Oliver Glasner is a storyteller, but there is one tale to which he has repeatedly returned when discussing Crystal Palace’s run to the UEFA Conference League final.

It is a reflection on his approach to important games. An explanation of how he manages the fitness levels of a squad, and how, early in his managerial career, he made a decision which proved to be a mistake — one which has since informed his outlook ahead of those most critical of matches.

“It’s an experience I had when I was a young manager in Austria,” Glasner said in his press conference before a 2-2 draw with Arsenal last April, a fixture where Palace had an FA Cup semi-final against Aston Villa three days later. “We played a midweek game,  a cup game against a non-League team, and we had a derby at the weekend. I changed 11 players.

“It was an awful game, the cup game. We still won 2-1, but it was awful. Then we went into the next round, so we thought, ‘OK, well, everything was at least how we planned it’. Every player was fit and could prepare for the derby. But we lost 2-0. I said I would never do it again.”

That sums up the way he prepares: an element of superstition, an intense amount of planning, meticulous detail and a reflection on what he has done in the past. What worked once may not always work, but he prefers consistency and believes in his approach.

Glasner is now experienced in these moments; the ones upon which careers are defined.

He achieved success with Eintracht Frankfurt in the Europa League, winning its final on penalties against Rangers in 2022, and then lifted the FA Cup with Palace, defeating Manchester City last May. That was the club’s first major honour and was followed up with victory on penalties over Premier League champions Liverpool to lift the Community Shield in August.

Now come Rayo Vallecano of Spain in the German city of Leipzig tonight (Wednesday) and, barely believably, the possibility of a third piece of significant silverware for Palace in 13 months.

Palace will not have trained at the RB Arena, the venue for this final, prior to arriving there for the match.

For UEFA ties, visiting teams are permitted to train in the hosts’ stadium on the eve of the game, but Glasner’s men have only twice conducted their final session on the other club’s pitch in their eight Conference League away games up to this point — against Fredrikstad in the play-off round back in August and AEK Larnaca in the last 16. And for the latter, it was simply due to logistics given the longer flight duration to Cyprus.

Much of the approach, and in particular the decision on where to train, is informed by Glasner’s triumph with Frankfurt four years ago, when they held their all pre-game sessions at their own training ground. He believes that what worked for him and his side back then is largely the best approach now, even at a different club.

“Every experience you have in life can help you,” he told reporters last week. “I’m always looking back. ‘What did we do with Frankfurt? (Did we) train at the stadium, (or) at home and fly after?’. What do we do on matchday? Where did we have a good experience or not?

“It was the same with the FA Cup last season. But then it’s also a feeling, when I see the players (and think), ‘What do I need?’. Not everything that worked at Frankfurt will work at Crystal Palace. ‘Do they look nervous? Do they look maybe too confident? What does it need?’. It’s a feeling you get.

“It’s always a balance, and when you play a final it can be that you want too much, that this and that must be perfect, and then you are not free. But you need to be free. There is a reason we are playing in this final. The players have done really well.”

Oliver Glasner has gauged the mood of his players to determine what will work best for them ahead of this final (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)

The differences in how Glasner approaches important games are primarily psychological, although he is obsessive over player fitness and ensuring they are looked after.

Brennan Johnson only joined Palace in January, so was not involved in last season’s FA Cup success. But a player who scored the winning goal for Tottenham in the Europa League final 12 months ago has sensed when his new team-mates have tapped into memories of their own victory last May.

“There’ve been little bits (drawing on the FA Cup and Community Shield wins),” the Wales international told reporters last week. “We’ve had so many games, so we haven’t really been able to think about the final too much. But there are games where we look back to the FA Cup, and he (Glasner) shows what it meant to everyone. Just playing in the final. I feel like we’ve got to look back to that.

“As we were getting through the stages (of the Conference League), I had a few questions about whether it’s similar or different to last year, but I haven’t had to give out too much advice. It’s not just me who’s been in this position. A few lads have played in European finals as well. So it just naturally seeps through to everyone.”

Glasner has only revealed the specifics of the logistics around this fixture after the team were in situ at their base in Germany.

The squad had dinner together last night, before being given freedom to spend the evening as they wished. This morning, Glasner intends to offer them an opportunity to sleep later before breakfast, if they choose. Then the squad are scheduled to play some head tennis as “activation”. While not unique to major finals or the biggest games, it is especially important to him that his players relax.

“Everybody is a little bit excited, and it’s a long day (kick-off is 9pm local time),” he said upon arrival in Leipzig. “This 30 minutes when the players play (head) tennis is one of the best moments for me, because I see kids playing football. We have so much fun. Everybody wants to win, but they are laughing and joking, and I’m sitting there just watching and having a big smile.

“I always get a good feeling how the players are. I hope they also are laughing and joking, and they are not calm and introverted because they’re nervous. They should who they are, and then we have the best chance to show a great performance.”

Glasner will ask his players to play head tennis on Wednesday as “activation” ahead of the final (Sebastian Frej/Getty Images)

Since Palace’s win over AEK to reach the quarter-finals of the Conference League, Glasner has given his players a better balance in their time off. The day after a game, they would ordinarily be in at their training ground in Beckenham, south-east London, for a recovery session but, instead, they have been afforded an extra day’s break — so long as the match result was positive.

