Jim McGuinness is making a surprise move to Chinese football.
Keith Duggan of the Irish Times reports that the 2012 All-Ireland winning Donegal manager is joining former Bayer Leverkusen manager Roger Schmidt as assistant coach at Chinese Super League team Beijing Guoan. Schmidt was sacked as manager of Bayer side back in March following a 6-2 defeat to Borussia Dortmund.
McGuinness had been at Celtic since 2012, initially joining as a performance consultant but subsequently moving into a coaching role.
The 44-year-old travels to China tomorrow and will start his new job, which has a two-and-a-half year contract, on Monday.
During his time at Celtic, McGuinness happened to meet Schmidt and the two struck up a rapport, staying in touch via email.
McGuinness told the Irish Times that he received a phone call from Schmidt last week asking if he would be interested in joining him in Beijing.
Then I got a text from Roger at the beginning of the summer to say he was going to be in Dublin to meet a sports firm. We met in the airport in Dublin and spent a few hours ahead of his flight to Germany and he walked me through his game plan and style of play. We just had a really good conversation. I feel that we think similarly and share core principles.
And at the end he asked me to show him Gaelic football because he was curious about it. So we watched the highlights of the 2012 final [when McGuinness’s Donegal beat Mayo 2-11 to 0-13]. The chat was very positive and strong and gravitated towards maybe some time we can work together. And then last week, I got a phone call asking if I would be interested.
Beijing Guoan are currently seventh in the Chinese Super League after 14 games.
Foreign stars at the club include former Barcelona and Spain U21 striker Jonathan Soriano and Brazilian international midfielder Renato Augusto.
The script for that Jim McGuinness film might require another rewrite.
Picture credit: Rob Casey / SPORTSFILE
