Jose Mourinho is long past his prime but ex-Man Utd boss was like Robert De Niro in his pre-match press conference

FRANK SINATRA never did perform in a crowded hut by the tradesman’s entrance of a football training ground in Istanbul.

And Robert De Niro never fielded questions about the absence of a fit, recognised left-back for the fourth-best team in the Turkish Super Lig.

But had they ever done so, it would have gone something like this. An audience with Jose Mourinho never grows old.

Even now that his vagabond shoes have strayed all the way to this outbuilding at Fenerbahce’s Can Bartu training complex.

As a coach, he may be past his prime. Indeed, he claims he wasn’t even one of the ten candidates spoken to by the FA to succeed Gareth Southgate as England manager.

But as a media operator, Mourinho is Ol’ Blue Eyes, he’s Bobby De Niro.

He’s a song-and-dance man and a box-office sensation. He’s the manager the Premier League craves because of his charisma, his take-downs, his mindgames and his wisecracks.

Just not his football.

Here he was, simultaneously spitting poison at Turkish journalists, who have been critical of his underwhelming start as Fenerbahce boss, while greeting the English press pack as if we were lifelong friends who’d never had a bad word to say about him.

Which, believe me, was never the case.

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Tonight, Mourinho goes head to head with his former club Manchester United in a meeting of two once-great footballing institutions.

Between them, United and Mourinho won 16 of the first 21 Premier League titles, as well as four European Cups during that same era.

Both are now faded and in exile — Mourinho on the Asian side of this chaotic, sprawling, city and United in the bottom half of the table, a world away from the elite.

A decade ago, both would have scoffed at the idea of second-tier Thursday night football.

Yet here they are. Still, Mourinho, the old rascal with the glint in his eye, was shaking hands, slapping backs and throwing signed Fenerbahce shirts to a couple of English journalists.

He’d read a newspaper story which claimed he had been ordering the same room-service meal every night in his Istanbul hotel suite — chicken soup, margarita pizza and ice cream.

“You English guys know where I live,” he giggled, “you know what I eat. Come round and make yourselves at home. I’m staying here at the training ground tonight, so does anyone need a room for the night?”

Mourinho saved his best jibe for Manchester City and his old El Clasico sparring partner Pep Guardiola — claiming he could yet win a title with United if City — who face 115 Premier League charges of financial wrongdoing — are stripped of their 2017-18 crown, when his Red Devils were runners up.

Mourinho, wary of motivating tonight’s opponents too much, was selective in his criticism of United boss Erik ten Hag.

He merely stated United’s ‘potential was far higher than their results’ and noted the Old Trafford board had shown more patience with Ten Hag than they did with him.

There was also the assertion that United and another of his former clubs, Spurs, should be the two clear favourites to win the Europa League — given that the Premier League was ‘far superior in terms of quality, intensity and finance’ than any other league.

While claiming that he wishes United well and believes ‘they will succeed sooner or later, hopefully sooner before one day I go back to the Premier League’, Mourinho suggested it was a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’ he returns to England. But is that so?

He is already being criticised for negative football here, Fenerbahce lost their first major derby, 3-1 at home to leaders Galatasaray and were beaten in a Champions League play-off against Lille to end up in the Thursday night club.

Yet still Mourinho possesses the capacity to fascinate. Still, owners of Premier League club clubs, who should probably know better, will remain intrigued.

When I asked about United’s decision to terminate Sir Alex Ferguson’s £2million-per-year role as a club ambassador, Mourinho was keen to plug a documentary about his life to be screened on Netflix next year.

He said: “My relationship with Sir Alex was amazing, incredible, when my Netflix documentary comes out you will know more about the reasons I have so much respect for him. The ambassadorial role, I don’t know that situation. It doesn’t matter.

“Sir Alex has the most important thing: the love and respect of every Manchester United fan around the world. That is more important than a few more pounds he doesn’t need.”

It was very different when questions arrived from the Turkish media.

Told that Fenerbahce were playing at a slower pace than last season, his response was simply: “That is your opinion and I respect it.” A line delivered with about as much respect as a cobra spitting venom from its fangs.

There were sarcastic swipes at TV pundits ‘the specialists have all the answers’. If they told Jose to play his misfiring attacking midfielder Sebastian Szymanski at left-back then perhaps he’d do so to avoid criticism.

When a TV reporter asked a perfectly-reasonable question, he was given a lecture about the need to stop showing endless replays of a ‘non-penalty’ incident involving Sofyan Amrabat, who will play tonight alongside a fellow former United midfielder, Fred.

That was the modern-day reality of Mourinho’s career — an argument over the use of TV footage in Turkish domestic football.

A spat he could never have imagined having when winning titles at Chelsea, Champions Leagues with Porto and Inter Milan or ruling the roost at the two most famous clubs on Earth, United and Real Madrid.

Yet at 61, something still motivates him to keep going.

Perhaps the prospect of returning to the Premier League — where press conferences now tend to be interminably dull and the whole soap opera is a need of a great brooding, anti-hero.

For now, he performs in a hut by the tradesman’s entrance and eats margarita pizza in his room.

But one day he thinks he’ll be back in the bright lights. Like Sinatra, he’ll never truly retire.

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk