When I had the idea for this series, the one reason I knew it would be good is because I knew there would be plenty to write about. I didn’t quite think Jose would give me quite this much though… You can make your own mind up as you read on, but I remember saying to a friend of mine some weeks ago that I was getting a vibe that Mourinho was somewhat… ‘speedrunning’ his time in Turkey. Which, for the non-gamers of you, basically means that he’s doing all his usual bollocks that he pulls out in year 3 at a club (when it inevitably begins to go wrong, and FAST) already. Maybe I’m totally off the mark, and he will end up being a Fener legend, but I feel like Jose is only now realizing that he isn’t quite ready to go down to lesser standard leagues after all. At least, not ones that won’t pay him all the money in the kingdom (of Arabia maybe…)…
And it’s not even like results have been bad. Have they been exceptional? No, but as I write this, Fener are level on points with Gala in the league, and they have lost just once in the Europa League. But the vibe that this is only going ‘OK’ is not one that is usually cohesive to a happy Jose Mourinho. And we know from many years of torturous experiences, and painfully awkward press conferences (awkward because of how deep Jose is putting the knife in, not with his lack of skills in managing the occasion, of which have NEVER been lacking when it comes to talking, never short of words is Jose of course…), he is not one to shy away from speaking his mind.
October saw Fener begin with 3 consecutive draws, but it was the third that was by far the most high profile, with Mourinho gaining a bit of that much desired limelight once again… And as expected, the match was indeed all about Jose…
It was my first time watching this team over a full 90 minutes. And what I found was one that were compact and organized, as expected with a Mourinho team, but perhaps lacking the confidence or quality of his teams of the past. I would be shocked if Jose managed to take this team and win this competition for the 3rd time as a manager, or even close to winning it to be honest. This was an Erik Ten Hag Manchester United… and to me a draw was a fair result. Mourinho can say all he wants about United and Spurs being the two favourites for the competition, and as a result that a 1-1 draw was a good result, to me it was an …OK… result.
If Jose’s behavior wasn’t a shock, the bizarre decision of the (now FORMER) Manchester United manager Ten Hag to play full back Noussair Mazraoui as a number 10 certainly was. But much to the ferocious home crowd’s dismay, it was United who made the early impact, after Garnacho got forward and found Mazraoui, who played it to Zirkzee, who played it to Eriksen, who made it 0-1 just a 3rd of the way into the first half. Marcus Rashford missed United’s best chance to double their lead, before heroics from his teammate Andre Onana (with a spectacular double-save to keep out Youssef En-Nesyri) kept the lead for the visitors going into the half-time break. That lead would not last, 4 minutes into the second half, En-Nesyri this time had the better of Onana after an excellent cross by Allan Saint-Maximin. And with the tide now turning in favour of the Turkish side, the key flashpoint of the match would unfold…
Manuel Ugarte challenged Bright Osayi-Samuel in the area. The referee waved play on. PERSONALLY, I didn’t think the foul warranted a penalty, but Jose would never let the truth get in the way of making out him and his tea, had been hard done by via a refereeing decision…
(see what you think for yourself here: https://www.tntsports.co.uk/football/europa-league/2024-2025/jose-mourinho-shown-straight-red-for-giving-fourth-official-an-earful-during-fenerbahce-vs-man-united-match_vid2259689/video.shtml )
With Mourinho becoming increasingly agitated and aggressive afterwards, the ref had enough, and promptly gave him a red card. And naturally after the game, Mourinho wasn’t mincing his words regarding the incident and the aftermath…
(If ever a picture could paint 1000 words by the way…)
“I watched the incident. I don’t want to speak about it…”
“He [the referee] told me something incredible. At the same time, he could see the action in the box and my behaviour on the touch line. I congratulate him because he’s absolutely incredible.”
“During the game, at 100 miles per hour, he had one eye on the penalty situation, and he had one eye on the bench and on my behaviour.”
Mourinho continued his effusive praise (for a pretty shite Man United side), saying that Fenerbahce played ‘amazing’ and that if they kept that level up in the Turkish league then they would destroy every opponent, because “we played against a team that is at a superior level to us.”
“I know English media will say Manchester United didn’t play well but I think it would be fair to say we did an extraordinary match and we were better than them. A good result for Manchester United.”
He also praised the performance of the much-maligned Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana, pointing to his two excellent saves, and how “he saved the result. My goalkeeper didn’t make a save, he made two impossible saves in 10 seconds. He was the most decisive player in the result. Of course he didn’t make 20 saves but he made two that were incredible.”
Safe to say, Mourinho revelled in the spotlight once more… And… coincidentally… The English media took this chance to reunite with one of their favourites, and reveal some of the details about his current lifestyle in Instanbul…
- How he currently resides at the five-star Four Seasons Bosphorus hotel, which has a cheapest room price of £1000 per night
- Mourinho’s bill so far was up to £142,000 (at the time of the Daily Mail article)
- It was reported how hotel staff joke Mourinho orders the same thing for dinner every night: chicken soup followed by margherita pizza, ice cream and sparkling water.
- And a rather odd one… “Occasionally, he ventures a few hundred metres out of the hotel into the packed streets of Besiktas to a favoured doner kebab joint, where the staff showed Mail Sport images of Mourinho tucking in alone and reveal that he has asked them not to share.”
Between then, and Fener’s next outing in the Europa League, Jose took aim at two different enemies… his eternal nemesis of UEFA themselves, and then, even more starkly, the Turkish League itself…
An exclusive interview with Sky Sports gave Jose a chance to further express his feelings, and now he had time to think about things, and express them in a controlled manner.
