Domenico Tedesco was reflecting on life in the Fenerbahce hot seat ahead of Monday evening’s intercontinental derby, one of Europe’s fiercest rivalries.
Fenerbahce come from Kadıköy on the Asian side of Istanbul, while Galatasaray are based on the European side. They are separated by just one point at the top of the Super Lig, which adds another layer of drama.
Tedesco, 40, arrived at Fenerbahce on September 9 following Jose Mourinho’s underwhelming tenure – a tenure that brought an initial wave of hope and excitement but ultimately fizzled. He was sacked in August after Fenerbahce lost to Benfica in the Champions League.
Since taking charge, Tedesco’s team are undefeated domestically, averaging 2.4 points in their first 10 league matches, with a 3-2 comeback win against Besiktas earlier this month being the highlight. His strong form and free-flowing style has Fenerbahce fans dreaming of a first title since 2014, a painful period in which Galatasaray has been crowned champions six times. Fans on social media have compared Tedesco to Ottoman Emperor Mehmed II, something they said was unrealistic but amusing.
Only two weeks after Tedesco joined, Sadetin Saran succeeded Ali Koç in the club’s presidential election. This was a trial period.
“The mood was really negative,” he said. athletic“It’s not like they changed the coach, We had this election early on, so everyone was nervous about it,
“With the elections, it can affect the staff and players as well, so, for me, it was a completely new experience. Election day was also a game for us, so it was quite tough to be honest. But now everything has settled down, we have a good team, and we have found our rhythm.”
Tedesco also quickly had to adjust to a new country and an unfamiliar league, which has been thrust into the spotlight this month due to an investigation into a betting scandal that has led to the suspension of 1,024 players and 149 match officials distributed across all leagues in Turkey.
During Mourinho’s time at Fenerbahçe, he often expressed his anger at the quality of work in Turkey, while in March 2024, three months before Mourinho joined, the club threatened to pull out of the league altogether over what he saw as historically unfair treatment by officials.
How has the level of work achieved so far?
Tedesco replied in a notable change of tone compared to his predecessor, “I have to say that the refereeing is really good.” “Every game we’ve played, it’s never been a theme. They try their best, and that’s it. We also have to pay attention because sometimes if one thing happens, you put everyone in the same category, and that’s not fair either.”
Tedesco was born in Italy but raised in Stuttgart, Germany. He started coaching the under-sixes and under-nines at their amateur team ASV Hvald athletic Reported earlier.
He was pursuing an engineering degree, but when he was offered the chance to take charge of Stuttgart’s under-17 team, he decided to put it on hold to focus on football.
Despite his lack of professional experience, he was given a full-time role in senior management at Bundesliga 2 club Erzgebirge AU, which he saved from relegation in 2017. He has since held positions at Schalke, Spartak Moscow, RB Leipzig and most recently the Belgium national team.
Upon taking the job at Schalke, whom he led to second place in the Bundesliga before a difficult second season which led to his dismissal, he was dubbed the “laptop coach”. What did he do with that criticism?
“I took it in a more humorous way,” he replied. “You can plan a lot of great training sessions, you can make a lot of strategies, but the human side is the most important thing.
“If you don’t have that connection with the players or the team, if they don’t feel it, it’s very difficult because ultimately they are on the field and they have to play with heart and passion for the club, for the fans, for the coach, for everything.”
He acknowledged that it is helpful for a manager to play at the highest level, but said it is not necessary.
“I think it’s an advantage because you know how it works inside the changing room, when you have a certain situation, how to handle it,” he said. “But this is far from a coach’s job; it is completely different.
“To be a manager, to be a coach, you have to have a lot of different disciplines. You’re a coach, you’re an analyst, you’re a friend, you’re a brother, you’re a psychologist.”
Tedesco’s two years in charge of Belgium showed early promise but ended in disappointment at Euro 2024 and the Nations League beyond.
“Up until the Euros, we played really well, with really good results,” he said. “We didn’t lose a game for 16 months, so we qualified in first place with a lot of points and a lot of goals. But at the Euros, we lost our first game against Slovakia. It wasn’t easy. I would have liked if the first loss was earlier. We still beat Romania in the second game; it was good. So we qualified for the round of 16, but then we faced France and lost.”
