All Whites keeper’s super save
One-cap All White was fearful of his future, but he tells Andrew Voerman that the Dons’ rocky road to avoiding relegation has him excited about next season.
Nik Tzanev is looking forward to playing in front of AFC Wimbledon’s fans at their new stadium when the new English League One season begins in August.
But it wasn’t that long ago that the one-cap All White was wondering whether he might have to move on from the club which he joined in 2017 in order to get game time.
Fortunately for the 24-year-old goalkeeper, his fortunes changed in mid-March, when new coach Mark Robinson turned to him in the middle of a relegation battle.
Fourteen matches and one stunning penalty save later, they finished the season in safety, and Tzanev’s professional prospects are looking as good as they ever have.
He had to feed off scraps during his first three-and-a-half years at Wimbledon, making his debut at the start of the 2019-20 season, but playing just once more in the league before going on loan, then adding another appearance at the start of the season just gone.
While he was grateful to make his debut before the Covid-19 pandemic arrived, when fans were still allowed in stadiums, he soon became annoyed at being stuck on the bench behind a succession of keepers who had been brought in on loan.
‘‘I think the most frustrating thing is training for a week, then it leading to nothing, you know?’’ was how Tzanev summed the situation up.
‘‘You’re building up training, you’re doing different stuff every day, then on a Saturday you expect to show what you’ve been doing in training and what you’re about, but you’re just on the bench, and then you have to do the running after a game.
‘‘I dreaded that running, and I think my goalkeeper coach [Ashley Bayes] made me do it on purpose, so I hated it so much that when the opportunity came about, and I got my chance, I’d never want to be sitting on the bench doing those runs again.
‘‘It’s difficult being on the bench, but I think it’s just about managing the mental side of it and not letting it affect you and having the self-confidence that you are good enough to play.’’
Tzanev started the 2020-21 season in goal for the Dons, as loan goalkeeper Connal Trueman missed their first-up draw with
Northampton Town with a stomach bug, but he was back on the bench straight away.
A low moment came at the end of November when his penalty shootout heroics against Barrow in the first round of the FA Cup weren’t rewarded with another cup outing three days later, and as Trueman was replaced by another loan goalkeeper Sam Walker, in January, he was beginning to think about his future.
At the time, Wimbledon were sliding down the League One table, and they changed managers at the end of that month, swapping Glyn Hodges for Robinson, a long-time club employee.
With Walker injured, Robinson gave Tzanev his second outing of the season on March 13, but while that match, against Bristol Rovers, ended in a 0-0 draw, other results meant Wimbledon finished the night at the bottom of the table, as low as they’d been all campaign.
Buoyed by his own loan spell at fifth-tier club Sutton United the previous season, which was cut short by Covid-19, Tzanev believed he was good enough to seize the opportunity he’d finally
been given and from there until the end of the season in mid-May, he didn’t look back as he helped the Dons climb to safety.
‘‘There’s always a little bit of pressure, because relegation would have been a massive thing for the club,’’ he said.
‘‘We’ve been in League One for five years now, so to go down would have been an absolute killer, and with the new stadium as well, not being in League One, it wouldn’t have been the same.
‘‘But because I’d been waiting, I was just so excited, and I was raring to go, so I wasn’t really thinking about the pressure and there wasn’t any stress behind it. I think that with the players we had, and the bond and the togetherness we had, we sort of always knew we were going to be safe.’’
A big moment in Wimbledon’s run home came at their new stadium, Plough Lane, against Northampton Town on March 27, where a late go-ahead goal from Joe Piggott was followed by a penalty save in stoppage time against Barrie McKay that made Tzanev an instant hero.
‘‘It was huge, and you saw the character of the team, with everyone coming to me after,’’ he said of that stop.
‘‘I’m pretty sure the ball hadn’t even gone out of play when the ref blew the whistle straight after I saved it and that was an emotional moment for me, after training for so long and having so many little setbacks – I think that was my way of releasing all those emotions.
‘‘Against direct opposition in the relegation fight, that made it even more special, as well as it
at
being the first penalty save Plough Lane.
‘‘There were so many factors that just magnified the save so much and that was for sure the highlight of my 15-game campaign.’’
To understand why the new stadium is such a big deal for Tzanev, it’s important to know AFC Wimbledon’s history.
The club was only formed in 2002, when Wimbledon FC moved away from the town in south-west London, much to the displeasure of its fans and football supporters generally, and were ultimately renamed Milton Keynes Dons, after their new home 90km to the north.
AFC Wimbledon then had to work their way up from the ninth tier of English Football to the third tier, where Wimbledon FC had been at the time of its move, while plotting a return to their spiritual home, near where the original Plough Lane, Wimbledon FC’s home ground from 1912 to 1991, had stood.
Plans for a new stadium were approved in 2015, just before AFC Wimbledon were promoted to League One, and it eventually opened last November, at a time when Covid-19 had clubs playing behind closed doors.
So while Tzanev was at the heart of the first of what he hopes will be many iconic moments at the new Plough Lane – that penalty save against Northampton Town – he knows it would have been an even bigger one had there been a crowd present to roar in celebration.
‘‘I want to be staying at Wimbledon for a long, long time because I love the club and I love the fans, and it is an amazing club, being fan-owned,’’ Tzanev said.
‘‘Finally being able to go back to Plough Lane with fans will be insane.
‘‘It will be crazy. So I’m just waiting for that day.’’
‘‘I want to be staying at Wimbledon for a long, long time because I love the club and I love the fans . . .’’