Seamus Coleman believes Jim McGuinness can be an instant success

Seamus Coleman isn’t backing against Jim McGuinness being an instant success now he’s back managing the Donegal senior footballers. 

The 2012 All-Ireland winning boss comes back into the role with a wealth of professional soccer experience and Republic of Ireland captain Coleman admits it’s exciting wondering how all of that will translate. 

After departing Donegal back in 2014, McGuinness worked with Celtic before a stint in China as an assistant manager. That led to a short-lived stay in charge of US side Charlotte Independence in 2019.

He recently completed his pro licence and most recently worked with the Derry City underage set-up. And Killybegs native Coleman says he was just like everyone this week in Donegal when the news broke - excited and keen to see how McGuinness fares second time around. 

“Everyone in Donegal is looking forward to seeing it, with what he has done for Donegal before.

“He took over a group that was really struggling at the time, he completely changed the mindset of the group, the team morale, and fitness. It was great for us for a few years in Donegal.

“It will be interesting for me to watch to see if he has picked up or learned anything from doing his pro licence and things like that. Does he try and change anything? Is it two different games completely?

“It'll be interesting to see his approach when he takes over, but we're all looking forward to it.

“They've had a tough couple of years. You would be expecting miracles from him to come in and make them contenders straight away. He did that very quickly the first time around.

“I've met him a few times, he's got something about him, something different about him in my opinion. I wouldn't write them off in terms of challenging straight away.

“He gets into the mindset of the players and whatever he does, he motivates players beyond whatever they think they can get to themselves.”

Seamus Coleman, Republic of Ireland captain, today launched SPAR’s Better Choices Back to School campaign, which aims to help families to make healthier choices as they prepare to get back to school. To win a SPAR Better Choices Little Chefs cooking kit children are being asked to share a picture of their own healthy recipe. SPAR recipes can be found on www.spar.ie with details of how to enter the competition.