It’s been a while hasn’t it?
A couple of months since I last wrote about Jose and his adventure in Turkey, and it certainly hasn’t been quiet in the time since. When we left the blog series last time, it was the start of December, and Fener were towards the top of the Super Lig table, and on track for the play offs of the Europa League… I mentioned in my previous post that they had 5 matches before the winter break… and in which they had a fairly mixed bag in the league (2 wins, 1 draw and a 1-0 loss away to Besiktas), whilst in the Europa League they were outclassed in Bilbao, with a red card to Mert Mulder indicative of a match they lost to 2 goals by the great Inaki Williams. This left Galatasaray flying domestically at the top of the table, and Fener towards the bottom of the teams clinging on to a play off spot on the European front. So it may not have been the jolliest of festive periods for Mourinho and the club hierarchy.
January in the footballing world brings with it two major things, a LOT of fixtures, and the transfer window. And what that also means is more for Jose to talk (and moan) about. And of course, he did.
Here is just some of the quotes to come from the silver and sharp tongue of Jose, and other such misdemeanours, in the last month or so alone:
- After arriving late to his post-match presser following the 4-0 win against Adana Demirspor, he told the waiting press that he apologised for being late and that “The food was very good. Kebab was excellent.”
- He has launched his own Douro red wine brand… naturally called “The Special One”. And coming in at a measly… 144 euros a bottle…
- Following the draw against Lyon, Mourinho told the interviewer that not the players but that the VAR decided the match, saying:
“The referee made a mistake by giving just a yellow card to Kumbedi for the foul on Szymanski… The VAR is there to help the referee when the referee makes a mistake, and he didn’t call him, because if the referee goes to the screen he gives the red card… It was Mr. Paolo Mazzoleni, very famous in Italy by the way, that didn’t call the referee. The referee’s mistakes on the pitch are acceptable, the VAR is there to work and it didn’t.”
- He also took aim at Lyon’s owner John Textor, saying that “Football today is made up of clubs with owners and presidents who don’t understand anything about football… It’s no longer presidents like Jean-Michel Aulas who stay for 20 years, who understand football.”
- He received a one match ban from UEFA, and so was not in the dugout for the match with Midtjylland. This was as a result of Mourinho delaying his team’s return to the pitch for the second half of their match against Lyon… Take that for what you will…
- With his team staying in a place known for church bells and birds for their trip to Denmark, Mourinho posted “let us sleep please we have another match Sunday” …
Another thing Jose is well known for is his deals in the transfer market. So let’s look at what business Fener did in the winter window shall we…?
It was certainly a period of comings and goings, Mourinho famously one to often make the most of the periods he can bolster and Mold his teams to how he pleases. And if you thought Jose may be softening his approach in his old age, and going for a more expansive style… then you thought wrongly. His two headline incomings were both centre halves; Milos Skriniar from PSG on loan (a player who was at exceptional levels in his time at Inter, doesn’t seem to have hit the same heights in France, but undoubtedly a good footballer), and also Diego Carlos from Aston Villa. Another possible gem, who shone for Sevilla ahead of his big move to the Premier League, only for injury to holt his progress. Another transfer incoming that proved to be a significant deal in the chain of transfers that eventually saw Aston Villa see the sum of around £64 million. With Fenerbahce signing Al Nassr’s Brazilian midfielder Talisca, it left the Saudi club with a vacant slot to sign another overseas player, and Fener now had the former Besiktas and Guangzhou Evergrande player (Turkey to China to Saudi to Turkey… I am sure his accountant is a happy man…) at their disposal. Given his creative record and goalscoring pedigree (2 goals in his first 3 games for Mourinho’s side also since the move), its sure to give the Turkish side yet another attacking option. Clearly defence isn’t their issue, can they score enough to catch Gala is the main question that will define their season one would assume.
