This blue-sky Saturday belonged to Crystal Palace, and 17 May 2025 always will.
Palace need wait no longer, their first-ever piece of major silverware finally secure. They are FA Cup winners for the very first time, and so a European adventure now awaits — they’re in the Europa League next season. Yep, Palace have hit the big time.
Oliver Glasner’s thrilling bunch of young stars are the group who finally did it, the greatest day in the club’s storied history arriving in the form of a 1-0 Wembley win over Manchester City, no less.
Eberechi Eze’s first-half strike was the only goal of the game, yet the difference was the exceptional performance of goalkeeper Dean Henderson. He saved Omar Marmoush’s penalty splendidly and kept whatever City threw at him out of the net.
This was the complete performance from Glasner’s super Eagles, an organised game-plan and tireless display culminating in a trophy lift of epic proportions, shared between the soon-to-depart club captain Joel Ward and on-field skipper Marc Guehi.
Ward started when Palace last contested an FA Cup final, in 2016, the second of two cup final defeats to Manchester United, after the first in 1990. On both occasions, Palace were so close but lost.
This time, having knocked out Stockport County, Doncaster Rovers, Millwall, Fulham and Aston Villa en route to Wembley, that all-important final hurdle was cleared — City beaten, Palace victorious at last.
Their grand day out began early, as hordes of supporters descended on Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden in midmorning. Judging by the sea of red and blue in the Palace end half an hour before kick-off, they had avoided peaking too early. Out came the pyrotechnics — more than were at the semi-final against Aston Villa — as well as the latest tifo, its cost more than covered by the £45,000 which fans had fundraised to put on what proved a real show. They don’t do things by halves, the Eagles faithful.
The City fans may well have thought their team were edging ever-closer to the lead when Erling Haaland and Josko Gvardiol had early shots parried by Henderson. Instead, it was a forecast of the goalkeeper’s remarkable performance to come.
Penned in for all of the first 15 minutes, Palace finally broke beyond the halfway line and with ruthless efficiency they mustered the opening goal totally against the run of play, Daniel Munoz pegging back from the right and Eze applying the finish for his eighth goal in his last 11 Palace games. For a fifth consecutive match he had scored, the talisman taking the reins at Wembley, just as when he scored the stunner that set Palace on their way in the semi-final.
And so the carnival atmosphere duly took hold at Wembley, the Eagles faithful in fine voice and almost roaring in celebration once more, not fine minutes later, when Munoz played across but Ismaila Sarr’s deft flick was saved.
Then came the Eagles’ spot of good fortune, and all champions require a sprinkling of that. Henderson clearly handled outside the area as he clawed the ball away from Erling Haaland. VAR opted not to pull it back because it was not a red card offence, due to Haaland’s run being away from goal. A sigh of relief for the Eagles, whose afternoon might have looked quite different if they had lost their goalkeeper so early.
Real jeopardy arrived when Tyrick Mitchell conceded a penalty for a foul on Bernardo Silva, the VAR somehow not overturning the call despite clear evidence Mitchell had got his toe on the ball.
If that felt an injustice, football did its funny old thing of levelling things out. Haaland stepped back, surprisingly, and Omar Marmoush stepped forward. Henderson stepped up. The goalkeeper leapt to his right and batted the spot-kick away, then gathered Haaland’s rebound. Palace fans must only have grown in faith, if not confidence quite yet.
Henderson was inspired throughout, saving from Jeremy Doku and the substitute Claudio Echeverri at rare moments when the Eagles’ astutely organised defence required a helping hand.
There was almost a two-goal cushion too. Munoz, awarded man of the match for a performance worth more than the £6.5million he cost last January, followed his shot in by toe-poking the rebound past Stefan Ortega. Ismaila Sarr had touched it, though, and was offside. No goal, nervy closing stages to come.
On came Jefferson Lerma, Will Hughes and Eddie Nketiah to steady the ship, to haul Palace across the line, unprecedented though that was.
As 10 minutes of stoppage time ticked down, Kevin De Bruyne tried to force the issue, this his last chance for silverware before he departs City next month. He picked the ball up from Ortega and carried forward, throwing a disparaging hand at Gvardiol as if to say ‘Buzz off’. De Bruyne immediately lost the ball, this was not his afternoon and not City’s either. It belonged to Palace.
The outpouring of emotion when the final whistle finally arrived was a release of relief in unison, decades of wondering whether Palace would ever win a major trophy cut dead in an instant. Eagles royalty watched on next to the chairman Steve Parish: Steve Coppell, Roy Hodgson, Gareth Southgate, and Mark Bright, who looked as though he had something in his eye.
Plus actual royalty. Prince William, patron of the Football Association, congratulated the Palace heroes and presented each with his winner’s medal. Then came the trophy lift to crown Crystal Palace's unforgettable day.
And so begins a party long into the night for the entire club. Don’t be surprised if they fail to even turn up to Tuesday’s league fixture against Wolves at Selhurst Park. What's the bleeding point?
