Jose Mourinho’s Press Conference : “We Need to Adapt to Turkish Football’s Reality”

In the 2nd week of the Trendyol Süper Lig, Fenerbahçe drew 2-2 away against Göztepe. After the match, Fenerbahçe’s Head Coach, Jose Mourinho, addressed the press.

After the 2-2 draw, the Portuguese coach emphasized that nothing in football is coincidental, saying, “I could call this situation bad luck. I could say that. But nothing in football is coincidental. This has happened three times now. This is the third incident we’ve encountered, and we believe there is a clear reason for it. The first reason is that we do not kill the games, meaning we don’t finish them off. We get opportunities that should kill the game. In the second half, we found the spaces we couldn’t in the first half. We had chances to score the third goal and finish the match. After it was 2-1, we had clear chances. One was the ball that Cenk Tosun played across the goal.

Another chance was when Maximin had a good opportunity on the left before that. So, this is the first reason: we can’t finish off the matches. We fail to capitalize on the chances to kill the games. Another reason is that we don’t act smart enough on the pitch, like our opponents do. Today, in response to the first question, I said that I need to adapt to the nature of Turkish football. Turkish football doesn’t need to adapt to me; I need to adapt to it. Therefore, my players also need to do what the opposing players do.

They need to waste time, stay down if necessary, and stop the game. They need to waste time, and if necessary, feign injury. Just like everyone else. If we do these things, even if the referee adds six minutes, we would have had the opportunity to kill the game. We also need to better utilize the opportunities to kill the game. You could call this being too naïve, or behaving too poetically in a league that isn’t poetic at all. But the players need to think about this. I told my players at halftime, while we were ahead, that we need to be ambitious. We need to capitalize on the chances to finish the game.

I said the same thing today at halftime. I’m not a magician, just experienced. But I told my players that if they score, if they find a goal, the fans will be behind them. So the match will be up for grabs. As I said, this is what happened in the second half. There was incredible support. So we can say that it’s a mix of these two reasons: not having the ambition to finish off the game and not acting smartly like the others. In some countries, this is called anti-football. In some countries, it’s called smart play. We need to be like them,” he said.

“I Didn’t See What Happened”

Mourinho stated that he didn’t see the incident involving President Ali Koç at the start of the second half, saying, “The only thing I saw was a huge crowd. The players saw it, but they didn’t understand what was happening. When the referee stopped the game, I didn’t understand what was going on. I was just trying to keep my players focused on the match,” he said.