It was a classic slice of Jose Mourinho.
The individual act was a new one.
It came in the closing stages of a game at the end of September, when a goal had just been disallowed, by the VAR, for offside. One of Mourinho’s assistants showed him an image on a laptop that, in their view, proved the decision was incorrect. But rather than flying into a rage, Mourinho calmly got up and placed the computer, with the crucial image helpfully expanded to full screen, in front of a nearby TV camera. “World, look at the injustice that has befallen me.”
But the ultimate effect was far from new.
You may remember what he did that day, particularly if you were on social media at the time, and you would have known it was Mourinho. But could you recall the opposition? The exact incident and source of injustice? Could you even confidently say who Mourinho was managing?
Mourinho protests refereeing decision by taking a laptop with a still of the perceived injustice and placing it in front of a camera while the game continues https://t.co/Vonv5XR8GL
— James Horncastle OMRI (@JamesHorncastle) September 29, 2024
It became not about Fenerbahce (his current team), the player whose goal was disallowed (Edin Dzeko), the score (1-0 to Fenerbahce at the time and they would go on to win 2-0) or the opponents (Antalyaspor), but all about him.
Which is not exactly surprising.
When Mourinho was appointed by Istanbul’s Fenerbahce in June, he was probably the most high-profile coach to ever work in Turkey. They’ve had World Cup winners, European Championship winners, Champions League winners, multiple champions of multiple nations and heroes of the game — but never anyone with the wattage of Mourinho.
This was a bold attempt to win Fenerbahce’s first league title since 2014. They had come close last season, breaking records and earning 99 points via 99 league goals, but that was not enough as their great rivals Galatasaray got an absurd 102 points from the 38 matches.
A crowd north of 30,000 showed up at the Sukru Saracoglu Stadium for Mourinho’s unveiling. “Normally, a coach is loved after victories,” he told the crowd. “In this case, I feel that I am loved before the victories. I promise you from this moment, I belong to your family. This shirt is my skin.”
Mourinho is presented to his public in June (Yasin Akgul/AFP via Getty Images)
It was a suitably intense introduction but that feels a long time ago. Mourinho goes into perhaps the highest-profile game of his tenure, at home against former employers Manchester United in the Europa League tomorrow (Thursday), way off the pace in the league, under pressure due to results and playing style, and having annoyed a succession of people.
His first Fenerbahce season has not, you’re unlikely to be shocked to learn, been quiet.
There was the stink after their defeat against Galatasaray the weekend before that Antalyaspor trip, when Mourinho failed to appear at his post-match press conference. It looked like a petty strop, but when you heard the full story, you had a little more sympathy.
Press conferences in Turkish football can last a while, but the one given by Okan Buruk, the Galatasaray head coach, had ticked past the hour mark by the time Mourinho lost patience.
“In 24 years in football, I never escaped from a press conference, especially after a defeat,” he told the media a few days later. “I never had fear of any journalist, any question or any press conference. It doesn’t have any logic to be waiting 75 minutes to go to a press conference.
“The game finished, I congratulated the opposing coach, I went direct to the flash interview, then I was 70 minutes waiting for the press conference. I tried to go, I was not allowed to go. Seventy minutes… I’m sorry, it is a lack of respect. If anyone felt disrespected — I am the one disrespected.”
‘The Disrespected One’ 😡
Jose Mourinho has been left furious after being made to wait over an hour for his Istanbul derby news conference. pic.twitter.com/axNy128jrr
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) September 25, 2024
There was also the small matter of a fan attacking Fenerbahce president Ali Koc during an away game against Goztepe in August, shoving him over as he walked around the edge of the pitch during the second half. That had nothing to do with Mourinho, but if he didn’t know he was in for an eventful time in Turkey, that confirmed it.
Mourinho has also managed some football matches. In some ways, he is on a hiding to nothing in this job, up against a Galatasaray side who broke records last season and then signed reigning African footballer of the year Victor Osimhen on loan from Napoli.
Fenerbahce, meanwhile, have a collection of talented players, but they are mostly on the more ‘experienced’ side of things. Dusan Tadic and Dzeko have 10 league goals between them after eight games but are aged 35 (36 next month) and 38. Other attacking options include Cenk Tosun (33), Filip Kostic (32 on November 1) and Fred (31).
Sofyan Amrabat joined on loan late in the summer window but he has carried on his form from last season, which any Manchester United fan will tell you is not a compliment. Mourinho also wasn’t helped by the departures of the versatile Ferdi Kadioglu to Brighton & Hove Albion, which was a big loss from a football perspective, and Michy Batshuayi, who left as a free agent and joined Galatasaray, which will have less impact on the pitch but was a blow to their collective pride.
The season got off to a sticky start with elimination from the Champions League in the qualifying rounds — Fenerbahce beaten 3-2 on aggregate by Lille of France, who scored a penalty deep in second-leg stoppage time in Istanbul.
Mourinho expressed his dissatisfaction by reprising one of his greatest hits. “It’s better not to talk about the penalty,” he told reporters after that game. “When I look at other incidents that have happened to me recently… only the referee knows why it was a penalty, only the VAR knows. We can do very well in the Europa League, but if… I prefer not to continue with this sentence. Because if I say it, I will get into trouble.”
