Oliver Glasner has used his farewell letter to frame the end of his Crystal Palace spell on his own terms. He spent two years and four months in charge, told chairman Steve Parish in October that he did not want to sign a contract extension and would step down at season’s end, and then wrote after the night in Leipzig, calling it the most magnificent evening.
The timing matters because the letter arrives straight after Palace’s first-ever major silverware, with Glasner saying the Leipzig night was the perfect ending. He thanked supporters for a period he says will stay with him for the rest of his life, and that is the version of this exit that feels most important: not a cold departure note, but a manager explaining why the club meant so much to him.
How Leipzig shaped the farewell
Glasner’s strongest line is the most revealing one. “I arrived at Selhurst Park as a stranger. Now I feel like a South Londoner,” he wrote, which is a neat summary of how quickly he appears to have settled inside the club’s culture.
He also said what he was most proud of was being part of a team built together, with the bond between players, staff, Steve Parish and the board, and most importantly the supporters. That is the clearest thread in the letter. The success is there, but so is the sense that Palace’s identity under him was built around the group rather than one star or one result.
The football side backs that up. Palace won six Conference League matches, with three wins, one draw and two losses, and finished with a +5 goal difference, scoring 11 and conceding 6. They also beat Rayo Vallecano in the final on 2026-05-27, which is the concrete reason Leipzig sits at the centre of the farewell.
What comes next for Palace and Glasner
The club’s domestic league finish was 15th in the Premier League with 45 points, so the European run has done most of the work in shaping how this spell will be remembered. Palace also won the Community Shield and qualified for the Europa League after the Conference League triumph, so Glasner is leaving with more than one line on his CV.
There is also a future layer to this. Football Italia says Glasner will be a free agent from June 30 when his Crystal Palace contract runs down, and reports that AC Milan are leaning more toward him than Matthias Jaissle for their next coach. That is not a confirmed move, but it does mean this goodbye may not stay a goodbye for long.
For Palace, the immediate story is simple enough. They have a departing manager who has already written his own farewell, and they go into the next stage with the memory of Leipzig, the first major trophy in the club’s history, and an open question over who follows him next.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 4 outlets. How we work →