He said that he went into the Nations League with the idea of giving game time to as many young players as possible, such as Charles de Catelare, Lois Openda and Maxime de Cuyper, but this proved difficult against high-quality opposition.
“The moment we introduce young players and the results don’t come because then you lose, for example, 2-1 at home against France, playing really well, then people get disappointed,” he said. “So it was a transitional moment.”
Tedesco and his Belgium players after beating Sweden 3-0 in March 2023 (Virginie Lefour/Belga MAG/AFP via Getty Images)
Tedesco was sacked in 2024 after winning just one match in Belgium’s six Nations League games.
His time with Belgium was also marked by a high-profile dispute with Thibaut Courtois, where the goalkeeper refused to play for Tedesco after being overlooked for the captaincy, athletic Reported earlier.
Courtois has since returned to the Belgium team under new head coach Rudy Garcia.
“I think this kind of situation can always happen,” Tedesco said. “It was a big topic, but honestly everything has been said on it.”
Tedesco said he learned a lot from the job, as he spent a lot of time watching Belgian players in matches around the world, and he got the chance to work closely with world-class players such as Kevin De Bruyne.
“Once Kevin becomes your player, you’ll probably have a more detailed understanding of what he’s doing on the pitch,” Tedesco said. “He finds spots that a lot of players can’t find, and he plays inside some spots that a lot of players can’t play in.”
However, Tedesco, who speaks four languages fluently and is now learning Turkish, said he is happy to be away from international football.
“I was missing the daily grind,” he explained. “During the Euros, you had the team for four, five, six weeks, that was my best time there, when our team was together. Qualifying was fantastic, but after five, six days of leaving the team, it was always a bad feeling leaving the players when they went back to their clubs.
“It’s a completely different job. I learned to simplify things because you don’t have time to train patterns, or anything, so you have to simplify things. It’s like a director, manager or scout in one person.”
In Türkiye, Tedesco is living alone, away from his wife and two daughters, who live in Stuttgart. How does he deal with that?
“In the beginning, it is always difficult,” he said. “Especially because, as a national coach, you have your family time. Now it sounds a bit sad, but you get used to it, because every day you are on target. When you are at home in the evening, you think about it, but you have FaceTime or WhatsApp calls.
“Every time we get an international break, I try to meet my family for at least two or three days, but, of course, you need a strong family, a strong wife, and I have that.”
This is Tedesco’s first club management role since his time at RB Leipzig, which started brightly but unraveled worryingly.
He took over mid-season, with RB Leipzig in 11th place in the table. He guided them to Champions League qualification in fourth, as well as winning the club’s first major trophy, the DFB-Pokal in 2022. A Leipzig side that also included Josko Guardiol, Christopher Nkunku, Dani Olmo and Dominik Szoboszlai reached the Europa League semi-finals, losing to Rangers.
However, there was a worrying decline in form in his first full season in charge.
As athletic It was reported at the time that there was a disagreement in the transfer window. Humiliating defeats at the start of the season, a 4–0 defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt and a 4–1 defeat to Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League, led to Tedesco being sacked after only nine months in charge.
Tedesco said, “The club wanted to extend my contract at the beginning of the summer – but I wanted to wait and see how the cooperation develops.” “It surprised the management somewhat. And it was a bit difficult in the transfer market. I wanted the team to remain the same. If you’re successful, I don’t think there’s a big need to change the team. But in the end, it was somewhat the same… It was a bit of a question of trust which is very important in football.”
Tedesco is a flexible manager. He has used a 4-4-2, a back three, and at Fenerbahce, he started with a 4-2-3-1 but is now using a 4-3-3. After trying several systems, which one does he prefer now?
“To be honest, I like a lot of people. I think what’s always important is what team you have, what kind of players you have… The best player in the best position is a very important principle for me.”
How would he describe his football philosophy?
“Out of possession, I like to press hard, because we want the ball. And once we have the ball, I like to dominate the game, score goals and create chances. So, out of possession, a little heavy metal. In possession – and I told my Brazilians this in our last game – a little bit of samba.”
For Tedesco, the focus now turns to Monday evening’s derby and the chance to climb to the top of the table by overcoming Galatasaray. Win that, and Fenerbahce fans will perform their samba on the streets of Istanbul.
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