Glasner says Palace’s win in Poland is ‘just the beginning’ as the Eagles eye Conference League final
Crystal Palace took a big step towards the Conference League final with a 3-1 win over Shakhtar Donetsk in the first leg of their semi-final in Krakow, Ismaila Sarr’s goal after 21 seconds becoming the fastest in the competition’s history.
Sarr ran into Jean-Philippe Mateta’s net almost before the start of the game, sending the Palace support into a frenzy at the Henryk Reyman Municipal Stadium.
Oleh Ocheretko equalized two minutes into the second half, but Daichi Kamada pulled back a Chris Richards goal in the 58th minute before substitute Jorgen Strand Larsen completed a convincing win on the counter-attack with six minutes remaining.
Palace will take a two-goal advantage back to South London in the second leg at Selhurst Park next Thursday, with a place in the final against Leipzig on May 27 at stake.
“I’m very happy and very happy with the performance,” manager Oliver Glasner told TNT Sports. “Credit to the players – they stuck to the plan and worked hard, all defensively. We didn’t give them much. They were a big threat in set-plays. That’s where we conceded, but I think we were the same when we went forward. When we attacked, it was always very threatening.
“I was impressed by the way the team showed when we conceded the equalizing goal because it was unexpected, we had two or three big chances, we missed, then it was a long throw and we took the lead again, then we waited for our situations.
“Overall, we’re very happy with the performance, but it’s just the first step. I believe we have to do even better at home to go to the finals.”
“It’s an amazing group of people, men, characters. There’s such a great atmosphere and great cooperation and we always believe in ourselves. There’s no button we can press to turn it on, it’s something we’ve created over months and years – that we know we can come back and we’ll score.”
Strand Larsen breaks his duck
The moment that sealed the win came from Strand Larsen, who had been struggling in recent weeks and came off the bench to tie for Palace.
“I needed that. I was unlucky against Liverpool – I felt the confidence dropped but I kept going. It’s tough, two good players [himself and Mateta] fighting for one place, but getting in and getting points is amazing.
“You can see after we scored an early goal that they are a good team, we should have stayed in the middle, not lost our heads, we are leading 3-1 but there is still a game to play, the important thing for me and the team is to get the third one.
“We know the structure of the manager and the team, we had to accept that they are a good team so we had to go a bit deeper today but we did well on the counter-attack – and if we had been better we could have scored more points.
“We’re not going to celebrate too much. We’re really excited about this, hopefully we’ll smash it last Thursday.”
