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Jose Mourinho’s first — and possibly only — season as Fenerbahce manager hasn’t gone entirely to plan on the pitch, but when it comes to expected antics (xAn), it’s pretty much how you would expect.
The latest incident came on Wednesday night when his side faced Istanbul arch-rivals Galatasaray in the quarter-finals of the Turkish Cup.
After the final whistle had blown on a typically spicy contest, which Galatasaray won 2-1 at Fenerbahce’s Sukru Saracoglu stadium, Mourinho threw a Carolina Reaper pepper into the mix by grabbing the nose of his opposite number, Okan Buruk. Buruk promptly hit the turf in a relatively theatrical fashion, but then again, how would you react if your opponent, who is a 62-year-old adult, had pinched your hooter in an adversarial moment?
After Fenerbahce's loss to Galatasaray in the Turkish Cup, Jose Mourinho appeared to pinch the nose of Okan Buruk, the Galatasaray manager. pic.twitter.com/pKrBx0GBqi
— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) April 2, 2025
Fenerbahce winger Irfan Can Kahveci attempted to usher Mourinho away from the scene, before a phalanx of security guards and Galatasaray players arrived. Mourinho was duly shown a red card by referee Cihan Aydin.
The incident called to mind the infamous occasion when Mourinho, while he was Real Madrid manager, poked a finger into the eye of Barcelona’s then-assistant manager Tito Vilanova during a post-Clasico melee at the 2011 Supercopa de Espanol. Mourinho apologised for that incident a couple of years ago, but when presented last night with the opportunity to do something similar, he seemingly couldn’t resist.
“It’s not a nice thing to do,” confirmed Buruk to Turkish media after the game, but did his best to play down the incident. “I won’t exaggerate this, it’s not a big deal. We should have shaken each other’s hands before and after the match.”
If playing it down was official club policy, the memo didn’t quite reach the Galatasaray social media team, who posted a cartoon on X depicting Mourinho as being obsessed with their club and ending up wearing a straitjacket in an asylum, along with the caption “Galatasaray delirtir” — ‘Galatasaray makes you crazy’. There was not an excess of dignity on either side, it must be said.
Galatasaray delirtir. pic.twitter.com/8EzHuxgq4e
— Galatasaray SK (@GalatasaraySK) April 2, 2025
On Thursday, Galatasaray’s vice-president and football director Ibrahim Hatipoglu offered his take.
“Anyone who has followed Jose Mourinho’s career will recognise the same patterns over and over again,” he said in a statement sent to The Athletic. “When he loses, he shifts the focus to new targets or off-field distractions to divert attention from the defeat — this no longer surprises anyone.
“Since the beginning of the season, Mourinho has been at the centre of every controversy away from the pitch. It’s now up to the relevant authorities to respond accordingly — such behaviour has no place in football and must be met with serious consequences to prevent it from repeating.
“(The Turkish Super Lig) is fiercely competitive — and Mourinho seems both surprised and overwhelmed by that. Now, he’s trying to mask his disappointment and the failures he’s experienced so far.”
Alas, there has been no reaction from Mourinho: because he had been given a red card, he wasn’t permitted to speak to the media, either to Turkish TV or in the customary post-match news conference. Fenerbahce had not responded to a request for comment from The Athletic at the time of publication.
In the absence of any further comment from either manager or club, it’s unclear what prompted Mourinho’s nasal assault. But the best guess is: it’s Jose Mourinho, and he simply cannot help himself.
It was at least slightly in keeping with the game as a whole. As ever with a fixture known as the ‘Intercontinental derby’ (Galatasaray are from the European section of Istanbul, Fenerbahce reside across the Bosphorus Strait in the Asian section), it had been a lively affair: Galatasaray went into a 2-0 lead thanks to a couple of early strikes from Victor Osimhen, one a penalty and one a rasping strike from the right side of the box. Sebastian Szymanski pulled one back just before half-time, but that’s how the scoreline stayed.
That was partly thanks to former Tottenham Hotspur defender Davinson Sanchez, who saved a near-certain equaliser deep into stoppage time with an acrobatic bicycle-kick clearance off the line.
But just before the final whistle was blown, a mass brawl broke out, which led to three players — Fenerbahce’s Mert Hakan Yandas, plus Baris Yilmaz and Kerem Demirbay of Galatasaray — being sent off. That was a particularly strong achievement for Yandas and Demirbay, given they were unused substitutes, so weren’t even playing in the game. One of Mourinho’s assistants, Salvatore Foti, also received his marching orders for his role in the scrap.
It was also in keeping with Mourinho’s season more broadly.
This was the third game between the two old rivals this season, Galatasaray having won the away league fixture in September and February’s return ending in a goalless draw. The latter fixture was notable for Mourinho accusing the Galatasaray coaches of “jumping like monkeys” as they tried to get a decision in their favour from the officials.
That led to Galatasaray threatening legal action against Mourinho for “racist statements”, further accusing him of making “derogatory statements directed towards the Turkish people“.
Mourinho responded to the accusations of racism a week later, telling the UK’s Sky Sports News: “They were not clever in the way they attacked me, because they didn’t know my past. They didn’t know my connections with Africa, with African people and African players and African charities.”
The season has also been peppered with conspiracy theories and hints at dark forces being at work from Mourinho.
During a September game against Antalyaspor, he placed a laptop, showing a still image of an offside decision he believed had been unfairly given against his side, in front of some pitchside TV cameras. After that draw with Galatasaray in February, which was overseen by a Slovenian referee, Slavko Vincic, with the idea that would dampen down any talk of bias towards one side or the other from a homegrown official, he commented that “if a Turkish ref had refereed this match, it would have been a disaster”, a remark that earned him a four-match touchline ban and a £32,000 ($42,000) fine.
Mourinho arrived in town last June in a blaze of publicity and propaganda, his appointment inspired by club president Ali Koc’s desperate desire to win the Turkish league for the first time since 2014, the longest dry spell in Fenerbahce’s history. Last season they gathered a whopping 99 points under Ismail Kartal in their 38 matches, but unfortunately for them, the juggernaut that was Galatasaray won a record 102, and so retained the title.
Koc looked in danger of losing the presidency to his predecessor Aziz Yildirim, who had promised to appoint Mourinho had he won last summer’s elections. However, Koc claimed he had also been talking to the former Chelsea, Inter, Madrid and Manchester United (among others) manager, his appointment was confirmed in place of the unlucky Kartal and Koc duly won re-election at a canter.
Mourinho was initially wildly popular, but as the season has progressed, patchy results and unattractive football have eroded his standing among the fans.
Fenerbahce were knocked out of the Champions League qualifiers by France’s Lille in August, then eliminated from the Europa League’s round of 16 by Scottish Premiership side Rangers in March. The title race is not yet over: last weekend, Galatasaray lost to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Besiktas, another Istanbul rival, cutting their lead at the top of the table to six points, and Fenerbahce have a game in hand with two months of the season to go.
However, Wednesday represented Mourinho’s last chance to beat Galatasaray in his debut campaign, which he was unable to do.
It’s unclear whether he will get another chance next season.
If he does leave, he can at least do so knowing he was true to himself.
(Top photo: Yagiz Gurtag/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)