Nothing lasts forever in the kingdom of retired footballers and shrewd executives, except their kingdom. Not long ago, Vitor Pereira was the most ambitious and dedicated coach Fenerbahçe had seen in a while-the right person to reenergize the team after a string of "boring" coaches. Nevertheless, just eight games into the "super-duper league," following two consecutive sub-par performances, the big guns of the football media have already called for the commander-in-chief of the club to issue an ultimatum to Vitor Pereira. Rıdvan Dilmen from Fotomaç said, "Fenerbahçe chairman Aziz Yıldırım should call Pereira and say ‘We are winning, but the team shows no sign of life, why is that?'"

Of course, there is no harm in questioning the worsening form of the team, especially if it is a team that is supported by millions of fans. However, when it comes to Aziz Yıldırım, we all know what this truly means. Yıldırım, who sometimes even takes the responsibility of being a cheerleader and yells at the fans, is not the right person to summon when results are not satisfactory. Yes, like many other new coaches, Pereira has been unable to adapt to the physicality and low quality of Turkish football, and that is completely normal. But calling Aziz Yıldırım to alter the managerial balance at the club is not the right decision to help Pereira create a decent strategy to overcome this crisis.

There is another reason why the house of retired gentlemen is so angry with Pereira. At first he made statements like an "experienced" Turkish coach would, emphasizing his emotions and how he motivates his team, but neglecting the rational side of the game and how he was going to build the future of Fenerbahçe. This, of course, immediately made most columnists jubilant, because he was also declaring that he will pose no threat to their kingdom. Nonetheless, in recent weeks, Pereira has slightly changed his point of view on Turkish football. I guess he understood that this country exhibits enough emotion already, and needs some rationality. Therefore, he changed his game to a more controlled and less chaotic style, which of course made most columnists mad. Mehmet Demirkol from Fanatik wrote, "What happened to the crazy, offensive minded coach? It is really hard to understand why you play with a 4-4-2 that includes Lazar Markovic, Luis Nani and Robin van Persie; it seems there's quite a lot of offensive power on the team. Added to that, the opponent [Kayserispor] has not scored for four weeks, and they lack their goalkeeper and best player. They do not have any serious individual talent, too. Nevertheless, Fenerbahçe did not even seek opportunities and five of their players got yellow carded. It is truly hard to understand."

I do not know how much better traditional Turkish football columnists' suffering with modern football can be explained than this. Demirkol truly believes that if you put talented people together and if there is no real threat awaiting them, the productive process is done. But what happened to the inter connections that makes those talented people able to cooperate and create something bigger than themselves? Pereira is now trying to find a way to build those connections between his players and that is why Fenerbahçe seem like they have bitten the dust.

However, the real problem is that none of Fenerbahçe's players put in the mental effort that Pereira does. Thus, while he is trying to make a compact and two-sided team, his players are still living in the same universe as the Turkish football columnists. Well, it is not so common to have players that have the same philosophical quality as their coach, but at least Fenerbahçe players can stop playing for themselves. Right now, every position and every moment in Fenerbahçe's game is completely chaotic because all the players are trying to create the plan all over again whenever they receive the ball. Hence, Pereira is not completely in charge of the team, and until he is, there is no way to predict what will happen to Fenerbahçe next week.

Keeper Review:

Except for his goalkeeping, Fenerbahçe goalie Volkan Demirel is a "chaos creator" on the pitch. Whenever Fenerbahçe are struggling to produce anything, you can see Demirel starting a fight and heightening the tension. This also signifies that Vitor Pereira is slowly losing control of his team, because players are start to make crucial decisions independently.