There was no arm around the shoulder from his manager as Tottenham goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky trudged off the field after being substituted just 17 minutes into his calamitous Champions League debut.
Instead, support for the 22-year-old Czech came from the goalkeeper community.
“No one who hasn’t been a goalkeeper can understand how difficult it is to play in this position,” Fiorentina’s David De Gea wrote on social media after Kinsky was taken off the field after making two mistakes leading to goals early in Tottenham’s 5-2 loss at Atletico Madrid in the round of 16 on Tuesday.
“Keep your head up and you will go again.”
Former Manchester United and Denmark goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel said in his role as a pundit for CBS Sports that he felt “really, really sorry” for Kinsky, who miskicked twice when attempting passes out from his area — leading to goals for first Marcos Llorente and then Julian Alvarez.
Schmeichel then had strong words for Tottenham manager Igor Tudor, who didn’t even acknowledge Kinsky as the young keeper walked off the field and straight down the tunnel. Tudor just continued looking straight out onto the field.
Schmeichel said Tudor should have kept Kinsky on, at least until halftime.
“That’s going to have ramifications for the rest of his career,” Schmeichel said. “This will be a moment that everybody in football will always remember every time they see and hear his name.
“What he’s done there, for me,” he added, “he’s absolutely killed his career. That’s going to take something to get over that.”
Former Tottenham goalkeeper Paul Robinson, working at the match for the BBC, said being withdrawn so early would be “confidence destroying” for Kinsky.
“I’ve never seen that on a football pitch,” Robinson said, in thoughts echoed by former England goalkeeper Joe Hart — also at the game for broadcaster TNT Sports.
“My heart is absolutely broken for him,” Hart said.
Tudor said he spoke to Kinsky after the match, and took him off to “preserve the guy.”
“He understands everything,” the Croatian coach said. “It’s a big lesson, unfortunately it happened in this big game.”
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
