Igor Tudor: Who is Tottenham's interim head coach? The former Juventus, Lazio, Marseille boss analysed
Igor Tudor has agreed to become Tottenham's interim head coach until the end of the season; Tudor had an immediate impact at Juventus and Lazio during short spells; Tottenham is Tudor's 10th club in 13 years; Spurs are five points above the Premier League relegation zone;
Friday 13 February 2026 17:54, UK
Igor Tudor is tasked with keeping Tottenham in the Premier League - his toughest firefighting mission yet.
The 47-year-old, a former centre-back for Hajduk Split, Juventus and Croatia, has agreed to become Spurs' interim head coach until the end of the season after Thomas Frank was sacked with the club five points above the bottom three.
Spurs wanted to appoint an experienced head coach who has a track record of making an immediate impact and Tudor fits that bill.
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He was appointed at Juventus and Lazio in March of each of the last two seasons and stabilised results in the short term.
"If you look back over Tudor's recent career, he's been quite happy stepping into these short-term roles. I think he sees himself as a bit of a firefighter," Italian football commentator Patrick Kendrick told Sky Sports.
At Juventus, Tudor inherited a team from Thiago Motta that sat fifth in Serie A after back-to-back defeats that capped a disastrous February in which the club were knocked out of the Champions League and the Coppa Italia.
Tudor guided Juve to fourth in Serie A and sealed Champions League qualification after losing just one of his 11 games in charge. This earned the Croatian a two-year contract, although Juventus sacked him just four months later after results deteriorated.
At Lazio, Tudor took over from Marizio Sarri in March 2024 on an 18-month contract after the former Chelsea boss had resigned after a fifth defeat in six games with Lazio in ninth.
Tudor won five of his nine games as Lazio boss, losing just once, to secure a seventh-placed finish and Europa League qualification. He resigned at the end of the season after three months in charge.
Tottenham is Tudor's 10th different club in the last 13 years, having managed the likes of Galatasaray, Udinese, Hellas Verona and Marseille, having also worked under Andrea Pirlo at Juventus.
Tudor is synonymous with Serie A, which benefited him in making an immediate impact at Juve and Lazio, but his man-management and tactical skills will be tested in his first job in England and Spurs supporters should not expect free-flowing football straight away.
"His typical formation is a 3-4-2-1," said Kendrick. "He doesn't tend to play with too much width to begin with. It's a very similar formation to what Ivan Juric used to have, the former Southampton manager.
"It was very successful with Verona, which was probably where he's been the biggest success. He had a free-scoring team with two number 10s playing behind a lone striker, but the back three is pretty in vogue in Italy, and it's looked at as a way of making sure you're solid first and foremost."
The language barrier won't be an issue for Tudor, who has worked in five different countries and he also knows Spurs players Randal Kolo Muani and the injured Rodrigo Bentancur.
"His English is very good, it's vastly superior to Antonio Conte, so I don't think there's going to be any issue with that," added Kendrick.
"He's got a lot of belief in his ability. He's a very forthright character. He tends to speak his mind.
"Rather than looking at any sort of tactical revolution, I think he's first and foremost going to be focusing on trying to get the players' morale up."
'Mr Wolf' - how will Tudor manage the Spurs dressing room?
The Athletic's Serie A writer James Horncastle on Igor Tudor:
Tudor's first jobs were as interims. If you look at all 12 of his jobs, he's only stated the season on three occasions. He's come in as a firefighter, he's Mr Wolf. He's someone who cleans up messes.
He did the interim jobs at Lazio and Juventus where he was essentially there to stop those teams falling out of European qualification.
The thing that's relevant here with Tottenham is he started at Udinese, who were at risk of going out of Serie A for the first time in a quarter of a century. They were on a 10-game losing streak. He came in, stopped the rot and kept them up.
He didn't get the job on a permanent basis, but Udinese were in the same position a year later and he came in. They were a point off the drop and kept them up. That's exactly what Tottenham need him to do - find the potential in the team.
He's worked with a couple of Spurs players before. He had Dejan Kulusevski when he was the assistant to Andrea Pirlo at Juventus. He had Rodrigo Bentancur as well. He speaks Italian and Spurs with a group where a large part of them have been signed from Serie A. Guglielmo Vicario and Destiny Udogie came from there.
He would love to be considered as a club's first-choice. But he knows he's not - and he's ok with that. He's tried to step out of that pigeon hole. At the beginning of his career, he was known as an escape artist. He would come in and rescue teams.
A certain Fabio Paratici, who was a co-sporting director at Tottenham, he was one of the people who put Pirlo's coaching staff together at Juventus. And a lot of people saw that, even though Tudor's role was as a No 2, he was better that someone who could just keep teams up.
And this time last year, when he was called in to replace Thiago Motta at Juventus, he was tasked with getting them into the Champions League and got them there.
He believes that he is a man for the big stage. A man for a team in the Champions League. Juventus are a bigger club than Tottenham and he showed himself credible - for a time - to be the Juventus coach. We'll see how he does in this job.
He will want to put himself in the frame to get a permanent basis. If that doesn't work out - and he does a good enough job to keep Tottenham in the division - then he might see this as a chance to put himself in a position for other Premier League jobs, which are coming up in Crystal Palace. He feels it's a win-win situation for him.
Playing a back three will depend on whether he has the centre-backs to do that. The injuries make that a problem at Spurs. He does favour playing the Antonio Conte and Gian Piero Gasperini way - 3-4-2-1. But he has shown himself to be adaptable in needs-must situation. And this is one of them.
What you will see in Tudor in his press conferences, he's quite an affable character. When he was a defender, he was rough and ready, elbows out, he wasn't afraid to be a badass. But in press conferences he's very personable, friendly - but in the dressing room and on the sidelines, he is someone who expects disciple. That tough guy does come out.
There's certainly a belief that Tottenham need leadership - not just from players such as Conor Gallagher or when they tried to sign Andy Robertson - but also from a coach. He believes he has got what it takes to be that leader.
He will know the smell in the dressing room of what a relegation fight looks like. When he was at Udinese, he didn't have the players Spurs have in the dressing room. He will look at it and be relatively confident of delivering the minimum objective of staying in the league.
There will be players in that dressing room who have worked in Serie A and know how coaches expect players to work in that league. That will help him start life at Tottenham. My only fear is the fixtures they have got. It's a tough start.
Tottenham's next six games
February 22: Arsenal (h), Premier League - kick-off 4.30pm, live on Sky Sports
March 1: Fulham (a), Premier League - kick-off 2pm, live on Sky Sports
March 5: Crystal Palace (h), Premier League - kick-off 8pm
March 15: Liverpool (a), Premier League - kick-off 4.30pm, live on Sky Sports
March 17/18: Champions League last 16, first leg (opponent TBC)
March 22: Nott'm Forest (h), Premier League, kick-off 2.15pm, live on Sky Sports
