While Rory Gallagher is doing a fine job rebuilding Donegal this year, thoughts of Jim McGuinness are rarely very far away in Donegal.
McGuinness continues to be employed by Celtic, as a performance consultant and coach, and the former Donegal manager is featured in this month's edition of The Manager - the official magazine of the League Manager's Association.
During the course of the interview, McGuinness explains how he got involved in management with Donegal, the influence of sports psychology on his work, and how he got involved with Celtic.
Most interesting, however, was his response to a question asking if he was apprehensive about switching codes, and if he discovered any surprising differences between the two sports.
He agreed that there were, but also accentuated a few of the similarities, and in doing so he described football in unfamiliar terms, calling both Gaelic football and soccer "invasion sports".
I had reached the top of my profession in Gaelic football and had worked in the sport all my life, so I knew how everything worked; it was instinctive. In football though, I had to start from the bottom again and learn things from scratch. I had to be totally open to working my way up.
There are, however, parallels between the sports - they're both invasion sports based around defending, attacking and transition and there are similarities in the way they are played.
Coming from Gaelic football there's an opportunity for me to see where some of the approaches I have used previously might be applied to football that aren't traditionally part of the culture.
We hadn't heard that description before, but a Google search defines an invasion sport as "team games in which the purpose is to invade the opponent's territory while scoring points and keeping the opposition team's points to a minimum".
McGuinnness added that he plans to stick with coaching in the UK, and is "midway in developing my own football philosophy so, as I once did with Gaelic football, I'm spending time reflecting on how I want to play the game", adding that he is still taking his coaching badges and hopes to be able to put those thoughts into practice some day.
It would be fascinating to watch.
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