Tottenham has its goalkeeper, confirms signing of Guglielmo Vicario

It didn’t take long for Tottenham to sign Empoli’s Guglielmo Vicario after negotiations started, with Fabrizio Romano confirming the deal is done. 

The deal started to take shape long before negotiations started in earnest late last week, as Fabio Paratici was always a proponent of Vicario. He pitched this potential deal long before his suspension took effect at the end of last season.

Tottenham has landed Vicario for €19 million, precisely the price Daniel Levy wanted to pay for his new No. 1 goalkeeper.

Romano and other journalists more familiar with the Serie A highly rate Vicario, who has been Empoli’s No. 1 goalkeeper for the previous two seasons.

Vicario made 31 appearances in 2022-23, keeping seven clean sheets and allowing 39 goals. He made his Serie A debut in 2020-21 with Cagliari Calcio, though he only made four league appearances that season.

He’s been Empoli’s first-choice goalkeeper for the last two seasons, making 38 Serie A appearances in his 2021-22 debut season with the club.

The contract will run until 2028. No other details, including Vicario’s salary with Spurs, have yet been released. However, expect the 26-year-old to earn a raise on his current weekly €21,000.

The invariable raise, however, won’t be enough for Levy’s heart rate to increase.

It should be an extremely palatable amount for Spurs, who also saved about €26 million by signing Vicario instead of David Raya.

Expect the official club announcement to be made either later today, or more likely, tomorrow morning.

This signing reinforces Tottenham’s summer transfer policy, in which the club hopes to bolster its roster with comparatively unknown commodities whose fees are far less prohibitive.

It’s up to  Ange Postecoglou to elicit the most from each player and help them reach their potential, something the Aussie gaffer specializes in.

He’s a towering 6 feet 4 inches, and I’d be surprised if he isn’t proficient with the ball at his feet. Otherwise, Postecoglou would have no interest in him.

Then again, at Celtic, Postecoglou found a way for Joe Hart to adapt to his possession-based formation, so Vicario surely represents a substantially less challenging project.