Mourinho on Istanbul, room service and 'a battle I can never win'

Jose Mourinho hit the headlines again last week, for that red card in the Europa League match against Manchester United and for his eating habits in Istanbul. It’s claimed his hotel room-service of choice is chicken soup, pizza and ice cream all washed down with fizzy water. More on that later…

Meanwhile, there was plenty more on the menu when we sat down to chat at his home from home on the banks of the Bosphorus.

He’s hungry for success with Fenerbahce in Turkey, he’s hungry too, to one day return to the Premier League, but he’s finding UEFA hard to digest right now.

‘It’s a battle I can never win’

“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.”

Mourinho is referring of course to his Roma side’s Europa League final against Sevilla in May 2023. Referee Anthony Taylor waved away a Roma penalty appeal and was shouted at by Mourinho in the players’ car park at the Puskas Arena. The incident was captured on camera and went viral, and the manager served a four-match ban.

“I feel it’s unfair in the sense that in football when you have to be punished you are punished, but after you’ve been punished it’s a clean sheet. It should then start from zero, but it didn’t start. We were knocked out of (this season’s) Champions League (qualifying) by Lille with a VAR penalty in the 94th minute that only VAR saw.”

Then of course there was Thursday night.

“I was just screaming, like everyone on the bench and in the stadium, ‘It’s a penalty, it’s a penalty!’ without any kind of insult, and I get a red card.”

“I know it’s a battle I can never win,” he says.

‘I want to have honest treatment’

I ask if Jose feels he deserves better treatment, given his massive achievements in European competitions.

“No, no,” he insists, “I deserve to be (treated) like everybody else.

“On the pitch it doesn’t matter if you are Lionel Messi or playing your first match. The rules are the same for Messi and the young kid. And for coaches it’s the same thing. It doesn’t matter if you are Carlo Ancelotti or a young coach just starting. Ancelotti has to behave the same way as the young kid has to behave.

“That’s what I want for myself, and that’s what I am not getting.

“I don’t want to have special treatment, I want to have honest treatment. Just that. So if I do something wrong punish and pay, but if I do nothing wrong leave me in peace, but it’s getting difficult.

“Since that Budapest final it’s getting difficult.”

Would Jose really return for a relegation fight in the Premier League?

After that Europa League draw with Manchester United, and the red card, Mourinho told journalists his next job will have to be at a club in England not involved in European football.

But there’s bad news for fans of teams in the bottom half of the Premier League. Jose would never take on a relegation scrap.

“I made a joke,” he says. “I’m never going to a team fighting relegation. I will never go.”

He explains further why he said he would.

“I get upset, and I’m not in the period of my career to get upset. I’m in the period of my career to be happy all the time and at this moment playing in European competitions, I am getting upset all the time.

“But I’m not going to fight relegation. It’s too hard! Honestly, I believe that has to be the hardest thing. It’s more difficult than playing for titles. It has to be very hard emotionally, because it’s something that changes lives.

“I think it’s brave guys that do it.”

When I tell him that will be a blow to many supporters, the conversation takes a turn! Tongue in cheek, he says, why not south-east London?

“Millwall. Millwall,” he jokes. “I just cross the bridge from my house. Millwall!”

‘I have to be back in the Premier League, but not yet’

When you spend time with Jose Mourinho, you get the sense that his natural football home is the Premier League. When I put this to him, he doesn’t object.

“I had three clubs in England, so four different periods I’ve coached in England, and I love it. And by the social point of view, I’ve been lucky enough to live in so many cities, but my family lives in London.

“London is home, so one day I have to be back, unless no one wants me. But one day I would like to go back.

“But don’t get me wrong, and let’s make it very very clear, for the next two years, this season and next, no one will take me from Fenerbahce.”

‘I live in Europe but every day l go to Asia’

Jose is very obviously enjoying his time in Istanbul. He looks relaxed, tanned and trim.

“Istanbul is amazing,” he smiles. “I live in Europe and go every day to Asia for training, then I come back to Europe to sleep.”

I ask him to explain this unique situation. He’s happy to.

“The bridges connect Istanbul’s European side to Asian side. I live in Europe, my club is in Asia.

“My training ground is in Asia. I leave here and travel to the other side. It’s not dramatic. It’s less time than I used to do from London to Cobham (Chelsea Training Ground), and if one day I am unlucky and something is wrong on the bridge, I get the boat to the other side. It’s eight minutes, and then another 10 minutes to the training ground.”

He says he goes every day.

He doesn’t.

Because later he tells me that he often sleeps at the training ground. Such, still, is his passion for the job.

“I stay there many times. That’s normal,” he says.

“I cannot lose that desire and hunger, because if you lose it’s better to stop. I always remember going with Real Madrid to Old Trafford for a Champions League big match and Sir Alex invited me to his office before the game. We were looking at each other quite relaxed – but we were NOT relaxed – and I said to him. ‘Sir Alex, do you change with age? Do you change with the years? Does the feeling change?’ And he told me ‘no!’ It doesn’t change.”

Now Jose knows Sir Alex was right.

“It doesn’t change. The feelings are exactly the same, and I think that’s a good thing.”

And that’s why last week’s draw with Manchester United was such a good feeling for Mourinho.

“The match against United was a pleasure for me,” Mourinho says. “To see what every coach wants to see, which is seeing what you prepared. Sometimes you prepare things, and you don’t see it, but (on Thursday) the players played at their maximum level, because there is a difference between the two leagues and the two teams.

“For me to stand in the dressing room and see everyone sad with the result was a fantastic feeling, because normally if you get a point from Manchester United you are happy.

“We may have surprised some people, because sometimes people put tags without seeing. I scored with Real Madrid 105 goals in one season, and we were considered a defensive team and counter-attack team.”

Jose rules out England job – for now

Was there any contact about the England job? I ask.

“Zero,” he says.

Is it a job he would have been interested in?

“Today, no,” he insists.

“I still have too much energy to play one match per month, I need to play matches.”

But perhaps in the future?

“Yes, I think it’s something I’d like to do, to have experience of playing at a World Cup, a Euros. To represent the country, my country or a country I feel connected to. One day I feel it will come, but not now.”

Soup, pizza and fizzy drinks

And so, to those headlines about his lifestyle in Istanbul. Suggestions that when in his hotel, he orders room service consisting of very basic fare. All true it seems. Well, almost.

“If you believe what you read, Jose, you are living like a hermit,” I note. “Never leaving your room and eating soup.”

“Luckily they told the truth!” he says with a big smile.

“Because they could lie. So, when they say I drink sparkling water, they forgot it’s sometimes a coke. When they say chicken soup that’s fair, I do have it many, many times.”

After our chat, Jose and I ate. Not in his room. We headed out.

I had fish.

He had the usual.