Roy Hodgson talked about the Conference League final for Crystal Palace taking place this week.
He sat in the dugout before the arrival of Oliver Glasner in February 2024, and his successor has steered the side to the cusp of continental glory in their first year of European football. That feat follows FA Cup final victory and Community Shield success in 2025, and the 78-year-old wishes his former club of two stints all the best before they face Rayo Vallecano in Leipzig on Wednesday.
· ‘They are a strong enough team’
If it is any help for the Eagles, Chelsea claimed this competition last year while Aston Villa lifted the Europa League trophy last week, having beaten Nottingham Forest in the semi-final. English clubs have shown the significance of their spending power in the lower-tier continental competitions, and Hodgson reckons that the team have the quality to be considered as the favourites to win the final.
“In my latter spell, there was more optimism, if you like, of it being a possibility that the team would kick on and do better, simply because of the players that had been signed during that period of time.
“The last two players signed during my time at the club were Daniel Muñoz and Adam Wharton . But before that, it was players like Marc Guéhi and Michael Olise … Ebere Eze was starting to come good, and Jean-Philippe Mateta was the same.
“That team there was looking like a team that could certainly move up the table, and if you get up the table and get into that top half, and if you start to do well in the cup competitions, then there's always an opportunity. It’s a very well-run club. Steve Parish and people around him, like Doug Freedman who worked with him for many years, have done an excellent job building up to this position ahead of the trip to Leipzig.
“I suppose the enjoyment I got from watching the FA Cup Final last year was also due to the fact that I'd worked with nine of the eleven players. They'd been important people during my time at the club, so of course I took a lot of enjoyment from that.
"All one does is one's job, and one tries to help players and the team as best one can – but it's the person who's in charge at any time of that team that needs to get the credit for any results that are achieved.
“It was a good five-plus years at the club for me. It was good also, especially in the latter stages, to be able to work with players like Olise and Eze and Wharton. It's been even nicer, if you like, to see them, and the team, succeed.
Sarr, Eze and Olise — a generation Hodgson watched bloom
“Another player I'm very pleased to see do well is Ismaïla Sarr , who I worked with at Watford for three or four months. It’s really been good for me to see how well he's done, because I think he's another one who stepped in in the absence of Eze and Olise and really made a big difference.
“He's obviously at a club he wants to be at, and he's being coached well.
“I think the fans and everyone at the club should cherish it, because it's an achievement for a start, and it's one which is difficult to match. It’s not a given to reach any Final. It takes a lot of work, but also you need a lot of things to go your way as you move towards one.
“Then, of course you really do hope that in the Final, as we saw with Aston Villa [in last week’s Europa League Final], things are going to click perfectly, and you're going to be playing at your very best and maybe meeting an opponent that can't deal with you. Good luck to everyone on Wednesday.
“I shall be keeping my fingers crossed that any luck this game will go Palace's way. They are a strong enough team and are probably, if anything, going into this Final as favourites. It’s good, because it proves that everyone believes, as I’m sure the team itself believes, that we're going to do this because we're good enough and we're going to be the better team on the night.
“Fingers crossed for that – and I hope it's a good trip for everybody. I know the Palace fans will do their bit. They'll be delighted to be there, so the support will be fantastic. And I hope, soon, I should be sending a few congratulatory messages to people on their recently acquired European title.”