Tottenham's Survival: Vicario Celebrates De Zerbi's Impact
Guglielmo Vicario did not play a minute of Tottenham’s run-in, yet on the final day he celebrated survival as if he had made the stoppage-time save himself.
Hernia surgery had confined him to the role of anxious onlooker, but when Joao Palhinha’s goal against Everton helped secure Spurs’ Premier League status, the Italian sprinted towards Roberto De Zerbi and almost wrestled his head coach to the turf in delight. It was a release of months of fear, frustration and, in his eyes, gratitude to the man he believes rescued the club.
“This club deserves at least to stay in the Premier League,” the 29-year-old said. “This is the minimum you can get at this football club.”
Tottenham had been drifting. Confidence drained, hope thin, the season turning from disappointment into something darker. Vicario admits he “suffered a lot for many reasons” during a campaign that pushed players and fans to their limits. The mood only shifted when De Zerbi walked through the door.
The Italian coach took 11 points from the final six matches to haul Spurs clear of danger. For Vicario, that escape is stamped with one name.
“He gave us a lot of confidence, good vibes, good feelings and we got the result,” he said. “Sometimes you lose the focus, you lose hope, you lose a lot of stuff but fortunately Roberto came in.”
De Zerbi’s message: play for the badge
The turnaround did not come from a tactical manual alone. De Zerbi is known across Europe for his patterns of play, his aggressive possession, his attacking structure. At Tottenham, the first job was more basic: reconnect a broken dressing room with a bruised fanbase.
“He had a lot of talks with the players,” Vicario explained. “I was not able to help him on the pitch but I tried to do it behind the scenes. It was important for everyone to get everyone around the environment, very focused and to play for this badge. That was his first message.”
The demand was simple: pull together. The response, on the final day, was deafening.
“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 noise, the tension, the surge of relief at full-time – all of it fed into Vicario’s conviction that this was a club dragged back from the brink, not by luck, but by conviction and clarity from the new man in charge.
“From next season there will be a different Tottenham Hotspur for sure,” he said.
Kinsky’s redemption arc
If De Zerbi reshaped the collective, one player’s individual revival has come to symbolise the shift.
Antonin Kinsky’s season appeared broken in Madrid. Hauled off after just 17 minutes against Atletico by interim boss Igor Tudor, the 23-year-old Czech goalkeeper looked crushed by the occasion and the humiliation. A Champions League nightmare, live in front of Europe.
When Vicario went under the knife, De Zerbi needed to know if that scar had healed. The question came quickly.
“When I spoke to Roberto the first day he signed he asked me how Toni was,” Vicario recalled. “I said ‘I think he is fully recovered from what happened because in football it can happen’, and he showed it.”
Kinsky did more than show it. He produced a run of performances that kept Tottenham alive. Spectacular stops against Wolves, Leeds and Everton turned games, turned moods, turned a narrative.
“He has been incredible, impressive, he did unbelievably well,” Vicario said. “In every game it was not easy. Now it’s easy to say but I was sure of his mental strength and ability.”
The praise did not stop there.
“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. 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.”
From Madrid misery to survival hero. Under De Zerbi, Kinsky has gone from symbol of a fragile Spurs to proof that this squad still has backbone.
A new edge on and off the ball
De Zerbi’s reputation has been built on front-foot football, but Vicario is adamant that what Tottenham have built in recent weeks goes beyond pretty patterns.
“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,” he said.
The defensive edge has surprised many.
“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, Tottenham allowed just one shot on target across 95 fraught minutes – the late effort Kinsky clawed away to preserve the result.
“For 95 minutes we didn't concede any shots,” Vicario said. “Both on the ball and off the ball I think he did an unbelievable job.”
The buy-in has been total. Starters, substitutes, squad players on the fringes – all pulled in the same direction.
“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.”
Vicario’s future and a different Spurs
Away from the survival scrap, Vicario’s name has been linked with a return to Serie A and interest from Inter Milan. For now, his focus is on recovery and the reset.
He describes himself as “not 100 per cent fit but in a better place” after surgery and says he is “confident and I have a break now to be ready for next season”.
That next season is what excites him most. Not just the clean slate, but the sense that the chaos of this year has forced Tottenham to confront who they are and who they want to be under De Zerbi.
“Yeah of course we are [excited],” he said. “Roberto has been massively important for us.”
He pauses, then sums it up in the simplest way a player can.
“He changed everything.”
Tottenham have flirted with disaster and survived. The scars of this campaign will not fade quickly, but inside the dressing room there is a belief that the pain has bought them something: a manager the players trust, a style they can recognise, and a fanbase that has seen the worst and stayed with them.
From here, the question is no longer whether Spurs can stay up. It is what De Zerbi can build now that the club has stepped back from the edge.
