Did Cristian Romero instruct Igor Tudor to substitute Antonin Kinsky on Tottenham’s disastrous night in Madrid? | OneFootball

It was hard to know who came out worse from Tottenham’s 17 minutes of madness at the Metropolitano. Was it Antonin Kinsky, the goalkeeper who handed Atletico Madrid the tie on a plate, attempting to muddle on through the chaos like a Buster Keaton character as the entire city collapsed around him? Or was it Igor Tudor, the merciless manager who threw Kinsky into the fire on his Champions League debut, only to pull him out again after the move backfired so spectacularly?

Kinsky will never leave this baggage behind. Every interview he ever does, every profile of the man, will use this nadir as the reference point for whatever follows now, whether it be his banishment from elite football or his courageous rise back to the top of the game.

Speaking on CNN, an enraged Peter Schmeichel suggested Tudor had “completely destroyed” the 22-year-old’s career. Yet it might be the other way around. Kinsky could one day play for Spurs under a different manager, as improbable as that looks right now. But surely Tudor is cooked by this shambles, his reign over after four games which proved somehow even more disastrous than what came before.

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Cristian Romero consoles Antonin Kinsky as the goalkeeper leaves the field (AFP/Getty)

It was Tudor who selected the team. It was Tudor who made perhaps the most humiliating substitution in Champions League history. And it was Tudor who chose to ignore Kinsky as he left the field in distress. The Atletico Madrid fans did a better job consoling the keeper than his manager with their smattering of sympathetic applause.

Then, in the aftermath of Tottenham’s 5-2 defeat, a video emerged which seemed to suggest Tudor had been encouraged to make the substitution by his captain. Cristian Romero could be seen walking over to the manager standing on the touchline after Atletico’s third goal, which Kinsky gift-wrapped for Julian Alvarez with a miskicked pass inside his own penalty area.

Romero muttered something in Tudor’s ear and Tudor immediately turned to the Spurs bench to indicate a substitution with the internationally recognised wind-the-bobbin-up signal. Moments later, Kinsky was replaced by Tottenham’s first-choice goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario.

Asked after the match whether Romero had instructed him to replace Kinsky, Tudor shook his head. He added: “We don’t need to comment. We don’t need to speak too much. I explained to Toni [Kinsky], also speaking after, that he is the right guy and a good goalkeeper. Unfortunately, it happened in this big game, these mistakes.”

It is not the first uncomfortable clip to emerge in recent weeks. Another video from the stands, taking during Spurs’ 4-1 defeat in the north London derby, appeared to show Micky van de Ven ignoring instructions from Tudor on the touchline. Tudor denied that was the case and it should be said that these videos, usually taken by fans and uploaded to social media as zoomed-in snippets without context, should always be viewed with a healthy dose of scepticism about what they really show.

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Igor Tudor turns his back during Atletico Madrid’s dominant victory (Getty)

The clip from Madrid may not tell the whole story. Perhaps Tudor had already instructed Vicario to get ready before speaking to Romero. Perhaps they were discussing something else, like whether you can play rush goalie in the Champions League. And clearly Tudor has taken on a horrible job, one in which no one has been able to muster sustained success since Mauricio Pochettino. To pick up the pieces in the middle of a season is an unenviable task at a club which increasingly appears to be built from paper mache.

But the narrative that has enveloped Tudor in such a short space of time is impossible to ignore. The Croatian appears out of control: of his squad, of his selection, of his back-five approach which has been picked off easily by each opponent. Kinsky may one day return, but surely Tudor cannot come back from this.