There’s no great secret behind the widespread fascination with next week’s Europa League final.
It’s the culmination of two absurdly ridiculous seasons for two absurdly ridiculous football clubs and whatever happens in that final, everyone else is going to have the opportunity to laugh their heads and testicles clean off at one of the clubs while having to accept the giddiness of the other at their Hail Mary season-saving good fortune.
Whether you’re directly involved or not, there’s just no taking your eyes off what is certain to play out as a tragic and comic tale.
But the sheer scale of the focus on Spurs and Man United – and we’ve just spent four paragraphs on it there in a piece that isn’t even about those dafties – does feel like it’s now completely drowned out Crystal Palace’s fine run to the FA Cup final.
Given how the first few months of this year were so chock-full of celebrations at the return of The Magic to The World’s Oldest Cup Competition, it does seem strange that nobody now seems that bothered.
Perhaps it’s the simple fact that, unlike the slapstick certainties offered by the Europa League final, the FA Cup final offers high potential for a quite boring outcome.
Manchester City will probably win it, won’t they? And that’s no use to anyone. It isn’t enough to rescue their own disappointing season because their standards are so absurdly high and it isn’t pulling a Homer like Spurs or United because City’s disappointing season is going to end somewhere between second and fourth rather than 16th and 17th. There are levels.
But we do have to consider the extremely plausible alternative. Because City continue to display atypical fallibility and Crystal Palace are actually good.
While Spurs couldn’t possibly be expected to put out a proper team to play properly just 10 days before the Europa League final, Palace went there six days before the FA Cup final and absolutely smashed them to pieces.
From a worryingly slow start – worth remembering that Palace’s entire season was kickstarted by good ol’ Dr Tottenham back in October – Palace have been mighty impressive.
In 2025, they have only been five points worse than their Wembley opposition:
They have spent a decade offering staggering levels of on-field consistency with their famous fondness for 40-something points year in, year out but have done so against a backdrop that has none of that.
They are on their 1oth permanent manager during their current 12-year Premier League stint. Oliver Glasner, who took over only 15 months ago, is already the third longest-serving of those managers behind only Roy Hodgson and Patrick Vieira.
On field, Palace face the same issues as all Premier League clubs outside the elite: bigger beasts liking the look of their best players.
Their early-season strife could certainly in part be explained by adapting to life without the magic of Michael Olise, who has become such a vital part of Bayern Munich’s return to the top of German football this year.
They are likely to lose more players this summer. Newcastle are long-term admirers of Marc Guehi. Everyone is long-term admirers of Eberechi Eze – with Saturday’s opponents prominent among his suitors. Jean-Philippe Mateta’s form this year will not have gone unnoticed in bigger boardrooms and changing rooms this season either.
But Palace aren’t even just trying to maintain a steady path through the usual churn of playing and coaching staff. Saturday’s final, and with it the chance to do something that not even Spurs can do and claim a first ever major trophy, takes place against a backdrop of boardroom shenanigans.
The club’s various American shareholders are engaged in an internecine war for control, with largest shareholder John Textor trying to buy out the 36% held by Josh Harris and David Blitzer with chairman Steve Parish stuck in the middle trying to hold the whole thing together.
Lurking in the background is another American, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, who attended the recent Premier League game against Forest and reportedly has the support of Parish.
Palace have already lost a sporting director in Dougie Freedman this season as well as their CFO and COO even in the last couple of weeks.
Through it all, the quietly impressive Glasner and his team have taken Palace to the cusp of unchartered 50-point territory in the Premier League, with just a single point needed from their final two games to end one of the more curious Barclays hoodoos.
And before that they really do have every chance of doing something even more extraordinary and end that long, long wait for top-level silverware. Look around you; if ever there was a season for overdue trophy success, it’s this one.
[**We’ve heard plenty about Newcastle’s story**](https://www.football365.com/news/mediawatch-newcastle-owners-ludicrous-claim-carabao-isak); we’ll hear plenty more [**if Spurs get their happy ending at long, long last**](https://www.football365.com/news/spurs-europa-league-final-bodo-glimt-manchester-united). But let’s not lose sight of the fact that of all those potential threads to this most curious of seasons, it would be Palace’s that deserves the greatest plaudits.