Crystal Palace began their first major European campaign with a 1-0 victory over Fredrikstad at Selhurst Park in the opening leg of their Conference League play-off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jean-Philippe Mateta scored the decisive goal in the 54th minute after Fredrikstad failed to clear a Borna Sosa throw-in. The ball fell to Will Hughes, whose shot brought the chance; Mateta guided the effort into the net to give the hosts their first European goal of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eberechi Eze was absent from the team sheet, with reports that he is edging closer to completing a \u00a360million move to Arsenal. Oliver Glasner had initially insisted Eze would start, but told Channel 5 before the contest that the 27-year-old had phoned him on Thursday morning to say he did not feel well. Justin Devenny replaced Eze and was involved in early attempts to create opportunities for Ismaila Sarr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marc Guehi captained the side and was handed a place in the starting line-up amid continued links to Liverpool. The contest was not a runaway in Palace\u2019s favour; the hosts only created their first clear chance after roughly 15 minutes when Guehi nodded over from Jefferson Lerma\u2019s long throw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Palace enjoyed periods of control and fashioned several opportunities. Mateta tested keeper Martin Borsheim earlier, Lerma volleyed goalwards, and Adam Wharton fired a low effort through traffic. Mateta later struck the post with a deflected attempt from distance. After the goal, Daniel Munoz came close to a second when his header hit the outside of the right post. Odsonne Edouard saw a strike blocked by a black shirt and Lerma nodded wide. In stoppage time Henrik Skogvold shot just past Dean Henderson\u2019s far post for Fredrikstad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Palace had expected Europa League participation after lifting the FA Cup in May, but a demotion to the Conference League followed UEFA\u2019s findings on multi-club ownership and the Court of Arbitration for Sport\u2019s rejection of their appeal. Supporters made their displeasure clear during the tie with a banner reading “UEFA Mafia” and chants aimed at UEFA and Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mateta’s 54th-minute header secured a 1-0 win for Palace in the Conference League play-off first leg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[465],"tags":[216,414,812],"class_list":["post-1942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crystal-palace","tag-adam-wharton","tag-eberechi-eze","tag-jean-philippe-mateta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1944,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942\/revisions\/1944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}