Tottenham goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky breaks silence after Atletico Madrid ‘nightmare’ | OneFootball

Tottenham goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky has expressed gratitude to well-wishers following a disastrous Champions League outing against Atletico Madrid on Tuesday.

Interim head coach Igor Tudor's decision to hand the 22-year-old his first start since October in the last-16 first leg at Riyadh Air Metropolitano quickly unravelled.

Kinsky's opportunity turned into a horror show, beginning when he slipped, allowing Marcos Llorente to open the scoring after just six minutes.

The situation worsened dramatically as he conceded again in the 14th minute, and a mere 92 seconds later, a scuffed kick gifted Julian Alvarez an easy tap-in into an empty net.

The young stopper was substituted after a mere 17 minutes, seemingly ignored by boss Tudor.

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Antonin Kinsky was subbed off in the 17th minute (Denis Doyle/Getty Images)

However, he found solace in the support of captain Cristian Romero and Kevin Danso as he departed the pitch, with substitutes Joao Palhinha, Conor Gallagher, and Dominic Solanke also rushing down the tunnel to offer comfort.

In a post on his Instagram story on Wednesday evening, Kinsky reflected: “Thanks for the messages.

“From dream to nightmare to dream again. See you.”

Kinsky can use the painful experience of his “great walk of shame” against Atletico as motivation to bounce back, according to a leading sports psychologist.

Andrew Lane, professor of sport psychology at the University of Wolverhampton, insists that while Kinsky “will not be in a very good place” at the moment, the events in Madrid could see him return a stronger person and player.

“Those types of mistakes, you will not be able to avoid them, but you have a real angry response at yourself,” Lane told the Press Association.

“(He will ask), ‘Why did I fall over? ‘Why did I slip? Why didn’t I have the right boots on’? And you start introspecting – ‘Could I have noticed this in the warm-up’?

“He will be going through all of those questions and feel real intense negative emotions, then (after) he did it again and to be pulled off – that in itself is the great walk of shame.

“(There was) not an immediate bit of emotional support from anybody as he comes off, which I think is quite surprising.

“Everyone would know you would feel terrible at that moment and for him as a person going forward, the emotional support (of saying), ‘Are you all right? We will get over this’ was really absent.”

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(Action Images via Reuters/Matthew Childs)

Manchester United and Denmark great Peter Schmeichel said Tudor had “killed Kinsky’s career”, but Lane feels, when the dust settles, the former Slavia Prague player will be able to regroup.

“He has got a future (going) forwards, absolutely,” Lane said. “The team have not been doing very well – and that is not all down to him.

“It is one game and everyone has a bad game, everyone makes mistakes.”

Lane added: “Negative emotions are quite good points of learning.

“You can sit in that dressing room and you can just say, ‘I am not going here again and I am going to make sure I am OK’.

“You have got to that position (as a professional player) by doing lots of good things and it is about remembering those good things and looking to reproduce those again.”

Spurs centre-back Danso backed “great goalkeeper” Kinsky to bounce back.

“It’s a difficult situation but we as a team will definitely get around him,” Danso insisted.

“These things happen. Unfortunately it happened to him, but he’s a great goalkeeper and he’s definitely going to bounce back.”