Antonin Kinsky has an immediate shot at Tottenham redemption

After enduring the most excrutiating 17 minutes of his young professional career, Antonín Kinsky was written off.

Despite being just 23 and signing a deal last January that lasts until 2031, his performance at the Metropolitano was regarded as so disastrous that his Tottenham Hotspur career would never recover.

And, let's be frank, it was awful.

The goalkeeper fell foul of a curiously slippery surface, allowing Marcos Llorente to open the scoring. Spurs' captain on the night, Micky van de Ven, subsequently lost balance and let Antoine Griezmann through. 2-0. Kinsky's final and lowest ebb arrived almost immediately after, with his earlier mishap undoubtedly in mind as he fluffed his lines with a rather ambitious sweeping pass out to the right, which let Julian Álvarez tap into an empty net.

Just like that, Tottenham's Champions League campaign was over. Igor Tudor's gamble had backfired horribly, with the Croat opting to "preserve" his haunted shot-stopper by removing him from proceedings. Distraught, Kinsky ventured down the tunnel, consoled by his teammates. The interim manager's lack of public empathy drew criticism, with that sequence supposedly depicting the "cold" nature of a coach that's already lost a broken and vulnerable squad.

But those narratives have dissipated somewhat on the back of two positive results, including an actual win, and the footballing Gods have offered Kinsky a shot at swift redemption in north London.

Vicario injury sets the stage for Kinsky redemption

Tudor supplied a glut of positive injury news ahead of Sunday's relegation six-pointer with Nottingham Forest. We can expect to have Mohammed Kudus and Rodrigo Bentancur back next month, and there's even a chance James Maddison appears before the season draws to a close.

However, Spurs also confirmed on Friday that the man Kinsky replaced in Madrid, Guglielmo Vicario, will undergo surgery next week on a hernia. The Italian should be back within a month, and he'll also be available this weekend.

Thus, Kinsky's potential revival won't begin until after the international break, but he'll likely be between the posts for three critical Premier League outings, including trips to Sunderland and Wolves.

Since that night in Madrid, the goalkeepers' union has come to Kinsky's aid, with mainstream discourse focusing on Tudor's treatment of the young Czech as opposed to the player's error-strewn outing. A suddenly hopeful fanbase, apart from a select few folk online, have rallied around Kinsky, too.

Those two mishaps have undoubtedly done much damage to the 23-year-old's stock, but we shouldn't forget that so many of us were crying out for Kinsky to start prising minutes away from the increasingly chaotic Vicario, who's been the Premier League's worst-performing shot-stopper this season in terms of goals prevented, per Opta.

Some are lamenting more misfortune after the Italian's setback, despite his dire campaign, but this should be seen as an almost romantic opportunity for Kinsky to seize. It's a classic Hollywood comeback story, right? After sinking to the lowest of the low in the Spanish capital, Kinsky could yet be remembered as the goalkeeper who helped Tottenham retain their Premier League status.

It's a huge test of his character, no doubt, and we'll see whether Tudor's decision to protect the player pays dividends.