Thursday Night Fever Dreams at Selhurst Park

The Europa Conference League: where dreams go to be moderately entertained and Thursdays go to die. We find ourselves looking at a fixture that sounds like a FIFA career mode glitch from 2024. Crystal Palace, the Premier League’s most committed residents of the 13th-place suite, welcome a Fiorentina side that seems to have forgotten how to play football in Italian.

Palace sits on 42 points. They are safe, they are stable, and they are about as predictable as a bank holiday rainstorm. They’ve arrived in this competition like a person who accidentally wandered into a high-society gala while looking for the nearest Greggs. With Eberechi Eze likely the only man on the pitch capable of making the ball do anything other than sob, the Eagles will rely on the legendary Selhurst Atmosphere to intimidate a team that usually plays in the literal birthplace of the Renaissance.

Then we have Fiorentina. Ah, the Viola. Once the standard-bearers of Calcio cool, they are currently languishing in 15th place with a measly 35 points. They’ve spent the season playing like a group of visionary architects who forgot to bring the blueprints to the building site. They have the iconic purple shirts, they have the heritage, but they currently possess the defensive structural integrity of a wet panettone.

This is a clash of teams who are essentially OUT OF OFFICE in their domestic leagues. Expect Palace to huff and puff with physical intensity, while Fiorentina tries to look aesthetically pleasing while losing their markers at every single corner. It’s the game absolutely NOBODY asked for, which means it will probably be a weirdly entertaining chaos-fest that defies all logic.

Fiorentina will pass it around beautifully for eighty minutes, achieve absolutely nothing of note, and then watch as a deflected Palace cross ends up in the back of the net during stoppage time. It is the Conference League way.

Bold prediction: Crystal Palace 1-0 Fiorentina