How Crystal Palace won the FA Cup: A tearjerking tifo, lucky cufflinks and Glasner’s masterplan

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It was late on Friday evening that the Holmesdale Fanatics, Crystal Palace’s ultras group, uploaded a picture to their X feed.

It showed the group, clad in their usual black shirts but with faces blurred out, posing in front of an empty Wembley Stadium. They had been permitted entry to set up their tifo, a display for which £45,000 had been raised by supporters, and the picture was accompanied by a simple message.

Precisely what the group had spent so many hours preparing only became clear the following afternoon, moments before kick-off at the FA Cup final against Manchester City. As the smoke from the red and blue flares cleared, the display was unfurled: above a banner reading ‘Wembley will shake. And it will be beautiful’ was the tifo, showing a man clutching his two sons tightly to his body in either arm, in euphoric tears. It was a message to show how much following a football club means, to demonstrate the bond between father and son, parent and child. 

Palace fans display their tifo at the FA Cup final (Justin Setterfield – The FA/The FA/Getty Images)

It was a recreation of a clip captured by TV cameras after Darren Ambrose’s stunning 40-yard strike for Palace against Manchester United in the 2011-12 EFL Cup quarter-final, showing the celebrations of Mark Wealleans and his sons, Dominic and Nathan.

Mark died from cancer in 2017, but for Dominic and Nathan, those memories have endured. This was a new, albeit different, special moment to add to those they had shared with their dad.

“Because of the flags and the smoke, we couldn’t even see anything,” Dominic told The Athletic. “When I saw it, I just broke down. I was just like, ‘Oh my god’. I had no idea, I did not expect it at all.

Brothers Dominic and Nathan Wealleans at Wembley (Photo courtesy of Dominic Wealleans)

“All the memories of Palace as a kid were rushing through me. I had my head in my hands crying and me and Nathan gave each other a massive hug. My dad would say to my mum: ‘I’ll never see Palace win a trophy, but my boys will’. Little did he know, but he was at Wembley as well on Saturday. It’s like we felt the win for him.”

That moment set the tone for the most glorious day in Crystal Palace’s 119-year history — a triumph of spirit, skill, stamina and even the odd curious superstition. This is the story of how they did it. 

The preparation

This may have been the most significant match for Palace since their 2016 FA Cup final, but manager Oliver Glasner was determined for it not to feel that way.

He had kept his players’ schedule as regular as possible: a light session on Monday for those who played in the 2-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur the day before, with those who had not featured undergoing a more intense session and then building up over the week. 

On Friday afternoon, Glasner had a joint media briefing with captain Marc Guehi at the Beckenham training ground. Afterwards, there had been genuine alarm from Glasner, who had made a beeline for his usual post-press conference pastry, only to find there were none left. “Where is the pastry?” he asked, desperately looking around the room. As far as superstitions go, this was a serious one. One of Palace’s media team sought to find one, to no avail, before Glasner was eventually presented with one in the club’s canteen. 

A Crystal Palace fan shows his appreciation for Oliver Glasner at Wembley (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

On Friday afternoon, staff and players travelled by coach across London from their Beckenham training ground to the Landmark hotel in Marylebone. That had also served as the club’s base before the semi-final victory over Aston Villa. 

There were no grand speeches in the hotel, no tubthumping messages of how important this was for the club or how this might be the time for heroes. Instead, it was business as usual. The team meal, the usual conversations and, on Saturday morning, a walk around Baker Street to get the blood pumping before they boarded the team bus for Wembley, a half-hour drive away. 

If the players were intent on sticking to their set routines, chairman Steve Parish was the opposite. He chose not to drive to Wembley himself, as he would ordinarily have done, or take the London Underground, as he did on the way to the semi-final win over Aston Villa. Instead, he opted to be chauffeured, wearing a suit with the club’s crest on it and a pair of shoes he had never worn before. 

He did, however, have one familiar item: a pair of cufflinks bearing the Stoke City club crest. Parish had bought them from the Stoke club shop before Palace defeated them 2-1 in December 2015, a late Lee Chung-yong winner sending the club to their highest ever Premier League placing at the time (fifth). Parish had forgotten his cufflinks that day and has since considered them his lucky charm. Having intermittently misplaced them, he recently found them again in a pair of suit trousers and opted to wear them to Wembley. 

Co-owner John Textor landed in London on the morning of the game, having watched Lyon’s women defeat their Paris Saint-Germain counterparts on Friday evening, before travelling to his Chelsea home and driving to Wembley. Unusually, all four of Palace’s general partners — also including Josh Harris and David Blitzer — were together to watch the game in the Royal Box.

Steve Parish and John Textor (with the cup) at Wembley (Robin Jones/Getty Images)

Also present was former sporting director Dougie Freedman, whose shrewd work in the transfer market had effectively built the team Glasner picked at Wembley. Freedman left Palace for Saudi club Al Diriyah in March but had been invited back to share in the festivities.

That was not all. Just as they had been in the semi-final, three former Palace managers — Steve Coppell, who led Palace out in their first FA Cup final in 1990, Alan Smith and Roy Hodgson — were in attendance. They were joined by Gareth Southgate, the ex-Palace captain and England manager. Even Frank de Boer, the former Netherlands international whose disastrous 77-day spell in charge in 2017 left Palace in danger of relegation, could be seen in Wembley’s media area.

The stage was set.

The match

Glasner had no doubt. “I said to Pep afterwards, if we meet again, you can’t play in this system because we will solve it.”

Those comments were made to reporters after Palace had been thrashed 5-2 by City in the Premier League in April. At the time, they felt dangerous, hubristic even given the quality that City could offer, but maybe Guardiola had heeded them.

The City manager went with four attacking players in his starting line-up — Erling Haaland, Omar Marmoush, Savinho and Jeremy Doku. Glasner was aware that City had played with four attackers against Brighton & Hove Albion and Tottenham earlier this season, but conceded Guardiola had surprised him. 

Glasner, however, was determined not to rip up Palace’s approach. For the Austrian, it was a case of being consistent and disciplined and defensively diligent, just as they had been throughout a competition in which they conceded only one goal, to Millwall’s Wes Harding in the fifth round. 

Palace duly soaked up the pressure, with City taking 88 per cent possession in the early stages of the game, but then, in the 16th minute, Palace used that familiar counter-attacking tactic to open City up with their first significant foray forwards — a rapid, intelligent move that they have perfected over the course of the season. 

Jean-Philippe Mateta held the ball up, played a one-two with Daichi Kamada and then set Daniel Munoz free down the right. His low cross was met first-time by Eberechi Eze and that was it. A goal. An FA Cup-winning goal.

Eberechi Eze strikes for Palace’s winning goal (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)

There were further chances in a similar vein, with final balls just being too heavy or the move being snuffed out in the nick of time, but City were relentless and continued to dominate possession. Palace were content to push them out wide and keep them wide.

“We analysed that when we gift them the pocket, they’re so good,” Glasner told the BBC. “So (we had to) be patient, wait for the right moments. Let them cross, we can defend it. That’s what we learned from the 5-2 defeat — when we gift them the pocket, we will lose.

“It looks like you always want to jump and go (counter-attack), which is what we usually want to do. But be patient and wait for the solutions. We knew in transition and the build-up we could create an overload.” 

So much for the plan, but for Palace to prevail, they also needed individual moments of brilliance, which, like Glasner’s tactics, were also the result of careful preparations.

On the morning of the final, back at the Landmark, goalkeeper Dean Henderson had a last-minute debrief with goalkeeping coach Dean Kiely, discussing City’s possible penalty takers and instilling the information into his head. Then, Remi Matthews, Palace’s third-choice goalkeeper, entered his room: he’d had a premonition that Henderson would have a “worldie” and save a penalty. 

In the 36th minute, Henderson got the chance to make Matthews’ premonition come true. Tyrick Mitchell’s foul on Bernardo Silva had given City a penalty and Marmoush, to the surprise of Palace’s staff, who had expected Haaland or De Bruyne to step up, seized the ball. 

Henderson told reporters after the game that Marmoush’s style was to “beat ‘keepers for pace that side (the goalkeeper’s right) every time”, although there may have been another factor at play in his decision to dive that way. In 2017, while on loan at Shrewsbury Town from Manchester United, Henderson had sprung to his right at Wembley to keep out a penalty from Rotherham United’s David Ball in the League One play-off final. 

Dean Henderson saves Omar Marmoush’s penalty (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Either way, Henderson’s instinct on Saturday was correct, the pinnacle of a superb performance that featured at least three other high-class saves from Haaland, Doku and Claudio Echeverri, even if City’s resentment at the lack of a red card for denying Haaland a goalscoring opportunity by handling outside his area midway through the first half was well founded.

That was not the only flashpoint. There was an altercation between Palace assistant manager Paddy McCarthy and one of the City medical staff in the second period, while Henderson’s time-wasting in the second half sufficiently irked Guardiola for him to have words with the goalkeeper at full time. Henderson’s response was to point out that there were 10 minutes of stoppage time added on. 

