Friday 15 May 2015 18:27, UK
Having excelled as a Gaelic football coach, Jim McGuinness is hoping to make a similar impact in soccer with Celtic.
McGuinness won an All-Ireland title and three Ulster Championships during his four years in charge of Donegal, and he joined Celtic in 2012 as a performance consultant.
He has worked with the Celtic first team this season, while also taking his coaching badges through the Football Association of Ireland, and will begin studying for his UEFA ‘B’ Licence in the coming weeks.
“Things have been going really well,” said McGuinness, who joins Sky Sports' GAA line-up for the 2015 championship season.
"In terms of stepping down from Donegal after five intensive years (one with the U21s), it has been refreshing not managing a group of 33 or 34 players and a backroom team. That sort of pressure of coordination, planning, preparation and delivering sessions hasn’t been there.
The coaches at Celtic have been very good. They’ve given a couple of hours here and there in terms of their defensive structures, and the manager said he’s going to give me a couple of sessions too.
"That said, it has been a very busy schedule in terms of joining Celtic on a full-time capacity, and now working exclusively with the first team. It was out of the frying pan and into the fire to an extent.
"I've really enjoyed working with Ronny (Deila) and the coaches, and that has also given me the opportunity to start doing my coaching badges, which will hopefully add a lot to the job I already do.
"Then possibly, I can look at coaching the younger players in the academy parallel with doing my badges. I'm really enjoying it and I’m looking forward to starting my UEFA ‘B’ Licence in two weeks' time."
Donegal defender Karl Lacey believes McGuinness would be successful if he chose to move into soccer management, but the 42-year-old is refusing to look that far ahead.
"What I want to do at the moment is to use the badges to make myself better at my job," he said.
"I do a lot of one-to-ones with players every single day and you do get into very in-depth conversations with them, in terms of where they’re at and where they want to go, the position that they play in the team. There is a lot of technical and tactical stuff there so I think the licences will help me in my job.
"I've been a coach and really enjoyed it, and I’d like to challenge myself in that area to see what I can do and offer. I’m going into it with an open mind.
"I'm learning every day; the coaches at Celtic have been very good. They’ve given a couple of hours here and there in terms of their defensive structures, and the manager said he’s going to give me a couple of sessions too.
"I'm looking forward to that and being around those types of people who can educate and develop you. Then it’s up to yourself to bring those concepts forward. We’ll see where it takes us."
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