Jim McGuinness

Jim McGuinness

Jim McGuinness (born 16 November 1972) is an association football coach and former Gaelic footballer, coach and manager, who won the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship as both player and manager with the Donegal county team. Having guided Donegal to the final of the 2010 All-Ireland Under 21 Football Championship, McGuinness was appointed senior manager later that year. In his time at the helm, he oversaw a Donegal team that won three Ulster Senior Football Championship titles in four seasons and led them to the 2012 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. The 2012 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final was the county's first appearance on football's ultimate stage since 1992. Donegal's victory that year was only the county's second All-Ireland senior title in more than 120 years. McGuinness's Donegal were the only team to defeat Dublin in a championship match during Jim Gavin's time as manager, doing so in the 2014 All-Ireland semi-final, and McGuinness's condensing of the pitch influenced how Dublin subsequently improved over the next five years. McGuinness ended his Donegal career shortly after that defeat of Dublin. McGuinness is one of very few county team managers to have been taken a role at a professional sports team outside Ireland. began working with Celtic as a coach in 2012, progressing to the position of assistant manager of the club's under-20 squad. In 2017, he took up a coaching role with Beijing Sinobo Guoan, leaving in January 2018. In December 2018, he was named as the new head coach of Charlotte Independence in the USL Championship. He has worked with the German Roger Schmidt (formerly Bayer Leverkusen manager) and the Spaniard Félix Sarriugarte (formerly Athletic Bilbao manager). He has a UEFA A Licence.McGuinness is a household name. His image has been represented on a mural outside Glenties, and a statue bearing the epigraph "Jim the Redeemer" was erected at Laghy close to Lough Derg.

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