Crystal Palace defied all odds to win the 2025 FA Cup after stunning Manchester City in the final on May 17.

A solo goal from Eberechi Eze was enough to help the Eagles to their first-ever major trophy at Manchester City's expense.

It was another disappointing outing for Pep Guardiola, who will now see his side go trophyless for the first time since his first season in England. City had earlier won the Community Shield, but that is not classified as a major trophy.

It was a calculated game from Oliver Glasner, who had previously sent a stern warning to Guardiola. Palace lost to Manchester City 5-2 in the Premier League in April, but after the game, Glasner was confident it wouldn't happen again.

"I told Pep after the game that he can't play this system (again), because we will beat it."

Palace sat back for most periods of the game but made City sweat with their counterattacks. It was from one of those forays forward that Daniel Munoz picked out Eze in the box, who planted his shot past Stefan Ortega in the City goal.

Palace are set to smile all the way to the bank thanks to the prize purse that comes with winning the oldest cup competition in the world.

As captured on the Football Association website, the winner takes home £2,000,000 (approximately KSh 348 million). Manchester City will get half of that awarded to the losing finalists.

However, and of greater consequence, the Eagles have qualified for European football for the first time in their history. Winning the FA Cup guarantees direct qualification to the league phase of the Europa League next season.

Palace are currently 12th in the Premier League and are highly unlikely to qualify for Europe via their league standing. It is the same route that this year's Europa League finalists, Manchester United, used last season.

The Europa League will come with more benefits for the Selhurst Park tenants as they will compete for the £477 million prize purse. The overall winner gets over £16.6 million (approximately KSH 2.8 billion).

The winner of the Europa League also qualifies for the Champions League. Their manager, Glasner, won the competition in 2022 when he was Eintracht Frankfurt's manager.

Palace's win wasn't well received by other Premier League clubs who were seeking to qualify for European football next season. Had Manchester City won the FA Cup and qualified for their Champions League, their Europa League spot would have been handed to the next team on the table.

However, as it stands, positions one to five will qualify for the Champions League, position six and Crystal Palace will qualify for the Europa League, while position seven will be a Conference League spot.

This might still change if Chelsea wins the Conference League and finishes seventh, then eighth place will qualify for the Conference League as the Blues will play in the Europa League next season.

In a related report, VAR has explained why Dean Henderson wasn't sent off vs Manchester City.

The Crystal Palace goalkeeper handled the ball outside his area, denying Guardiola's side a scoring opportunity, but VAR thought otherwise.

Henderson was the man of the match after making a couple of strong stops, including a penalty save.

Source: TUKO.co.ke