Things haven’t quite gone to plan in the domestic league either. There have been some impressive wins, including the 5-0 hammering of Rizespor, but they dropped points in that Goztepe game a week earlier, which ended 2-2, and the really damaging one was the derby against Galatasaray, where they were beaten 3-1 at home. This past weekend, they lost the lead twice at Samsunspor to draw 2-2 again, leaving them fourth in the league and eight points (with a game in hand) behind Galatasaray.
All of which would be more tolerable if the football was appealing, but that hasn’t been the case.
There is a clear sense Mourinho and Fenerbahce simply do not match.
“When I was growing up, Fenerbahce always tried to score goals — one more, one more, one more,” former Fenerbahce coach and current pundit Oner Ozen tells The Athletic. “They had Brazilian coaches — Didi, Zico, Carlos Alberto Parreira. Fenerbahce fans want offensive football: score goals, press from the front. But Mourinho is more like an old-fashioned Italian coach. Fenerbahce can’t play like this: defence, defence, defence. Fenerbahce’s genetics is attack.”
The counterpoint to this would be that, for all this team’s faults, goals aren’t one of them: they have 18 in those eight league games and only Galatasaray have more. But Ozen believes Mourinho, now 61, is yesterday’s man.
“He’s a master, and I respect him,” he says. “But he doesn’t have new ideas. There are a lot of new coaches with new ideas, but many big coaches also have new ideas. Pep Guardiola: every season, he tries something new. Jurgen Klopp changes some of his ideas. But Mourinho, ever since he was at Porto, he never changes. He has won some titles, but he looks old-fashioned.”
Mourinho has also hinted at his dissatisfaction with how the players are interpreting his instructions. “We have lots of things to work on,” he told a press conference in September. “One of the things is players have to understand my concept. Simplicity is genius. We have too many players that don’t understand that. The best players, they play one-touch, two-touch football. It’s simple: a cross and a goal. It doesn’t need 20 touches… football is simplicity.”
And yet, anyone who dislikes the man and would like to bathe in the warm schadenfreude of a rapid sacking from this latest job may be disappointed. Things can change, but it’s unlikely that Koc can or will dismiss Mourinho — the coach’s success is too tightly entwined with the president’s.
Koc is from one of the richest families in Turkey, and when he was first elected in summer 2018, the hope was he would bring that long-awaited title. But with every passing season, the desperation has become greater and greater, and hiring Mourinho is the best indicator of that desperation you could imagine.
Fener president Koc presents Mourinho to the fans (Yasin Akgul/AFP via Getty Images)
A logical way of reacting to gaining a record points total that ultimately wasn’t quite enough to beat a juggernaut, would be to think, ‘Something is going right here, we’re on the right path, Let’s stick with this and see what happens’.
The problem is Koc wouldn’t be club president today had he just stuck with Ismail Kartal, their coach last season. He has been in situ for six years and still no Super Lig trophy has been delivered, and as is the case with any democracy on a bumpy road, the electorate has become dissatisfied. When Fenerbahce again failed to become champions last season, fans ripped up posters of Koc and there was even footage of one supporter stabbing a banner bearing his face with a knife.
This summer saw the Fenerbahce presidential elections, and Koc’s predecessor, Aziz Yildirim, wanted his old job back. He said if he was elected the new head coach would be… Jose Mourinho. That promise, combined with unrest among fans, looked like it would signal the end of the Koc era.
But Koc didn’t let it get that far. At the start of June, a few weeks before the elections, he pulled the rabbit/Jose from the hat. With the help of English second-tier club Hull City’s Turkish owner Acun Ilicali (who is also a Fenerbahce director) negotiations with Mourinho were completed at the Champions League final in London, and he was on a flight out to Istanbul the following morning.
Koc maintains he didn’t just steal Yildirim’s idea, and in June The Athletic reported that he made contact with Mourinho’s camp as far back as March. “We made a much more suitable offer than the offer made by Aziz Yildirim, and he accepted it,” Koc said at that unveiling. “Mourinho was impressed by our dreams. We gave him and his entire team €12million (£10m/$13m at current exchange rates) annually.”
It was a sensational political move from Koc and made his election for a third term a formality. But whether it was the right thing to do is less certain, and it certainly isn’t panning out as hoped so far.
“Mourinho was not Ali Koc’s idea,” says Ozen. “Mourinho was only for the election. I don’t know if Ali Koc really believes in Mourinho.”
There’s an old saying in Turkish football that some people think titles are won at the airport: by glamorous foreign signings who are greeted by crowds of fans fresh off their plane. That theory also applies to managers.
If the appointment of Mourinho was designed to put the wind up Fenerbahce’s biggest rivals, it hasn’t worked. An approximation of the reaction at Galatasaray to his arrival was a brief raising of an eyebrow, rather than a quaking in their boots. They have continued to bulldoze their way through the Super Lig: 25 points (out of a possible 27) and 27 goals scored from the first nine league games.
“Mourinho was almost idolised by the Turkish public in the beginning,” an executive at a rival club, granted anonymity to protect relationships, tells The Athletic. “But that’s over now. He’s already being counted out.”
That is perhaps slightly hasty. It’s still early days. There’s plenty of time to catch Galatasaray domestically, and a deep run in the Europa League, where they have four points after two games, will give him plenty of credit.
Whatever happens, whether Fenerbahce win, lose or draw, you can be certain that Mourinho will be the centre of attention. Which is just the way he likes it.
(Top photo: Joris Verwijst/BSR Agency/Getty Images)
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