Guglielmo Vicario knew, deep down, that he’d gone too far. He was lost in the heat of battle, where emotions run high and tempers can flare, but still the Tottenham goalkeeper had to admit he was wrong.
Lucas Bergvall, the 18-year-old Swede on debut, had given the ball away in second-half stoppage time in Spurs’ opening game against Leicester and forced the Italian into making a late save to keep the scores level.
Vicario let rip. He jumped to his feet and screamed at the teenager, running towards him and punching the air, his eyes wide and manic. The blond-haired Bergvall could only shrug his shoulders and puff out his cheeks.
‘I’m not sure he deserved that much of a rollocking,’ remarked Alan Smith on Sky Sports commentary. Social media, as usual, went into a frenzy.
‘I was too aggressive with him,’ admits Vicario, speaking about it for the first time. ‘I apologised. Maybe at that moment it was because we’d dominated a game and then conceded.
Tottenham goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario has apologised for screaming at a young team-mate
Vicario let rip at Spurs debutant Lucas Bergvall (right) during their 1-1 draw at Leicester City
‘It was not the right way to scream at him, so I apologise. He will understand, he is a good guy. And it’s part of football. I suffered this too when I was a teenager. We are good friends. We are men. We move forward.
‘It was the first game back and the fans were pushing, maybe my acting at that moment was not the best but the message was for the right reasons and from came the right place.’
This fiery temper is, after all, why Vicario picked up the nickname Venom during his time in Italy, named after the often-angry Marvel comic book character.
At least a 4-0 win over Everton the following week left no requirement for a similar outburst.
The hope is it’ll be the same when they face Newcastle on Sunday, though it was at St James’ Park last season that Tottenham suffered their heaviest defeat of the campaign in a 4-0 thumping.
‘I think we’re a different team now,’ says Vicario.
When Vicario was Bergvall’s age, mind, he spent his Friday nights out clubbing with team-mates in his first season at senior level with Fontanafredda in the Italian fourth division.
He’s come a long way since then.
Vicario’s fiery temper earned him the nickname ‘Venom’ during his time in Italy
The stopper didn’t make his Serie A debut until 2021 but is now in his second season at Spurs
Though he didn’t make his Serie A debut until April 2021, he’s now into his second season at Tottenham following a £17m move from Empoli last summer and while his rant at a young team-mate crossed a line he’s ready to embrace his new role given to him by Ange Postecoglou of being a leader in the Spurs dressing room.
‘We spoke about it and I’m very happy,’ adds Vicario, now 27. ‘I think it comes with age. I’m one of the older players so I take responsibility, especially with the young lads to make sure we work in a good way and are the best we can.
‘Goalkeeper is a position you have to be vocal because sometimes at the back you see things in a different way, a clearer view of everything.
‘I need to have this role, to try to put all this stuff in a good direction. It’s important. Maybe we don’t concede a counter-attack or a situation where we could suffer.’
Ange loves him. ‘As soon as I had a conversation with him, I knew he was the right bloke for us,’ said the Spurs boss. ‘Beyond being an outstanding goalkeeper, he is an outstanding human being. If you bring a person like that into your dressing room, it’s going to give you more than just a goalkeeper.’
This is the man, after all, who housed a Ukrainian mother and her son in his family home in Udine after the Russian invasion. He calls Milan, the son, ‘my little brother’.
Ange Postecoglou has waxed lyrical about Vicario’s personality and ‘outstanding’ talent
Oozing class on the pitch, Vicario has established himself as one of the league’s best keepers
Vicario oozed class on the pitch for Spurs last season, too. Neat with the ball at his feet and quickly established himself as one of the best shot-stoppers in the Premier League with an array of acrobatic saves.
It was at set-pieces, though, that Spurs and Vicario struggled. Only Nottingham Forest conceded a higher percentage of their goals from set-plays than Tottenham as teams began to target Vicario, crowding him at corners.
Ben White took the role of chief nuisance during Arsenal’s victory in the North London Derby last season as Tottenham twice conceded from a corner, with White tugging at Vicario’s gloves on the goal-line moments before Pierre-Emile Højbjerg headed into his own net.
‘I didn’t realise at the time,’ says Vicario. ‘I saw later that he tried to grab my gloves but we move on. We conceded not for that reason. Every week, teams and keepers concede from set-pieces… it’s part of football. Sometimes I do or sometimes other keepers do. I think everyone is targeted by every team. You just have to deal with it.
‘You can always be better. My first season in a new league, the best league in world. Sometimes you need things to adapt and sometimes you need to struggle so you can say, okay, you can do better. My summary is I’ll be fine, I’m happy and looking forward to doing better.’
For Spurs, doing better this season means two things: Champions League qualification, after their fifth-placed finish last season, and – as always – ending that long wait for a trophy.
Spurs and Vicario have been targeted on set-pieces with Ben White a nuisance last season
Vicario is now targeting ending Spurs’ lengthy trophy drought to be ‘remembered for life’
That last one, Vicario knows, is what will sign your name into Tottenham legend.
‘Maybe one day you could come back to the stadium and walk into the tunnel, down the corridor and see some pictures of yourself and say: “Forty years ago I did this”,’ says Vicario.
‘We are born to try to win things, to be remembered by our fans because we know if we do it at Tottenham we will be remembered for life, for eternity.’
