This was my dream – I’d have signed in blood to come here
Guglielmo Vicario proving a snip for £17m
ANYONE sitting down to compile a list of last summer’s best signings might want to start with the name of Guglielmo Vicario.
Tottenham seemed to be taking a chance on a goalkeeper from Empoli, who was beyond his mid-20s with no international honours and no experience of European football.
At £16.3million, Vicario signed from Empoli at about half the price of their initial target David Raya, and more than £30m less than Andre Onana, who joined Manchester United from Inter Milan.
Something about the deal seemed too good to be true. Where was the catch? Well, here we are midway through his first Premier League season and if there is one, nobody has found it.
Vicario has been simply exceptional in every sense. He has kept a good goal in an old-fashioned sense — clean handling, fine saves, composed with a strong presence and good judgment — and been at ease with the ball at his feet as the modern game demands.
At 27, he has been a positive addition to the dressing room and behaved on and off the pitch like someone grateful for the chance and determined not to waste it.
‘This is my dream,’ said Vicario, ahead of today’s trip to Manchester United. ‘I said from day one I want to live this dream day by day, make it real and it’s real now.
‘I said I would have walked here if needed and signed in my own blood. It was my way of saying it was an opportunity I couldn’t miss.’
As with every step of his career, Vicario adjusted and met the challenge, and peppers this interview with frequent promises to keep working hard and listening to Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou.
‘Maybe you are nervous because you face situations you never faced,’ he said as he considered his progress. ‘Maybe you feel some pressure. Maybe you are not sure about yourself but you just have to go through that and gain experience. From that you can learn. You can feel more secure about yourself.’
Nine years ago, he was a teenager on loan from Udinese at Fontanafredda in Serie D, in a team of semipro players who took him out nightclubbing on a Friday night before a Sunday game.
‘One worked in a bank, someone else was in construction,’ said Vicario. ‘Normal jobs and big respect to what they did and are still doing because it’s a massive commitment. We trained four times a week and played on Sundays and every Friday we would have dinner and maybe go clubbing because some of the lads would be off work on Saturday.
‘We had a big season, the first for the club in Serie D and we achieved our goal because we didn’t get relegated. It was a very important experience. My first in a first team with a group of big men.’
Vicario built on this experience with steady progress, refining his craft in Italy’s lower leagues. He was twice promoted with Venezia, where supporters dubbed him ‘Tegoina’ or ‘green bean’. ‘I was 18, very tall and very skinny and wore a green kit so they called me a green bean because I looked like one from far away,’ he explained. His Serie A debut came with Cagliari, before a loan at Perugia and a loan made permanent at Empoli, where he caught the eye of Tottenham’s recruitment experts, including the banned-but-still-influential Italian Fabio Paratici, as they sought a successor to Hugo Lloris.
‘Hugo did so much for this club,’ said Vicario, on the former Spurs captain who left for Los Angeles FC this month. ‘I said the day he decided to leave that I would take care with all my possibility to try to make a mark like him.
‘Not to try to replicate what he did because he did incredible stuff. When you live as a keeper and a captain and win the World Cup for France, you have achieved the best.
‘I just want to commit myself 100 per cent and try to give to Spurs fans a lot to remember about me. Football is not for always. You have to take care of your place and to give everything.’
He has started well and, as Spurs go to Old Trafford, it is hard to escape a comparison with a difficult start in England for United’s Onana, who will join Cameroon at the Africa Cup of Nations after today’s game.
The two were in opposition last season in Italy. ‘He has big qualities, he is a very good goalkeeper,’ said Vicario.
‘In the career of a keeper you have to stay balanced because there are good and bad moments.
‘You can make two mistakes in a row but then you have a big game and it’s, “Oh, this keeper is unbelievable”.’
The goalkeepers’ union is still going strong, even if their role has evolved beyond belief.