Crystal Palace reach first European semi-final after Fiorentina triumph

Crystal Palace turned a difficult night in Florence into a landmark for the club, surviving a 2-1 defeat to Fiorentina on Thursday, April 16, 2026, to advance 4-2 on aggregate and reach their first European semi-final.

The tie was effectively built a week earlier at Selhurst Park, where Palace won 3-0 on April 9 and gave themselves the kind of cushion that can define a first full continental campaign. In the second leg at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, Palace were forced to absorb pressure and manage the game without the control they had enjoyed at home, but the aggregate margin held and history followed with it.

For Palace, the path to the last four has underlined both progress and fit. The Conference League has given Oliver Glasner’s side a competition that has matched their current stage of development better than Europe’s more demanding brackets might have done, with a schedule and level that have allowed Palace to build rhythm, identity and belief. Wins over AEK Larnaca, Zrinjski Mostar, Dynamo Kyiv and AZ Alkmaar carried the club into the quarter-finals, where Fiorentina, regulars at this stage of European competition, represented the biggest test yet.

The run also sits inside a wider rise that began with Palace’s 2025 FA Cup triumph at Wembley Stadium on May 17, 2025. Eberechi Eze scored the only goal in the 1-0 win over Manchester City, and Dean Henderson’s first-half penalty save preserved the club’s first major trophy. That victory earned Palace entry into European football for the first time, though UEFA later moved the club from the Europa League into the Conference League over multi-club ownership rules, a decision Palace said left them “extremely dismayed” and one that was later upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Glasner, who won the Europa League with Eintracht Frankfurt in 2021/22, called the semi-final place a “massive achievement”, and Palace’s manager had warned after the first leg that the contest in Florence was only half done. That caution proved justified when Adam Wharton and Maxence Lacroix both went off injured in the first half, adding fresh concern to an already demanding European push.

Palace will now face Shakhtar Donetsk for a place in the final, which is scheduled for Leipzig on Tuesday, May 26, 2026. For a club playing its first full European campaign, the Conference League has become more than a consolation route. It has become a platform for credibility, momentum and a genuine chance to win silverware.