Damien Duff won the League of Ireland with Shelbourne in dramatic fashion on Friday night – with a little help from a certain Jose Mourinho.
And, for whatever reason, it’s not the first time the Special One has got involved in Irish football. The former Celtic first-team coach picked up what he described as the best achievement of his career, the 1-0 win at Derry City – clinching Shels’ first league title since 2006 – eclipsing both the Premier League titles he won as a player. He said that’s because “dribbling with the ball was easy, and managing is hard.”
Duff was on the Hoops backroom team until 2021 when he broke off to manage on his own, but he admits he had a little help from the man who managed him for two years at Chelsea in getting his team over the line.
Asked by Off the Ball about Mourinho’s involvement, he said: “We’ve had a certain flow for the last couple of weeks so you’re trying to look for those little extras. Three weeks ago, we made contact (with Mourinho) and built it up. We had team talks from him and then a private message last week.”
While his connection with Duff stems back to their time together at Chelsea between 2004 and 2006, Mourinho is known to be a fan of the League of Ireland in general. Speaking last year after Dundalk’s Europa League qualifying win over Riga, then-boss Vinny Perth told Off the Ball that the Special One had watched the game – and been in touch. He said: “That was a strange one. What I found fascinating was that Jose had watched the game, and he spoke about some of the tactical side of it – he spoke about the change that we made with Murray.
“It took my breath away, I didn’t expect it and it definitely came out of the blue. I know that for a while he’s been interested in what we’re doing at Dundalk and he’s sent some texts and different bits and pieces like that.”