Wembley wins, Uefa blows and Eze: the bittersweet times of Crystal Palace

TIN POT HALF FULL?

These are bittersweet days at Selhurst Park. Win a first major trophy? Yay! Get demoted from Bigger Vase to Tin Pot? Eeeek. Away day to Lausanne for an appeal to overturn the decision? Believe. Beat the league champions at Wembley? Life is beautiful and the sunshine will never leave us. Lose the appeal the very next day? Life is a cruel, unrelenting beast and we reside on a dying planet marching towards extinction. Now comes the news of Eberechi Eze’s departure to Arsenal, brutal even if an exit was expected, another example of the big boys nabbing from the Premier League’s middle class.

Nonetheless, their Tin Pot playoff first leg brings a fresh chapter as Palace launch into their first proper European campaign. Alas, we can’t really pay too much attention to their participation in the 1998 Intertoto Cup – gone but never forgotten – taking place after they’d been relegated from the Premier League and resulting in a 4-0 defeat across two legs by Turkish side Samsunspor. A more successful run surely awaits this time. The example of Chelsea winning Tin Pot is a bit pointless, their presence undermining the tournament’s appeal, but West Ham’s 2023 triumph is the template to follow, a club not lavished with silverware relishing their night of history.

Oliver Glasner knows how to navigate the continent, having tasted Bigger Vase glory at Eintracht Frankfurt. He’s also moved past the multiple stages of grief after Palace’s drop to Europe’s third tier. “This is the last time I will respond to this question. We – the club, the fans, the players – deserve to play [Bigger Vase] because we are the FA Cup champions … but it was decided that we would get demoted,” harrumphed the Palace manager. “It’s still the first time European football is played at Selhurst*. This is the reward for winning the FA Cup and it’s European football, and we will enjoy it together with our fans.”

Fredrikstad, cup winners in Norway, are Palace’s opponents in this playoff tie. They’re presumably not in London to take part in a testimonial for Eze. But this will be a night for farewells should the 27-year-old still feature, a chance to witness him close out a memorable five-year spell that peaked with an immortal moment three months ago in the FA Cup final. For Palace, interrail pass to go with the bursting rucksack, it could well be the start of an exciting adventure.

*Oliver, put a little bit of respect on the Intertoto

QUOTE OF THE DAY

What happened was extremely serious and extremely violent, something I’ve never encountered before. We had to take a decision because what happened went way beyond what is acceptable in a football club, as it would be in any organisation” – new season, same old combustible Marseille as chief suit chief Pablo Longoria confirms the England U21 player Jonathan Rowe and France midfielder Adrien Rabiot have both been transfer-listed following a furious bust-up after losing to Rennes.

View image in fullscreen Pablo Longoria is not a happy man. Photograph: Christophe Simon/AFP/Getty Images

Fair play to Spurs. Always being criticised for being ‘Spursy’, they’re now taking Spursiness to a new level. Just when it seemed a deal for Eberechi Eze was in the bag, their north London neighbours enticed him to pop next door for tea, contract talks, and exceedingly good cakes. Why be Spursy on the pitch alone when you can dare to be Spursy off the field too? Audere est facere indeed” – Mark McFadden.

Spurs have just realised that there are no Eze deals in football” – Krishna Moorthy.

It was only when I saw the new OGC Nice third shirt yesterday that I noticed that their new sponsor is Robinhood, which ironically tends to prefer preventing money going from the rich to the poor (and yet another defeat for nominative determinism by the way). But, surely they’re missing a trick by not sponsoring Nottingham Forest instead? Or would that just be too obvious?” – Noble Francis.

If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Noble Francis. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, can be viewed here.

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