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 final was the county's first appearance on football's ultimate stage since 1992, and only their 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 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's 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. Early life McGuinness was born in Glenties, County Donegal. He spent his childhood at Ard Patrick in Glenties. His brother Charles died suddenly during the night from an unknown heart problem when he was 16. McGuinness later spoke about that event: "It was a moment in your life, Ryan [Tubridy, host of The Late Late Show], where you're going along and your life is going along in a certain direction and then, just all of a sudden, you're jilted and you're going in a different direction. In many respects it was like a sledgehammer. I have to say that. I was 12,