As City’s final attack broke down with 30 seconds remaining, relief washed over the Palace end, the sun shimmered on Wembley’s upper tier, and a chorus of their classic chant “Ole, ole, ole, Eagles, Eagles” rang around the stadium. Glasner turned to the fans, applauded and encouraged them to continue, to raise the volume even higher. Then, the final whistle blew, and ecstasy flowed, along with the tears. 

The aftermath

After the cup had been presented and the on-field celebrations had finally wound down, Palace’s players reassembled in the dressing room, with each getting a bottle of beer and Champagne. Kamada was the first to get changed into his suit. 

Glasner told the players that they had been working for this moment. He reminded them that he had said during the mid-season training camp in Marbella that they had the opportunity to do something special, that he had a feeling they could win the FA Cup, and spoke to them of his pride at their achievement. 

Joel Ward, who celebrated promotion to the Premier League with Palace at Wembley in 2013 and who will leave the club after 13 years this summer, told the players that this was not their ceiling, that they have more to give, more to achieve. 

“I told the players now after the game… I’m not the guy with the biggest talents, but I got a feeling for this group of players during the season that we can achieve incredible things,” Glasner said in his post-match press conference.

Earlier, Parish had congratulated Glasner, thanking him for what he had done for the club. The manager responded in kind. Glasner also shared an embrace with Textor as he walked up to the Royal Box and the pair later spoke about the Austrian’s journey to this point, with Textor having played a significant role in bringing him to Palace. 

Parish, whose eight-year-old son was a mascot for the game alongside Ward’s son, had also shared an unlikely embrace with Textor — with whom he has not always been in harmony since the American’s investment in the club in 2019 — after Eze’s goal. At the final whistle, all the general partners had hugged as political differences were put aside and forgotten for the day.

Joel Ward with Steve Parish and the FA Cup trophy (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

The players made their way to their families in the stands. Jefferson Lerma’s relatives remained there long after many had left, while Henderson went to his brothers Callum and Kai to share an emotional moment in memory of their father, who died from cancer last year. 

Staff and players then moved on to Wembley’s Boxpark, just a few hundred yards from the stadium. The two exceptions were Guehi and Adam Wharton, who had both been taken to hospital for precautionary concussion checks after being struck in the face by the ball in separate second-half incidents. 

Guehi’s eyes had swollen so badly he could hardly see as he went up to accept the trophy, while Wharton — who had not made it up the Wembley steps to receive his medal — later posted a drily humorous picture on his Instagram account from his hospital bed.

(Instagram)

At Boxpark, Parish lifted the cup and led a rendition of the club’s famous “We Love You” chant, while Will Hughes downed a pint and Henderson sang a new song, to the tune of Shakira’s Waka Waka, that was echoing around the Palace end shortly after full time: “Twelfth again, who gives a f***? We won the FA Cup.”

The team coach then took them to the Mistress of Mayfair nightclub, where they celebrated long into the early hours of the morning. Parish treated the crowd to a version of the song Rapper’s Delight, while Trevoh Chalobah, the Chelsea defender who spent the first half of the season on loan at Palace, made an appearance, as did Jonny Williams, the former Palace midfielder and another member of the 2013 promotion-winning squad. 

Training was cancelled on Sunday, but the squad were due to report back on Monday before facing Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Premier League on Tuesday, with Glasner refusing an extra day off because he wants to earn a point to take Palace to 50 points, their highest-ever Premier League total.

Palace’s players celebrate in the dressing room (Sebastian Frej/Getty Images)

“For someone like Oliver, you have to remember it doesn’t happen by accident,” Parish told reporters. “He wants to win things. He wants to give people joy and he’s given me a lot of joy back in football and really helped me believe that we could do this.

“Sometimes, maybe I’ve been part of that lack of belief. I never even imagined that we would get to a final and then there was always that glorious failure tag. But that’s what Oliver has done. Even this week, I was telling people we’re gonna win, we’re gonna win.”

Glasner’s confidence in his squad throughout the season has enveloped his players, wrapping them into a tight bond to withstand the trials of the campaign, guiding them through the difficult days. 

If that acted as a shield, as he has previously described it, then Palace’s supporters were the sword with which they conquered City. 

This was one for those who had suffered the most difficult days in the club’s history — three administrations, defeats in two previous cup finals, desperately staving off relegation from the second tier on the final day when going down would have put the club’s future in grave peril. This was one for those who couldn’t make it to north-west London, to those, such as Mark Wealleans, who were not there to see it but to whose families the love had been passed down. Era after era, from generation to generation.

After so many years, this was their glorious reward: a first major trophy and the chance to compete in the Europa League for the first time.

They made Wembley shake. And it was beautiful.

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Demetrius Robinson)

This news was originally published on this post .

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