At a Glance
- Crystal Palace beat Larnaca
- The Eagles are in the Conference League quarter-finals
- The club have earned a cool amount of prize money
Crystal Palace have booked their place in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa Conference League. A 2-1 win (AET) against AEK Larnaca on Thursday (March 19th) kept the European dream alive.
The tie was level at 0-0 heading into last night’s game at AEK Arena in Cyprus. Ismaila Sarr broke the deadlock in the 13th minute, but Larnaca found an equaliser through Enric Saborit.
The left-back was then sent off 10 minutes later and the tie headed to extra-time. Sarr came to the fore again, scoring the winner to fire the Eagles into the next round of the competition.
Crystal Palace bag over £1m
Palace’s debut European campaign continued as a result of a hard-fought win over both legs against Larnaca. They became the first team this season to score more than one goal against the Cypriots.
Steve Parish will also be celebrating the victory from a financial standpoint. Football statistic platform Football Meets Data revealed that the win added €1.3m (£1.12m) in prize money for the South Londoners.
It means Palace have earned €10.9m (£9.45m) throughout their Conference League campaign thus far. The winners of the competition stand to earn £6.1m (via GIVEMESPORT), and that would be a welcome sum of money to add to the transfer budget this summer.
Lacroix on ‘important win’
From a sporting perspective, Palace’s victory was vital as it ensured Oliver Glasner’s men face Fiorentina in the quarter-finals. The Conference League is the club’s sole focus for the remainder of the season and it would be a perfect way to end Glasner’s reign.
Maxence Lacroix was impressive yet again at the back and he will be a key man should the Eagles win another major trophy come May. He spoke to Palace TV after overcoming a tough Larnaca side:
“A long day, but a really important win. I think we deserved it. You can see with the statistics that we shoot a lot, but they played really well, to be honest. And until the very end, we kept on going, so it’s perfect.”
Lacroix added: “This is the thing that we’ve learned a lot: to be patient, to wait for the good passes, the good runs and the good moments in front of goal. To be honest, they did very well defensively. It was not easy, but in the end, we scored two beautiful goals.“
Palace face Fiorentina in the next round and Lacroix is confident that his side will take their chances against the Italians:
“We could’ve scored three or four, but we didn’t take the chances – we’ll take them against Fiorentina.”
Glasner’s men now have a lengthy break because of international football. Their game against Manchester City this weekend is postponed due to the Carabao Cup final between the Cityzens and Arsenal on Sunday.