Alongside those new stars, there was also a contract extension for midfielder Irfan Kahveci who despite not hitting the goalscoring heights of the previous season is still a mainstay in the Fener starting 11. And of course we had some departures from the team; Midfielder Lincoln, having been on loan in Brazil, was sent to the slightly less tropical climates of… Hull City…, Emir Ortakaya returned to Belgium on loan (after not getting the gametime at Westerlo, he instead finds himself at Beerschot), Samet Akaydin’s contract was mutually terminated to allow for him to move to Çaykur Rizespor, young Serbian right-sided player Ognjen Mimović came in from Red Star Belgrade (clearly with a lot of promise, albeit it remains to be seen how immediate the youngster will get first team action), and finally young midfielder Bartuğ Elmaz was sent on loan to Maribor in Slovenia for some valuable first team football, having made just two appearances for Fener this season.
On the other sides of the city, things have certainly been busy.
With Galatasaray still out in front in the league and STILL unbeaten, they seemed to strengthen their grip on the domestic front by bringing in the likes of Mario Lemina from Wolves and Alvaro Morata on loan from Milan with an option to buy. Hakim Ziyech and Michy Batshuayi departed (penny for the thoughts of the Belgian, who made the cross city move only to then see his new team sign one of the world’s top strikers out of nowhere, he’ll be hoping Frankfurt proves much more fruitful, as I am sure Ziyech will as he soaks in the riches and rays in Qatar). Other departures (or some could argue more a trimming of the fat) saw Wilfried Zaha end his loan spell at Lyon, and instead head on over to Charlotte in the MLS, and the somewhat… confusing… career of Nicolò Zaniolo saw him return to Italy via a loan move to Fiorentina. Besiktas meanwhile, whilst no player incomings did hire a new coach… none other than Jose Mourinho’s successor at Manchester United in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Given his period out of the game since departing Old Trafford, it will be most fascinating to see how he gets on at a club who are the 3rd biggest in their own city…
So with the squads taking shape for the rest of the season ahead, results since returning from the winter break have actually been… pretty good. Whilst I am not going to even try and explain how the domestic cup in Turkey works (there’s different groups and stages and all sorts going on) I can say that Fener have played two and won both by scores of 3-0 and 5-0, so can’t be too bad, right?
On the European front, as if things weren’t close enough already, they really did go right down to the wire…
Firstly came a 0-0 draw at home to Lyon. A game that didn’t really help either side. Lyon found themselves in 3rd overall after the draw, with their destiny in their own hands whilst Fenerbahce ended up 19th after this result. They would need a result against Midtjylland in their final Europa League fixture, and other scores to go in their favour, in order to gain entry into the play off round.
To Denmark then for the final matchday of the league phase… and it proved to be quite the game…
Just to show you how this draw, coupled with results elsewhere, sent Fener into the play offs in the very last spot avaliable by the VERY closest of margins… here’s how the league standings finished (reminder that 24th is the last position that will gain you a play off place…)
A two legged tie with Anderlecht now awaits them (we shall get onto part one later…).
The bread and butter though for Fenerbahce simply has to be the league at home. After the heartbreak and fury of the season before, it seems only perfection will be good enough to topple a Galatasaray who are seemingly even stronger this season than the previous. We are heading into mid February and Gala are still yet to lose a league match this season, whilst Fenerbahce have last just twice, yet find themselves 3 points behind their rivals who also have a game in hand. Work to be done, and even then it may not be enough.
