There is a reason Turkish football has become a kind of warped pagoda to preserve the memory of once great players and managers, but it is not necessarily the obvious.
From a distance, the Turkish Super Lig has become a parody of itself, retirement home to the washed-up and the has-been. The reality is more complex and Turkey remains so attractive because it is a league full of colour, it offers European qualification and respectable wages, as well as unmatched fan ferocity.
The latter has fed neatly into the in-joke about how seriously it should be taken, but an entire footballing landscape should not just conjure images of rioting and hooliganism.
Shortly before losing the league title to rivals Galatasaray, Fenerbahce fans unveiled a giant blue and yellow tifo reading: “We are proud of you.” They have had a remarkable season, finishing one shy of a century of goals and losing only once in the league. The job vacated by Ismail Kartal at the end of his third spell is an attractive one for some reasons, and an impossible one for many others.
Which brings us to the arrival of Jose Mourinho, who is set to be announced on a two-year deal in a move that is only surprising because it is not the long-inevitable contract in Saudi Arabia that might have been expected.
Mourinho’s appointment comes five months after he was sacked by Roma, and two after Fenerbahce threatened to withdraw from the Super Lig altogether, citing their unhappiness at their perceived treatment from the authorities.
The tipping point was a match against Trabzonspor, when fans invaded the pitch at the final whistle and tried to attack Fenerbahce players. Goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic had been hit with a coin and Edin Dzeko and Dusan Tadic were also hit with missiles during the second half, causing the game to be halted. Alex Djiku said afterwards that he feared for his life.
Jayden Oosterwolde and Irfan Can Egribayat decided to fight back, and were subsequently handed a one-game ban apiece. Trabzonspor were made to play six games behind closed doors.
Ordinarily, first on Mourinho’s to-do list might be the job of instilling the customary siege mentality, a trick that worked wonders at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid.
In Istanbul he has met his match. Fenerbahce’s relationship with the authorities has never fully recovered from the 2011 Turkish football match-fixing scandal, in which they were one of a number of clubs accused of wrongdoing. It took years for those under suspicion to be cleared after prosecutors found the allegations were brought about as part of a conspiracy.
Where the club has seen itself as the victim of injustices, in the cases outlined above they have been right.
There are also exceptions to that rule. In the last two months alone, Kartal’s son was accused of throwing punches in a recent brawl against Galatasaray.
In April, Uefa fined the club €80,000 (£68,000) and stopped them selling tickets for an upcoming game as punishment for crowd disturbances, lighting fireworks, throwing objects and damaging seats against Union Saint-Gilloise. The match had to be halted within seconds of kick-off. Another recent punishment was a fine in 2022 for pro-Putin chants against Ukraine’s Dynamo Kyiv.
They have had one Super Cup date postponed – both Fenerbahce and Galatasaray refused to play in Riyadh in December, because they were banned from commemorating the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – and in the rearranged fixture on 7 April, Fenerbahce fielded their U19s in protest. The Turkish Football Federation decided this amounted to a forfeit, and Galatasaray were handed a 3-0 victory.
Mourinho is walking into an environment that is now beyond toxic. Tensions cannot be stoked any more.
Fenerbahce are already furious with Turkish referees. That was hinted when Kartal, their outgoing head coach, delivered his final day assessment of the campaign: “It is very clear what happened with us losing the championship, I don’t need to say it.” Enter a manager who has probably had more run-ins with them than training sessions.
On the pitch, it is not immediately clear what there is to gain. It will either be a disaster, if Fenerbahce do not win anything, and he will be derided as a dinosaur whom the game has moved beyond. Perhaps there will be more claims that his players have “bad blood” as he once said of some members of his Manchester United squad, or that the troops have “betrayed” him as they did at Chelsea. And should the opposite transpire, it will be greeted with shrugs of “well, it’s Turkish football”.
First, Mourinho has another job to complete. This weekend, he will be on punditry duties for the Champions League final between Borussia Dortmund and his former employers Real Madrid – a parting glance at the very pinnacle of European football.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/HGwvMBd
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