Guglielmo Vicario on Tottenham's Great Escape

Guglielmo Vicario did not play a minute of Tottenham’s great escape, but he lived every second of it.

Fresh from hernia surgery, the Italian sprinted from the sidelines on the final day, grabbed Roberto De Zerbi in a wild embrace and almost wrestled his head coach to the turf when Joao Palhinha’s goal against Everton helped drag Spurs over the line. Relief, not choreography, dictated the celebration.

For Vicario, survival is De Zerbi’s story.

“He gave us a lot of confidence, good vibes, good feelings and we got the result,” the 29-year-old said, still admitting he is “not 100 per cent fit but in a better place” after his operation. The numbers back him up: 11 points from the final six matches, a team drifting towards the trapdoor suddenly playing like it believed in itself again.

From hopeless to hard-edged

Tottenham had lost more than games. They had lost their nerve. The season had become a grind of doubt and damage, a club “low on confidence and hope”, as Vicario put it. Relegation was no longer a distant threat. It was a weekly conversation.

“This club deserves at least to stay in the Premier League. This is the minimum you can get at this football club,” he said. “Sometimes there are situations that happen that are not more in your control. You lose the focus, you lose hope, you lose a lot of stuff but fortunately Roberto came in and gave us a lot of confidence.”

De Zerbi did not just tinker with tactics and walk away. He went to work on the dressing room.

“He had a lot of talks with the players. I spoke a lot with him,” Vicario explained. Unable to help on the pitch, he tried to influence what he could behind the scenes. The message from the head coach was clear and constant: play for the badge, and pull the supporters back in.

“That was his first message. Get behind the people to try to follow us and to stay close to us in these tough moments and they did it brilliantly today. The response from the crowd was unbelievable. We felt it.”

The connection returned. So did the edge. Tottenham’s run-in, once a looming nightmare, turned into a defiant statement. And Vicario is convinced this is only the beginning.

“From next season there will be a different Tottenham Hotspur for sure.”

Kinsky’s redemption arc

If De Zerbi reshaped the mood, Antonin Kinsky embodied it.

The 23-year-old Czech goalkeeper arrived in the run-in carrying the scars of a brutal night in Madrid, when interim boss Igor Tudor hauled him off after just 17 minutes against Atletico. That kind of humiliation can bury a young keeper. Kinsky used it as fuel.

Thrown in for the decisive stretch with Vicario sidelined, he responded with a series of outstanding displays, producing big saves against Wolves, Leeds and Everton to keep Spurs alive.

“He has been incredible, impressive, he did unbelievably well. In every game it was not easy,” Vicario said. He had already vouched for Kinsky when De Zerbi walked through the door.

“When I spoke to Roberto the first day he signed he asked me how Toni was and I said, ‘I think he is fully recovered from what happened because in football it can happen,’ and he showed it.”

Kinsky’s resilience, as much as his shot-stopping, has struck a chord inside the camp.

“That’s the biggest strength he can put on the pitch. I’m very proud of him, he made some really important saves to keep us in the league and he deserved his moment,” Vicario added. “Sometimes football is downs, I think he had the brilliance to show his ups. Especially in the last two, three games. He did unbelievably for us.”

De Zerbi’s imprint

De Zerbi’s reputation has long been tied to his attacking ideas, his insistence on brave, possession-based football. Tottenham needed that. They also needed something more basic: solidity.

“Roberto has been massively important for us. He changed everything. He changed all the mood, all the vibes, all the football as well, because we needed also the football on the pitch because we were struggling to play good football,” Vicario said.

The defensive shift has been just as striking.

“He is probably known very well for the football he wants to play but also the defensive phase since he came in has been unbelievably good,” Vicario pointed out. Against Everton, with everything on the line, Spurs conceded just one shot on target – the late effort Kinsky clawed away. For 95 minutes, they were largely untroubled.

“Both on the ball and off the ball I think he did an unbelievable job. Also the boys, everyone who was playing or not playing followed him in a great way. That is of course the credit he deserves, and I can say without him this result would not have been possible. I want to thank him from the bottom of my heart because we were suffering a lot and he gave us a lot of joy in every aspect.”

A different Spurs on the horizon

Vicario’s own future has been the subject of speculation, with links to a summer move back to Italy and Inter Milan. For now, his focus is recovery and reset.

He is “confident” and grateful for the break to be ready for next season. The way he talks about what comes next under De Zerbi, he sounds more like a man itching to be part of it than one eyeing the exit.

“Yeah of course we are [excited],” he said of the squad and supporters. The fear of the drop has been replaced by something far more dangerous for the rest of the league: belief.

Tottenham flirted with disaster and survived. The question now is whether De Zerbi can turn a great escape into a launchpad.