Igor Tudor: Pressure grows as Antonin Kinsky experiment backfires and raises further questions over Spurs head coach | Football News

A Champions League debut should be one of the landmark evening in any young footballer’s career – the chance to show yourself on the biggest stage and hopefully make a name for yourself. Unfortunately, Antonin Kinsky’s name will go down in infamy.

The 22-year-old’s 17-minute cameo has had every negative adjective that you can think of thrown its way, but it was simply horrendous and something you would not wish on any goalkeeper.

Kinsky slipped twice early on, allowing Antoine Griezmann and Julian Alvarez to simply walk to goals into the net. After the second, all he could do was lie on the floor with his head in his hands.

While Kinsky is responsible for his own errors, much of the blame lies squarely on Igor Tudor.

He took a gamble on a goalkeeper who is still young and had started only two Carabao Cup games since he arrived at Tottenham in January 2025. It backfired on him spectacularly.

You would guess the interim head coach was looking to shake things up after some dismal performances since he joined the club. Kinsky may also have been pushing for a start behind closed doors, but to do so in such a high-profile game when Spurs needed confidence more than anything borders on reckless.

“Before the game it was the right choice. Where we are with pressure on Vicario, Toni is a very good goalkeeper. After this it is easy to say it was not the right decision,” Tudor explained after the game.

“We might not see that kid again,” Lee Hendrie said on Soccer Special. “Being a goalkeeper and getting thrown into a game of that magnitude and coming off at that stage is demoralising. To throw him into a game like that was completely wrong.”

Tudor’s reaction to the two errors could not have been worse either and showed a shocking lack of public leadership.

Not only did he quickly backtrack on his decision by bringing on Guglielmo Vicario in the 17th minute – not even choosing to trust the reasons why he had started Kinsky in the first place – but he did not acknowledge the young goalkeeper as he walked past him and straight down the tunnel.

There was no brief hug, no sniff of an apology or any encouragement. There wasn’t even eye contact. His answer as to why after the game was similarly brusque, telling TNT Sports: “We don’t need to comment, it’s not a moment to speak too much.”

He later added in his press conference that he had spoken to Kinsky, but the on-pitch optics have already painted a poor picture.

Sky Sports News’ Michael Bridge, who was at the game in Madrid, said: “I saw Joao Palhinha and Conor Gallagher running to console Kinsky – these are players that are worried about Kinsky’s welfare… It was the ultimate humiliation.”

Kris Boyd added on Soccer Special: “Put an arm around Kinsky, and say, ‘It is on me. I have called this wrong’. To ignore him is a disgrace. If you think Kinsky is the man to start the game why would you take him off? It is another horrible decision from the manager.”

Kinsky’s calamites were reminiscent of Loris Karius’ horror show for Liverpool in the 2018 Champions League final against Real Madrid. He made two horrible errors as the Spaniards won 2-1 in Kyiv, and his career at the club never recovered.

While this was a different circumstance, you have to wonder if we ever see Kinsky again in a Spurs shirt. We have to wonder too if we’ll see Tudor in the Tottenham dugout.

His record at Spurs now reads four games, four losses, 14 goals conceded and just four scored. That is not relegation-beating form and he had no comment when asked if he deserved to carry on at the club.

What was clear from Tuesday’s game is that whatever happens between now and the end of the season, Vicario has that starting spot under lock and key.

The Italian has hardly been infallible in an increasingly dismal season for Spurs. He has been booed by his own fans, and more than once has had to come out and defend himself and his teammates.

But as it stands, he is undoubtedly Tottenham’s No1 goalkeeper and made some good saves when he came on that surely kept Spurs from even more blows.

In fact, going forward, Tottenham did pretty well. They scored twice – themselves taking advantage of Jan Oblak’s own error – and had the same number of shots as Atletico (11). They weren’t far off in most of the attacking areas, but their defensive horror show has left them with a mountain to climb next Wednesday in the return leg.

Some too may point to a series of slips from the Spurs players on a wet surface at the Estadio Metropolitano as the rain poured down in Madrid. Kinsky was not the only one, nor was he the only one who to do so that led to a goal – Micky van de Ven did too.

But Tuesday’s defeat was about far more that a tricky playing surface. Poor team selection and a lack of confidence among other issues continued to play their part, and the pressure is once again on Tudor to show he is making some kind of progress.

Tottenham travel to Liverpool on Sunday in the Premier League, live on Sky Sports, looking to take something from another team who have had a less-than-stellar season.

Whether Tudor is still there in the coming days remains to be seen, but his approach to Tuesday’s game across the board raises more questions and concerns with zero answers.