Crystal Palace F.C. - Lech Poznań 4:0

After a successful qualifying campaign, Lech returned to the Europa League for the first time in six years. Frederiksen’s side will compete in eight league-phase games - four at home and four away. The competition will be played over a five-month period, with all 36 teams playing their fixtures and collecting points that will ultimately determine qualification for the next round. For their opening fixture, Lech travelled to London to face Crystal Palace - the winners of the previous edition of the Conference League.

The Poznań side started the match with plenty of aggression. As early as the second minute, Patrik Wålemark delivered the ball from the right, setting up a fantastic opportunity for Mikael Ishak. The Swede fired a shot, but the ball went just wide of the hosts’ goal. Seconds later, Lech launched another attack. This time, the 24-year-old winger struck a powerful effort, but Benítez caught the ball. In the 10th minute, the hosts capitalised on Lech's mistake when restarting play from a throw-in, and Pino put Crystal Palace ahead. Frederiksen's squad tried to respond - following a beautiful pass from Murawski, Ishak found himself in a great situation, but his effort was slightly too powerful and sailed over the crossbar. Before halftime, Crystal Palace extended their lead over the Polish side. First, Richards headed home from a corner, and shortly later, Larsen converted a penalty. Just before the end of the first half, Terry Yegbe put the ball into his own net while attempting to intervene, but fortunately for Lech, the referee ruled it out for offside.

After the break, both teams continued to look for opportunities - each of the sides threatened the opposition's goal several times, but the next goal did not arrive until the closing stages. From the 87th minute onwards, Lech had to play with ten men. Radosław Murawski was shown a second yellow card and sent off, and just seconds later, Crystal Palace won possession and advanced towards the penalty area. Nketiah raced past the Lech defenders before completing the scoring at 4:0.

Lech still have seven matches remaining in the league phase of the Europa League. However, before returning to the European arena, they face Radomiak Radom, followed by a three-week international break.