Rodrigo Bentancur left Old Trafford with a straight red card for a headbutt on Luke Shaw. In the Tottenham dressing room, Roberto De Zerbi met him with a kiss.
“I kissed Rodrigo Bentancur inside the dressing room, and I said thanks,” the Italian said after Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Manchester United.
That is not the reaction most managers reach for after losing a player 12 minutes from time with their team already a goal down. De Zerbi, as he explained his thinking, had no interest in pretending otherwise.
“It was not the right reaction in football, but how Tottenham reacted, I think, in that moment, with 10 players, maybe we played with more courage, we played with more energy, and we changed the game.”
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73rd-minute lead, 78th-minute red
Bryan Mbeumo had put Manchester United in front in the 73rd minute. Five minutes later, the dismissal came: after an altercation with Luke Shaw, Bentancur leaned in and headbutted the United defender as players from both sides piled in. Referee Stuart Attwell went straight to his pocket.
Tottenham, 10 men and a goal down, kept pushing. In the second minute of stoppage time Sandro Tonali delivered a ball from the corner of the penalty box, and Dominic Solanke got the slightest touch with his head to send it in.
‘For the first time this season, we showed we are a team’
De Zerbi tied the headbutt and the equaliser together.
“Today has been the game where for the first time this season, we showed we are a team. We played for our team-mates, we played together, we believed until the end of the game. We attacked as a team, we defended as a team, and with the right behaviour.”
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Appointed on 31 March 2026 after Thomas Frank was sacked and Igor Tudor took brief interim charge, De Zerbi has six Premier League matches and still no win in his first full season, the point at Old Trafford lifts Spurs to three.
Yardbarker carried the Italian’s framing in slightly different words: “we need this reaction, this type of reaction with character.”
Bentancur now faces an FA suspension for violent conduct.
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