I guess from a Fenerbahce point of view, they can’t worry about how their great rivals are doing, and instead focus on themselves. Win their own matches, and let other teams take care of their own results. Mourinho’s men have been flying in the Super Lig since the return post-winter break; 2 Youssef En-Nesyri goals gave them a narrow 2-1 win over lowly Hatayspor to kickstart the new year, then came a battling 3-2 win away to Konyaspor, and then one of the more dominant and impressive Fener wins of the season away to Adana Demirspor (more on them later too)…
They followed that up in the league with another win, this time a little closer (3-2 against Göztepe S.K.). And if the win over Adana was one of the more dominant Fener wins of the season, then the win over Rizespor was one of the wildest…
A simply WILD football match; Fener 2-0 down after 13 minutes AT HOME, to get a goal back from the penalty spot in the EIGHTH minute of added on time which also saw Rizespor’s Ibrahim Olawoyin sent off, for then ex Leicester City winger Rachid Ghezzal to be shown a red card to see Rizespor reduced to 9 men just before Edin Dzeko made the game all square, to then finally see that man Youssef En-Nesyri a minute from time grab the vital winning goal. Seems almost unfair that you get the same number of points regardless of how you get the result, but such is the wonders of the sport I guess. Finally their recent league run of good form was rounded out with a 2-0 win away to Alanyaspor, which featured a foal by new signing Talisca just before half time. An oddly comfortable standard win for Fener… for once…
Albeit it may not be the golden memory for the Brazilian that a first league goal for a new club should be, given what happened as he was celebrating…
An object from the crowd, believed to be a bottle, was thrown towards the midfielder and hit him on the back of the neck, sending him to the ground. Think what you want, but I find this totally unacceptable behavior by so-called fans. What I can’t condone, but can at least understand, is what his teammate Fred did after this, as instead of helping his fallen colleague, he instead chose to rile up the home fans some more and gesticulated towards them before patting the club badge on his own shirt. For the record, Taslica did receive treatment but was able to carry on playing until he was subbed off later in the game. Welcome back to the country I guess…
So now you are all up to date with the recent fortunes of the ‘Sarı Kanaryalar’ , as I write this in Mid February they are second in the Super Lig, in the play offs of the Europa League, and doing their thing in the domestic cup. So so far, so good? Maybe. But is it BETTER than before, when even 99 points and one league loss wasn’t enough for the title? Well, that is a little harder to say one way or the other.
I did recently come across a video from the wonderful ‘On the Continent’ football YouTube/podcast channel, where after the 0-0 with Lyon, they reflected on Mourinho’s time in Turkey and the effects on the team he had had. They were not exactly effusive in their praise…
I guess on that front, it really will be all about results. If Fenerbahce end the season with either the Turkish Super Lig or Europa League trophies, I doubt anyone at the club or their fans will care about how they have managed it. And if they do neither, I would not be shocked to see them decide that the Mourinho experiment has failed, in fact I get the growing feeling that Mourinho (as always) has eyes on where he will go next. It surely can’t be much longer before the national team becomes to much of a pull to resist? The same could be said for the riches of Saudi… Lets see how much fight Mourinho really has left.
I shall leave you with a few stories, all showing the contrasting sides of Mourinho’s character.
The first is classic Jose, one where takes a typical swipe at a competitor, in a very a-typical situation. During Galatasaray’s match against Adana Demirspor, Gala were awarded a controversial penalty after Dries Mertens was ‘supposedly’ fouled, to which Morata then scored to make it 1-1. So furious at the decision that the Adana players eventually WALKED OFF the pitch with around half hour to go, forcing the referee to abandon the game. Mourinho quickly posted the clip of the ‘foul’ to his instagram along with the following image:
Read into that what you will. But also bare in mind it follows on from earlier in the season when Mourinho said that (after a 2-1 Galatasaray win over Goztepe, where the beaten side called for a foreign referee system to be brought in) “Yesterday, everybody was saying the same thing. Scandal, scandal, scandal… I learn new words [in Turkish]. Scandal, scandal, scandal. But I think some of you like it… In this country, many people like it. Even the winners like it, which is the worst thing of all.”
But I will end things with a nice Jose story:
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/jose-mourinho-fenerbahce-fan-team-bus-b2695323.html
Maybe he’s not the villain after all… well, maybe not the whole time…
And if you need further evidence that there is very much both good, and evil, left in Mourinho, then you can contrast a fantastic win for his side at home to Anderlecht…
Compare that brilliance to the lunacy of Mourinho’s social media row with Galatasaray’s Mauro Icardi (that phrase about people in glass houses comes to mind…). It all stems from the previously mentioned row over officials and decisions going in favour of the reigning champions, and one of their star attackers saw it fit to post the following to his instagram story in response…
Naturally Mourinho was asked about it… Naturally he had a… unique response…
Never change Jose. Never change.
Josh.