Oliver Glasner: Crystal Palace boss dedicates FA Cup triumph to fans

Oliver Glasner dedicated Crystal Palace’s FA Cup triumph to the club’s fans – and said it would take time for Saturday’s historic Wembley win to sink in.

Palace beat Manchester City 1-0 to win the first major trophy in the club’s 120-year history and secure a place in Europe.

More than 30,000 fans of the South London club celebrated wildly inside the national stadium at full-time – and Glasner was quick to praise them for sticking with the team.

Palace failed to win any of their opening eight Premier League games this season and lost 5-2 at Manchester City and 5-0 at Newcastle in back-to-back Premier League games in April.

But they end the season with the FA Cup in the Selhurst Park trophy cabinet and Glasner, who steered Eintracht Frankfurt to Europa League glory in 2021-22, can start planning for another Europa League campaign.

“No one expected Frankfurt to win the Europa League and no one expected Crystal Palace to win the FA Cup,” said Glasner, who is the first Austrian manager to win the competition.

“You can see what you can get when you are patient.

“As football players and managers, the biggest success is not lifting the trophy. It’s giving tens of thousands of our fans a moment for their life. Giving them great times.

“Maybe they have some problems at home so just to make them happy… we did it for our fans.”

Asked about how he felt after becoming the first manager to deliver a major trophy for Palace, Glasner added: “For me, the strange thing is I feel empty.

“I will start to realise it tomorrow or Monday. The crazy thing is on Monday we have to think about the Wolves game on Tuesday.

“We said before the game that we wanted to write our own history and we have written a big chapter in our history, and next year we will do that again when we play in Europe.

“We have great characters, such a togetherness, a work ethic and a strong environment and atmosphere, and this is fundamental for achieving impossible things.”