- He laughed about the talk of his current hotel lifestyle
- With regards to his future; he says no to England now, but one day he’d ‘like to do’ in managing at a World Cup or Euros
- He speaks glowingly about the Premier League, but reiterates that ” let’s make it very very clear, for the next two years, this season and next, no one will take me from Fenerbahce”.
- He adds to his previous comments about taking a job at a club in England that isn’t in Europe, saying that “I made a joke… I’m never going to a team fighting relegation. I will never go.”
- And those comments came from his latest criticism of UEFA, saying “The feeling is, I am in trouble in Europe. I lost a final in a way that I still don’t accept, and since then I feel it.” (referring to his how his comments on the performance of Anthony Taylor in the Europa League final that his Roma side lost).
The Sky article states how Jose looks well ‘trim’ and ‘with a tan’, and he seemed at peace during the sky interview. But I don’t think it takes much to aggravate this bull… as we soon saw after…
Fener has quite the extraordinary win away to Trabzonspor, with Sofyan Amrabat scoring the winner in a 3-2 victory in the TWELTH minute of stoppage time. So you’d expect the manager of the team to be overjoyed after right? Oh no, not Jose. He took this moment to let the referees and the Turkish League as a whole have it with both barrels…
“Nobody abroad wants to watch the Turkish League…”
“Who wants to watch this Turkish league abroad? They have the Premier League, they have the French league, they have the German league, they have the Portuguese league, they have the Dutch league. Why should they see this?”
“It’s too grey. It’s too dark, smells bad. But that’s my job, and I will give everything to my job, to my club.”
He also took exception to the referee giving TWO penalties against his side…
‘We were in good control, winning 1-0 when Atilla woke up because in the first half he was probably having Turkish tea. Not to say an alcoholic drink so probably was Turkish tea.”
“I don’t think abroad many people watch the Turkish league. I think in London only my son watches the Turkish league, nobody else.”
“I’m going to post on my Instagram. I don’t have many [followers] but I think more than five million will watch more of that penalty. So they will know what the Turkish league is.”
He did by the way, upload the footage to his Instagram… along with the words “Watch and smile. If you like it watch the game because the funny situations don’t stop with this clip.”
All of this incredible response was AFTER he gave his thoughts immediately after the match, when he said how the club had ‘only told him half the truth’ and that if he knew all the truth he wouldn’t have joined Fenerbahçe! He would go on to say how his team fought the ‘opponents and the system’ and that the man of the match was Atilla Karaoglan (the VAR official for the match), and that that the referee was “just a little boy that was there on the pitch, but the referee was Atilla Karaoglan.”…
MAY I REMIND YOU… Fenerbahce WON the match eh is talking about… can you even imagine his response if Amrabat hadn’t got a LATE, LATE winner? I don’t see any comments from Mourinho on the amount of added time played… One would presume we may well have if a player of Trabzonspor had been the hero of the day instead of the Moroccan midfielder…
Remember the guy Sky Sports spoke so glowingly of and how happy he seemed in Turkey and in this job? Yes, same guy… apparently… And I doubt his mood would’ve been helped by his team’s next outing in Europe…
AZ Alkmaar were the ones to put an end to Fenerbahçe’s unbeaten start in the Europa League, with a 3-1 win in Holland. It was a relatively even contest for most of it, with the key events all coming later on in the match; firstly, AZ took the lead with just over 30 minutes remaining, El-Nesyri then failed to convert a penalty before then scoring with 20 left on the clock, but Fener fell behind again just 5 minutes later, before compounding that by conceding a 3rd goal three minutes from time. A collapse that will surely disappoint Mourinho.
Things did get better though a few days later…
MUCH more like it! 24 shots to 6, more possession and passes, and a totally dominant win for Jose Mourinho’s team.
And in their next league match… they kept up the hot run of form…
Scoring 6 goals away from home will have surely pleased Mourinho, but more so will be the fact that they were now JOINT TOP of the Süper Lig with their great rivals. Only their derby defeat was keeping them from the very top spot. But they have plenty of time to right that wrong, so we shall see…
Fener would close out November with a trip to Prague to face Czech First League leaders Slavia. And if in their two previous matches Fenerbahce showed they could play, in this match they showed that classic Mourinho character and steel.
When Tomáš Chorý gave the home side the lead with 7 minutes on the clock, you could’ve been forgiven for thinking that it was going to be another disappointing outing for the Turkish giants, but despite being second best for most of the game, they managed to make the most of their few chances.
Edin Dzeko made the match level with a goal 10 minutes before half time. The Bosnian later gave way for Youssef En-Nesyri, and later on after Dusan Tadic tapped the ball into his path, it was their other star striker’s turn to hit the back of the net, and this time give Fenerbahce a vital win.
So going into the final month of 2024, Fener are joint top in the league, and on track for a play off spot in the Europa League. But with matches against Besiktas (in the league) and a home clash with Athletic Bilbao in Europe among 5 matches to play before the winter break, the challenges will be tough, but the margin for error remains marginally thin.
With his future appearing to be continually uncertain, despite results on the pitch being decent, who knows what will be next in the wacky world of ‘The (ONCE) Special One’. There was one quite extraordinary rumour that emerged towards the end of November… Mourinho is one to be known to take players form club to club with him, but I don’t think anyone would’ve expected talk of THIS particular former Mourinho player to join him on this latest adventure…
Although it was denied (Mourinho said “Only if he comes for lunch. If, you know, Saudi Arabia to Portugal. Istanbul is almost midway. Maybe, one day, he comes in his private flight. He stops in Istanbul and he says I want to see my my old friend Jose” when questioned about the rumour) , I can’t help but just IMAGINE the sort of things I’d be writing about if we had two of Portuguese football’s most famous sons reunited once again…
Josh.