“On matchday, this is my experience from my first final, I will have a nice breakfast, we will have a good meeting, and I will go to the gym to be ready in the evening,” Glasner explained after that win over the Cypriots.

Rhythm is a word that he has used repeatedly. He did it before the FA Cup final last summer, and he has referenced it throughout the Conference League when it comes to the knockout stages. He wrestled with whether to rest and rotate his team for the final Premier League game of the season against Arsenal on Sunday, conscious that it was Palace’s 59th match of an exceptional campaign.

When Arsenal clinched the title in midweek, any concerns about competitive integrity were pushed aside, although he still had not settled on his starting XI until 8pm on Saturday.

When playing against teams with whom he and his staff are less familiar, and the game is more crucial, Glasner becomes more concerned with matters directly, and oversees preparations personally as opposed to relying too heavily on others’ video analysis.

He travelled to watch opponents Fiorentina before the quarter-final, and did so again for Shakhtar Donetsk, who Palace played in the last four. Last week, he watched Rayo defeat Valencia. Everything is about the finer details.

“We can’t influence what Rangers do, but we can influence what we do, how we play, what we set out to do and how we implement that,” he said in his press conference ahead of that Europa League final four years ago. “I want to win on the basis of our strengths and not the weaknesses of the opponents. That’s how we’re preparing.”

The same has been true at Palace. In his press conference after their 2-0 win at Tottenham Hotspur the weekend before last season’s FA Cup final, his message was the same.

“It’s (about) showing what we can do, who we are on our best level, and this is how we will enter the final,” he said then. “The worst thing we could do now is change many things, because we can’t teach the players something different in four days — it would just make them dizzy. So, business as usual.”

His message was virtually identical ahead of that final.

Oliver Glasner believes too much change would “dizzy” the players ahead of a big game (John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images)

That is also why, in the run-up to tonight’s match, his meetings with staff — assistants Michael Angerschmid, Ronald Brunmayr, Emanuel Pogatetz, Paddy McCarthy and James Holland, as well as the analysts — have dragged on, sometimes lasting as long as five hours, with an unbroken focus.

The attention in these meetings is far less on Palace and much more on the opposition. Consistency and familiarity are already there in what his own team do and how they play, so there is less need to work on those aspects.

Glasner held meetings focusing solely on the Conference League final earlier than usual, summoning his staff last week, even with that Premier League finale still to be played against Arsenal.

“We usually don’t do it when we have a league game to play, but we started showing the players (clips of Rayo) last week,” he said in his pre-match press conference in Leipzig on Tuesday. “(We showed) when Rayo played a back three, when they played against a back three, when they played a back four, when they had more possession, less possession.”

It is an approach which is praised by Palace captain Dean Henderson, who spoke positively about it last week.

“The manager’s so good, he’ll take every opposition differently,” said the England goalkeeper. “He’ll focus on their game plan to stop them and obviously hurt them the other way. So yes, it’s been quite unique.”

Coaches Emanuel Pogatetz and Michael Angerschmid watch training with Glasner (Sebastian Frej/Getty Images)

Despite the lengthy talks with his staff beforehand, the video sessions and meetings with players are kept as short as possible so as to ensure maximum focus and avoid weariness. But detail and precision remain essential.

“It’s about (Glasner’s) experience,” defender Maxence Lacroix told reporters. “He already won the Europa League. He knows how stressful it is, and how you have to prepare for this type of occasion. He gave us everything that we need to win.

“He doesn’t like (long meetings), but he knows that this is really important, because finals and high-level football is about details. We have to be focused on every single detail, every single minute.”

While there are no lengthy speeches about the importance of the games, Glasner is able to build his players up in a different way.

“He (gives) us the energy,” Lacroix said. “When he (comes) in the training ground, when we (are) in training, he (gives) us the desire to fight.”

And then comes the day of the game.

On a personal level, Glasner keeps things light in the final moments. Before the FA Cup final, he went to the gym to expend his own nervous energy, and he will do the same again before today’s game.

He is not immune from stress in the last hour before kick-off, after his final words have been delivered to the team, but there is confidence that his players are as ready as they possibly can be because of that meticulous focus with which he prepared them.

It should be acknowledged that his record in significant matches is not perfect.

Could Glasner follow up Palace’s FA Cup success with the UEFA Conference League title? (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)

His Wolfsburg side lost 2-0 to AEK Athens in the final qualifying round for the Europa League in 2020, and by the same score against RB Leipzig in the quarter-finals of that season’s DFB-Pokal — Germany’s FA Cup.

There was a defeat with Frankfurt in the final of the same competition, against the same opponent in 2023, and they were also soundly beaten by Napoli in the last 16 of the Champions League that season. Frankfurt also lost 2-0 to Real Madrid in the 2022 UEFA Super Cup, too. 

But what is clear is that he has sought to learn from those disappointments in an attempt to perfect his approach. 

Palace will go into this final extremely well prepared. They will know Rayo’s strengths and weaknesses. They will be aware of the game plan Glasner has come up with to beat them. Now it will be up to the players to stay true to themselves and put that strategy into practice.