This will be the first time the two sides have met since Palace emerged victorious at The Den back in 2021/22, and the first time the Eagles have hosted their South London rivals at Selhurst Park in over a decade.
The key quotes from Oliver Glasner’s pre-Millwall press conference
Ahead of Palace’s FA Cup fifth round clash against rivals Millwall (Saturday, 1st March, KO: 12:15 GMT) Oliver Glasner shared his thoughts on the opposition and the atmosphere.
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On the prospect of facing Millwall…
I'm expecting a great game in a great environment. Full, sold-out, Selhurst Park and lovely weather is predicted. I think that's why we all love football, in the FA Cup it's Saturday, high noon, so everything will be warm.
We have to show it tomorrow, so I don't talk about winning the FA Cup when we were around the plus 16 now. We're facing a good Millwall side, yeah, with confidence and they will try to take their chance. So it makes no sense talking about winning a trophy when we were around the plus 16.
It's just talking about the next game and that's Millwall. We're prepared, like we prepare every single opposition and, as I mentioned, they have a new manager since January and a clear structure in play.
I like what I could see on the screen, but I talked to the players today in our meeting and he said we don't care which team we have to play, which team we are facing, because we want to win the game and especially we want to win it in our way.
We want to play like Crystal Palace is playing and if we do this on a top level, we know that we can beat any team. This is what we showed, what we proved, but we also know if we don't do that on a top level, we can struggle against any team.
So it's really just focusing on what we want to do, what we need to do, and having respect for the Millwall team, for the manager.
On his memories of intense games and rivalries…
Of course, winning the Europa League, one of the best cup competitions [I’ve ever been involved with]. We were winning it and at the end it was the last penalty, [I had] goosebumps over my whole body - the last player scores a goal and we win at the Camp Nou in front of 85,000 it was an unbelievable atmosphere.
We’ve faced [incredible atmospheres] many times. Of course it will be a great game, as I mentioned at the beginning: this is why we love football, this is why we love cup games. Everything’s ready for a big football party on Saturday.
On winning the Europa League and the mental approach to games…
I'm pretty sure it didn't change me as a person, because I never want to be defined as a person by being successful or not. So, I think everybody should judge me like I am as a person, not if I am successful as a manager or not.
Of course, as a manager, every win, every defeat gives you new experiences. Every journey, every stage, every club, you get new experiences and you can learn from this. It's the same with me, when I think in the Premier League - there are many managers winning big trophies, especially the Champions League.
For me, I don't feel it's really difficult because our approach is always the same. We take every single game seriously. I mention it quite often: if you play a friendly game, I want to see the same desire, I want to see the patterns we are training, I want to see the things we are talking about in every single game.
This is sometimes a little bit new or different for some players, they may think ‘oh it’s a friendly game I’ll only play at 80%,’ I don't like this, because we always play for us as a team, we always play for ourselves and then to improve and to improve.
In sports you can perform great and you can lose a game. You can be unlucky, you can hit the post, get a red card or something. That's sports, but afterwards, saying afterwards, ‘ah we could have done more, we could have done a little bit more.’
I think this is when you blame yourself. You can't blame anybody if he misses a chance, you can't blame someone else if he makes a mistake, because we are all human beings and this is how we are.
But we can blame each other if we don't have 100% effort. This is what we expect in every single training session, this is what we expect in every single game, regardless if it's a friendly game, a FA Cup or a Premier League game.
That's why I don't feel it's really difficult, but I know it's easy to talk about it, but we have to prove it tomorrow on the pitch.