same American investors. The eccentric Greek was proven right, meaning Forest went to the Europa League and Palace was ‘relegated’ to the Conference League. Last year was a big downer for Palace fans and players, but in retrospect it may have been a wonderful gift. Now ‘The Eagles’ can still enter the Europa League, in which AZ and FC Twente are possible opponents.

After tens of thousands of fans took to the streets last year to celebrate the FA Cup win in south London, there will now be a big party because of the first European prize in the club’s history.

Rayo Vallecano finished eighth in La Liga this season, just like last year. Then that was enough for a ticket in the preliminary round of the Conference League, but now the team of coach Iñigo Pérez (38) is missing out on European football.

There will be no less pride in Vallecas, the ‘largest district in the world’ with more than 300,000 people. This includes tens of thousands of immigrants from South America. Vallecas is a real working-class area, where fans regularly queue for hours to buy tickets for Rayo Vallecano. This is unlikely to change in the coming years. It is one of the things that has caused fans and club owner/chairman Raúl Martín Presa to regularly clash for fifteen years.