These two teams meet for the first time ever in Wednesday’s UEFA Conference League final. We look ahead to the game with our Crystal Palace vs Rayo Vallecano prediction and preview.
Crystal Palace vs Rayo Vallecano: The Key Stats
Crystal Palace look to have the upper hand, with the Opta supercomputer giving them a 51.2% win probability inside 90 minutes.
Palace have won eight of their 14 UEFA Conference League matches this season, a record total of wins by a team in their debut season in major European competition.
Rayo Vallecano have won 14 out of 22 continental matches (D3 L5), giving them a 64% win rate, the best of any team to play 20+ games.
Oliver Glasner will aim to further entrench himself as a Crystal Palace legend when they take on Rayo Vallecano in the UEFA Conference League final in Leipzig on Wednesday.
Having secured Palace’s first major trophy by leading them to FA Cup glory last year, Glasner – who in January announced his decision to leave the club at the end of the season – has already written his name into history as one of the Eagles’ greatest managers.
Guiding Palace to the Conference League trophy in their first major European campaign would only deepen his legacy before his imminent departure.
Palace are the first European debutants to reach a final since Deportivo Alavés in the 2000-01 UEFA Cup, while the last team to lift a trophy on their maiden voyage into Europe were KV Mechelen in the 1987-88 Cup Winners’ Cup.
“What I learnt in two years here is that you almost always have to agree with the chairman, but today I don’t have to agree,” Glasner said when he addressed the fans at Selhurst Park after a 2-1 final-day loss to Premier League champions Arsenal on Sunday.
“He [chairman, Steve Parish] said the best day possible was the FA Cup final, but I think the best day is still to come in Leipzig.”
Glasner has history in Europe, too. He led Eintracht Frankfurt to the 2021-22 Europa League title with a penalty shootout win over Rangers, meaning he will join Ernst Happel (5) as the only Austrians to have managed in more than one major European final.
Palace will be looking to become the third English club to win the Conference League, following in the footsteps of West Ham in 2022-23 and Chelsea in 2024-25. The only Spanish team to have reached the final prior to Rayo were Real Betis, who lost to Chelsea last year.
The Eagles may have to come through a cagey affair in Leipzig, though. Palace (0.82) and Rayo (0.98) are two of only five teams to have faced under 1.0 expected goals (xG) per game in the Conference League this season.
Crystal Palace xGA
Rayo Vallecano xGA
Like Palace, Rayo are participating in their first major European final. While not debutants like their opponents, the Spanish side have made it to the showpiece in just their second continental campaign.
Their only way of returning to Europe for a third season is to defeat Palace, having lost out to Getafe in the race for seventh in La Liga despite a 2-1 final-day win over Alavés on Saturday.
Rayo have again impressed this season under head coach Iñigo Pérez, who will become the youngest Spaniard (38 years, 129 days) to oversee a team in a major European final since Pep Guardiola (also 38 years, 129 days) led Barcelona to a 2-0 victory over Manchester United in the 2008-09 Champions League final.
Still, goalkeeper Augusto Batalla and striker Alemão have acknowledged Rayo are undoubtedly underdogs against Palace. One thing on their side, though, is they at least head into the game at full health following Álvaro García’s return against Alavés.
Chris Richards isn’t expected to feature for Palace after recently tearing ankle ligaments, while Glasner is hoping for good news on the ankle problem that forced Adam Wharton off against Arsenal at the weekend. Eddie Nketiah will miss out.
Crystal Palace vs Rayo Vallecano Head-to-Head
This will be Palace’s 15th game in major European competition and Rayo’s 23rd, with the combined total of 38 being the fewest between two teams to contest a final since the 1964-65 Cup Winners’ Cup final, when West Ham (9) and 1860 Munich (10) had just 19 outings combined.
Palace and Rayo have never met before, but this is the 20th European final between teams from England and Spain. From 2005-06 until 2021-22, La Liga sides won all nine such encounters between clubs from the two countries, but Chelsea’s 4-1 dispatching of Betis was the most recent final match-up.
Leipzig has never hosted a major European final before. Both English and Spanish sides have fared well in German showpieces historically, though. English sides have won three out of four neutral finals there, while Spanish clubs have been victorious in five of six.
Crystal Palace vs Rayo Vallecano Prediction
Crystal Palace vs Rayo Vallecano prediction
The Opta supercomputer’s 10,000 pre-match simulations place Palace as the favourites, winning inside 90 minutes 51.2% of the time.
A draw that would lead to extra-time – and potentially penalties – has a probability of 25.6%, which is slightly higher than an outright Rayo success in regulation time (23.2%).
Taking all scenarios into account, Palace lifted the trophy in 64.2% of the 10,000 sims.
Crystal Palace vs Rayo Vallecano Predicted Lineups
Crystal Palace: Dean Henderson, Nathaniel Clyne, Maxence Lacroix, Jaydee Canvot, Daniel Muñoz, Adam Wharton, Daichi Kamada, Tyrick Mitchell, Ismaïla Sarr, Yéremy Pino, Jean-Philippe Mateta.
Head coach: Oliver Glasner
Rayo Vallecano: Augusto Batalla, Andrei Rațiu, Florian Lejeune, Pathé Ciss, Pep Chavarría, Óscar Valentín, Unai López, Isi Palazón, Álvaro García, Jorge de Frutos, Alemão.
Head coach: Iñigo Pérez
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world, and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Wednesday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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