Jose Mourinho at Fenerbahce: Why ex-Chelsea and Spurs boss' time in Turkey promises to be box office

It was like a scene from Despicable Me; the charismatic mastermind elevated on his plinth, the fanatical, cartoonish yellow and blue throng below, hanging rabidly on his every word, willing to entrust themselves entirely to his scheming ways. Jose Mourinho very probably could have told the gathered crowd of Fenerbahce fans that he was planning to steal the moon yesterday, and they almost certainly would have gone bananas with blind devotion. The era of Despicable Mou has very much arrived.

There has always been a touch of the cult leader about Mourinho, of course; from his earliest self-proclamations of his messianic ‘Special One’ status to his frequent implementations of siege mentalities and the usual sour endings that feel more akin to hostage situations and that you could quite easily envisage being resolved under the tense supervision of armed law enforcement.

Ever since the 61-year-old was ousted from his post with AS Roma back in January - much to the chagrin of many disciples - it has been unclear as to what his next dastardly project might be. There had been vague talk of a sensational Premier League return under some ill-advised guise or other, slightly firmer conversations regarding a lucrative sojourn to the billionaire’s sandpit of Saudi Arabia. Instead, in a move that has all the footballing hipsters hooting and hollering, he has accepted an appointment in Turkey.

In many respects, Mourinho’s arrival on the banks of the Bosphorus feels like the kind of targeted Instagram ad that arrests your doomscroll in mid-swipe. Did any of us know we wanted it? Probably not. Now that we’ve seen it, can we think about anything else? Also, no.

For years now, Turkish football has been the eccentric cousin of its continental counterpart; a living, seething nostalgia trip teeming with forgotten names and mercurial nomads, the kind of division that sparks Wikipedia deep dives and enraptured reminiscence over pints and packets of Scampi Fries at pub tables throughout the land. The squad Mourinho will inherit in Istanbul is a textbook testament to this; Caglar Soyuncu, Dusan Tadic, Edin Dzeko, Michy Batshuayi, Ryan Kent, Bright Osayi-Samuel, and Fred are all on the books at Fenerbahce at the time of writing. Had Jose arrived a little earlier, he could have worked alongside Leonardo Bonucci and Josh King too, were it not for the respective interventions of retirement and contract expiration. It is a patchwork roster of fleeting idols that, involuntarily, makes you say, ‘Really?! Never knew he was there’ on an infinite loop, like pull-string toy with a Premier League Years addiction.

Certainly, this is part of the appeal - Mourinho casting his beady eye over a ragtag crew of waifs and drifters, like a line of unruly code in the advanced, unhinged stages of a Footballer Manager save, or Patches O'Houlihan in Dodgeball. If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge the ignominy of finishing second to Galatasaray again. He will be, even now in the waning afterglow of his magnificence, the biggest fish in a relatively modest pond. His antics, by glittering default, will be impossible to ignore.

Or perhaps he will be more akin to Jaws in a swimming pool. Carnage and melodrama are almost synonymous with Mourinho at this stage in his career, and it is rare that his tenures do not unravel in barely-controlled implosions of bitterness and animosity. In the Premier League, whether it be with Chelsea or Manchester United or Tottenham Hotspur or Chelsea again, this usually results in snarky press conferences, ravenous column inch theatrics, and deflated, apathetic departures. But in Turkey, where footballing passions burn brighter than most, his presence may feel more like a Molotov cocktail hurled through the plate glass window of a kindling factory. The mischievous sadist within revels at the prospect; it would be disingenuous to suggest that the curiosity isn’t, at the very least, a little morbid.

Either way, it promises to be box office. In the present day, Mourinho the chaotic brand practically eclipses Mourinho the genius, rightly or wrongly. And yet, for all of that, every stepping stone in his enthralling odyssey is flush with the faintest, precarious glint of redemption. If things go well with Fenerbahce, perhaps one last shot at an indisputable European heavyweight awaits - a Bayern Munich, or a Juventus, maybe. If they do not, who can say where Jose will end up next? The Middle East? The Old Firm? The USMNT? Only time will tell, of course, but in the here and now, all we can do is buckle up and enjoy the ride. Expect turbulence.