Things can always get worse in football. Much, much worse. If there is a place below rock bottom, Tottenham currently seem determined to go there. The Champions League may not have been a priority, with manager Igor Tudor publicly declaring league survival as their primary concern, but that admission did not make this latest defeat any less painful, nor easier to forget. Instead, this crushing loss will linger long in the memory of every Spurs supporter. It wasn’t even the brutal 5-2 scoreline that truly hurt, not really, and it certainly wasn’t their now inevitable exit from European competition. It was how it happened, the opening period here quite possibly ranking among the most stupid, most absurd, and most astonishing minutes of football anyone has ever witnessed.
A Calamitous Opening Act Unfolds
If one could even call it football, this was a dramatic act of self-destruction that the oft-used term ‘Spursy’ simply does not begin to cover. It felt like the final ridiculous scene of a tragedy, the ultimate humiliation. Only, terrifyingly, that may still be to come. If the Metropolitano Stadium was indeed a testing ground for the fight against relegation, as the manager suggested, the conclusion can only be that Tottenham are horribly ill-equipped to escape the abyss. This performance was both deeply comic and also desperately sad, especially when poor Antonin Kinsky departed down the tunnel, a broken figure, substituted after a mere 17 minutes having directly gifted two of the three goals Atlético Madrid had already scored.
Kinsky’s Nightmare and Defensive Blunders
Micky van de Ven had handed over the other early goal. No sooner had Guglielmo Vicario come on to replace the Czech keeper than he too conceded. Spurs were once again complicit in their own demise. A Pape Sarr header towards his own goal led to the fourth. The team’s collapse began almost immediately. A wasted long throw in the first minute, a yellow card in the third, and an Ademola Lookman chance in the fourth provided a prelude to a fifth-minute goal that could have been accompanied by a kazoo and the crash of cymbals. Cristian Romero’s short goal kick left Kinsky swinging his leg, slipping, falling, and sending the ball directly to Lookman, who found Julián Alvarez to set up Marcos Llorente. It was the kind of moment that inspires a million memes, and they quickly multiplied.
The second goal was equally poor. It was Van de Ven’s turn to hear a clattering soundtrack of defensive errors. The third was even worse. On 13 minutes, after Djed Spence and Mathys Tel failed to deal with a ball up the right wing, Van de Ven fell over, allowing Antoine Griezmann to run through and score with ease. Just two minutes later, the Dutchman played the ball back to Kinsky, who managed to kick it off his own leg, leaving Alvarez with an open goal. Fifteen minutes in, three calamitous errors, and the game was effectively gone. So too was the goalkeeper, Kinsky’s brief, nightmarish outing concluding.
A Glimmer, Then Further Despair
Igor Tudor took Kinsky off, with two members of staff accompanying him, an arm on each shoulder. They were soon followed by Conor Gallagher, Dominic Solanke, and João Palhinha, all surely aware that this was a moment a player might never recover from. Heading the other way was Vicario, who almost immediately made an exceptional save from his own player. Sarr hadn’t just deflected a free kick towards his own goal; he actually headed it. As the ball came off the keeper’s gloves, Robin Le Normand nudged it over the line, making it four goals conceded in rapid succession.
No Way Back, No Consolation
Still, this wildness went on. Pedro Porro dashed through to make it 4-1 on 25 minutes, offering a tiny, fleeting glimpse of hope. Jan Oblak saved from Richarlison, and Romero hit the post. At the other end, Vicario saved from Lookman, Van de Ven might have been sent off for a second time in six days although the referee took pity, and Llorente shot wide. The next glimpse of some tiny reaction from Spurs, nine minutes into the second half, was eclipsed immediately. From the moment Oblak stopped Richarlison’s diving header for what would have been 4-2 to Alvarez running onto Griezmann’s glorious touch to slot past Vicario for 5-1, just twelve seconds had passed. The temptation might have been to call Solanke’s subsequent high finish a consolation goal, but there was none to be found. Instead, in the dying minutes of this whole daft drama, there was yet another scene to sum Spurs up. João Palhinha and Romero crashed into each other and were left lying knocked out on the turf, a truly pitiful picture of their self-destruction.
Manager Tudor had previously stated that Tottenham have problems in defence, midfield, and attack, which sounded pretty comprehensive. Yet, he still managed to fall as short in his analysis as he has in his attempts to do anything about their deepening crisis. Plenty had already concluded that he could add ‘in goal’ to that list, but even the most pessimistic, which is most people connected with Spurs, could not have imagined anything like this, an opening period beyond comprehension. This crushing defeat at the hands of Atlético Madrid serves as a stark reminder, tinged with deep regret, that Tottenham were once a formidable force, even reaching a Champions League final at this very stadium in 2019. They are not now. The road ahead for Igor Tudor and his beleaguered squad looks incredibly challenging, both domestically and in restoring any semblance of pride.
