Rade Krunic, one of the former players of Fenerbahçe, made statements to Kurir from the Serbian press about his days in the yellow-dark blue team.
Describing Fenerbahçe as “a very difficult environment”, Krunic said that there are big differences with Italy in terms of football understanding and organization. The Serbian player said, “Fenerbahçe is a very difficult environment! Very, very difficult. Frankly, I was really surprised that such a big club, despite having such big goals and organization, thought so superficially. It impressed me that their football culture was not sufficient and that they did not understand football correctly… For example, they are not like the Italians. There is a huge difference between coming to Türkiye from Italy. Actually, I knew where I was going.
“AMATEURISH…”
Dušan Tadić and Edin Džeko, who welcomed me at the club, told me this. Livaković and Zajc were also there. They told me what kind of a place Fenerbahçe was, but I still couldn’t understand how amateurish they were in some football departments. Let me be frank, I couldn’t adapt. Neither the style of football nor that ‘uncontrolled, wild’ game…
“WITH THE ARRIVAL OF MOURINHO…”
In Italy, I was used to knowing clearly what I had to do. I don’t improvise on the field, I don’t make things up… I can’t do that. After half a season, José Mourinho arrived. I saw this situation as a chance for myself. He wanted me when he was coach at Roma. I was sure that I could be successful with him because he is a very good coach. But he was not the right coach for Fenerbahçe either. He was criticized for being too defensive and for his team not scoring enough goals. However, the fact that he had a winning mentality, knew how to win matches, and played for the outcome… They didn’t care much about these.
“THEY SHOULD ASK THEMSELVES”
In the end, we saw that he too had to leave. Maybe they should ask themselves why they haven’t been champions for the last 12 years. “Compared to them, Galatasaray is more focused on Europe and that’s why they dominate,” he said.