Breaking down Kinsky's substitution vs Atletico Madrid last night.
Antonin Kinsky will have awoken this morning wondering if it was all real.
The 22 year old Czech goalkeeper endured a nightmare Champions League debut last night at the hands of both a ruthless Atletico Madrid attack, and his own manager Igor Tudor.
Tudor, already under pressure only weeks into his new role as Tottenham Hotspur manager, chose to start Kinsky over Guglielmo Vicario for the Round of 16 tie.
Despite Spurs’ poor league form, Vicario had kept the most clean sheets of any goalkeeper in the Champions League this season prior to the fixture in Madrid, with six in eight matches. Post-match, Tudor justified his selection of Kinsky simply by stating that ‘playing Kinsky was the right call, he’s a talented GK. Then something happened… I’ve never seen anything like this in 15 years.’
So what happened?
Spurs found themselves 3-0 down within 14 minutes and 59 seconds at the Wanda Metropolitano - the earliest a team had ever fallen three goals behind in a Champions League knockout match.
Two of those goals had come from two admittedly disastrous moments from Kinsky - though one was more outright an error than the other.
On the five minute mark, the Spurs goalkeeper slipped in the six yard box attempting to clear the ball long, skewing his kick with the ball picked up by the Atletico attack on the edge of the penalty area. Marcos Llorente eventually finished low and hard past Kinsky. The Czech goalkeeper seemed to slightly misread the shot, reluctant to fully extend as the drive fizzed into his bottom right hand corner.
As with many goalkeeper errors, the reality of the situation is never black and white. Had one of the four Spurs defenders managed to nick the ball away from one of Atletico’s attackers, or got a block in as Llorente’s struck the ball, then we may not be writing this article, and Kinsky may well have gone on to have an uneventful night. Jamie Carragher and Thierry Henry both picked up on Spurs’ defensive disorganisation when dissecting last night’s events.
But the goalkeeper position is a confidence position. And the 22 year old suddenly looked like he was feeling the pressure.
The more glaring moment came with Atletico’s third goal. Kinsky again slipped trying to clear, but this time skewed the ball straight into the path of Julian Alvarez. The Czech goalkeeper resigned himself to his fate, burying his head in the turf as Alvarez finished into an empty net.
And then Kinsky’s evening was over. Tudor hauled the young goalkeeper off in place of Vicario in the sixteenth minute, failing to even acknowledge him as the teammates consoled him down the tunnel. Kinsky even drew a pitiful round of applause from the Atletico faithful. TNT Sports’ commentary pairing of Darren Fletcher and Ally McCoist expressed their disbelief.
‘That’s on the manager,’ Fletcher exclaimed immediately. McCoist played devil’s advocate. ‘You could make the argument he’s got to do it, because you cannot make mistakes like that…schoolboy errors,’ though admitted he felt for Kinsky.
But they weren’t really ‘schoolboy errors’ in the typical sense. Kinsky slipped, twice. It’s not an excuse, but a true representation of what happened.
There is little room for bad luck in goalkeeping, and no room under the lights in the Champions League knockout rounds. Stud trouble, misfitting boots, or a lack of concentration or distraction, Kinsky really drew the short straw last night.
In the studio, Joe Hart and Steve McMannaman slammed Tudor’s decision.
‘He's had a bad 14 minutes, there's absolutely no getting away from it. Even the stadium is feeling sorry for him. You see Tudor doesn't even acknowledge his goalie. If that's man management, I'm flabbergasted’, remarked the ex-England number one live on TNT Sports.
‘He's acted like that's not the 14th minute and that doesn't happen at any level, I'm talking Sunday league. This is the Champions League. Yes, he's had a bad moment. Has he done it on purpose? Course he hasn't. Stand by your team, send a message. No, [he] stands there, pretends it's not happening, and moves on’, Hart continued.
On social media, Manchester United legend David De Gea perhaps summarised it best: ‘No one who hasn't been a goalkeeper can understand how difficult it is to play in this position. Keep your head up and you will go again.’
The Spaniard captured the sentiment that most fans were feeling.
Is Kinsky’s career really ‘over’?
On CBS Sports, Premier League legend Peter Schmeichel commented that "this will be a moment that everybody in football will remember when they see or hear (Kinsky's) name...You've got to stick with him at least until half-time... He's absolutely killed his career. I feel really sorry for him."
Thousands of others echoed words to this effect on social media.
The sentiment is understandable - this will linger on the goalkeeper’s CV like a bad smell - but last night doesn’t seem career-ending.
As mentioned, many comments seem to use Karius’ Champions League Final disaster in 2018 with Liverpool as a benchmark for the consequences of high-profile errors, but the circumstances of Karius’ errors were totally different.
First, the scale of the match was entirely different. A Round of 16 first leg tie will not go down in history in the same way as Liverpool's first Champions League final in 11 years. The stakes simply aren’t as high. It may not have seemed that way in the moment last night, but zooming out, this fixture won’t have the same longevity - especially if Spurs' season continues on its current trajectory.
Second, Karius wasn’t in a position to receive some respite due to age, career experience, or the decision to play him. Nobody else was going to play in that final apart from Karius. He already had two - nearly three - full Bundesliga seasons under his belt and made 19 appearances for Liverpool in the 2017/18 season.
In comparison, Kinsky has made six appearances for Spurs, with the bulk of his career outings coming in the Czech leagues. The expectations simply aren’t the same, exemplified by the common questioning of why Kinsky had been selected for such an occasion in the first place. In an odd way, this helps his case.
Antonin Kinsky is 22. We shouldn’t forget that he gained several plaudits on his Spurs debut against Liverpool last season, showing a maturity, ball playing, and shot stopping ability beyond his years. He will come good. The only reason for long-term damage to Kinsky's career would be artificial re-earthing of the event, or an undue amount of focus placed on it, as if it was representative of his entire ability - which is obviously an unreasonable position to take.
No analyst or coach worth their salt should place long-term value or a judgement on potential from an entirely anomalous performance like last night's.
‘Outfield players get subbed for poor performances, why not goalkeepers?’
All of the furor and hyper-sensationalising we’ve recounted in this piece exemplifies exactly why there is a difference between shining a negative spotlight on a goalkeeper, and hooking off one of ten outfield players.
The reality is that outfield players can hide in a way that goalkeepers can’t.
Not on the pitch, and not in the media.
Even from an optics perspective, outfielders will usually slip off the pitch at the nearest exit. Kinsky’s substitution brought what essentially amounted to a walk of shame, all the way from the penalty box to the tunnel. It was perfectly symbolic of the sheer intensity of the spotlight that Tudor’s decision brought upon the 22 year old.
So let us ask this question: if Kinsky hadn’t been substituted, would we still have the volume of headlines about and coverage of his performance last night? It’s highly unlikely.
The manner of Kinsky’s substitution also emphasised the difference between outfield and goalkeeper substitutions. Kinsky was substituted because he was clearly held individually responsible for the situation that Spurs found themselves in. Tudor’s actions implied that Spurs were 3-0 down majorly because of Kinsky, and that removing him would improve things.
Tudor admitted post-match that ‘It was too much for us in this moment when we are fragile, when we are weak.’
The point of a substitution is to positively affect the game in some manner, therefore implying that a player remaining on the pitch is affecting - or going to affect - the game negatively, whether through performance, fitness, or tactical role.
But the caveat is that to substitute a midfielder, for example, implies generally that there is an imbalance in the unit as a whole. There is no goalkeeper ‘unit’. It is one single person. Therefore a judgement of their impact on the game sits wholly and solely with them.
In comparison, when outfield players - especially strikers - make ‘errors’ (e.g. missing an important chance), the fault does sit individually, but they are generally thought of as one part of a broader attacking move.
‘Is substituting a goalkeeper ever justified?’
A pure pragmatist could make the reasonable judgement that Kinsky needed to be replaced because, A), his performance did not merit his continuing contribution to the game, B) his head was proverbially ‘all over the place’, and C), Tudor was actually protecting his goalkeeper.
People often say that difference is strength. In many walks of life that can be true. It doesn’t always apply to goalkeeping. Goalkeepers are different. We all know that. But a ‘1 and 10’ mentality, rather than a genuine team of 11 mindset, can create isolation just as much as uniqueness.
That being said, if one does genuinely view a goalkeeper as one and the same as the other ten players on the pitch, then by that trail of thought he or she cannot be immune from the natural processes of the game. Play badly, get subbed.
But the fact remains that the goalkeeper position is already isolated, and any further perpetuation of that is incomparably mentally destroying, especially when done in last night's manner. Goalkeepers willingly stand alone. The least they can ask for in return is protection when their own bravery means they inevitably take a hard hit.
In last night’s case, much emphasis should of course be placed on the timing of the substitution. It would be damaging for an outfield player to be substituted within fifteen minutes. Had Igor Tudor at least waited until half time to take Kinsky off, he would have reduced the spotlight effect that makes a goalkeeper substitution so much worse.
'It was, before the game, the right choice to do in the moment like we are, with the pressure on Vicario, another competition. Tony is a very good goalkeeper. It was for me the right decision. After this, of course, it’s easy to say that it was not the right decision. So I explained to Tony also, speaking after: he’s the right guy and a good goalkeeper’, Tudor explained after the game.
‘Unfortunately, it happened in this big game, these mistakes. He was sorry. The team is with him, me too. I was speaking with him. He understands the moment, he understands why he goes out. As I said, he’s a very good goalkeeper. We are with him, we are all together. It’s never about one player. It’s happened. It’s the Champions League again. We paid [for] this start of the game.'
In purely practical terms, it’s not that substituting a goalkeeper is literally never justified, but a question that should also be considered is this:
What is a manager’s role? To develop and improve their players, or to produce results at all costs, through Machiavellian means or otherwise?
In last night’s case, Tudor wasn’t proven right. The ends didn't justify the means. Spurs conceded five overall, two with Vicario in goal. The team remained ‘fragile’, to use his words. So, if the purpose of a substitute is to positively impact the game, then Tudor’s decision ultimately failed - to some extent at least.
When a goalkeeper makes an error, the spotlight naturally shines brightly enough. When their failings are further highlighted by their own manager, let alone anyone else, that sense of positional ‘uniqueness’ simply becomes abandonment.
And in the Spanish capital last night, with 16 minutes on the clock of a Champions League fixture between Atletico Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur, few people would have felt more abandoned than Antonin Kinsky.
