Jose Mourinho entered the room, acknowledged familiar faces and tossed two shirts to two English reporters. One of them was for me.
The gift-bearer can explain: "I hope you English guys are not jealous because I gave only two shirts. I have to explain the reason: Gary (Cotterill) is because he's the guy that went to my city to meet me a few times for a few nice interviews. "And Sam because he had an incredible talent when I was at Man United: every match, he knew the team.
So we became friends." He's forgiven for using Sam rather than Samuel. The room at Fenerbahce's Can Bartu training centre was too cramped for an audience with one of football's great coaches and personalities.
It evoked unwanted memories of Mourinho abandoning a press conference in a sweltering Beijing on his first Manchester United tour in 2016.
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