Damien Duff won two Premier League titles with Chelsea and pocketed 100 caps for Ireland but says FAI Cup glory with Shelbourne would be ‘the pinnacle’ of his career.
The legendary winger goes to Waterford tomorrow knowing his Reds are one step away from next month’s Aviva Stadium final.
As a player, he won a League Cup with Blackburn Rovers and Chelsea but never got to lift the FA Cup itself.
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As a coach at Celtic, he enjoyed a run of trophies that included a domestic treble and then another league crown and League Cup the following season.
Working under Neil Lennon, he wasn’t the main man in Glasgow but, back home in Dublin, he is the one calling the shots at Shelbourne in his first season as a manager.
And reinventing himself and learning the managerial ropes every day is precisely why Duff feels success in this prestigious competition would top anything that went before.
That still might sound surprising, considering all he has achieved during his decorated playing career.
But explaining why, Duff, 43, said: “This could be the pinnacle if it was to happen. “Football was what I did. It was what I was natural at and what I did since I could walk.
“It was the only thing I was half decent at. To become a footballer, it’s probably why I was put on earth.
“It wasn’t to coach or to manage. I’ve had to learn all this. You start learning the game all over again.
“And that’s why it would be the pinnacle because it’s learning something new. Playing football was me, if that makes sense?.”
Duff, along with Shelbourne coach and former Ireland team-mate Alan Quinn, attended last season’s FAI Cup final between St Pat’s and Bohemians.
And it gave Duff a valuable insight into what the biggest day in Irish football’s calendar means to those directly involved.
“I was emotional watching that,” he said ahead of tomorrow’s RSC clash. “I had a tear when the national anthem was played and when the teams walked out.
“I was about to take over (as manager) and I was picturing myself in it and thinking “Why not?”.
“To be in the semis tomorrow is surreal, but no one remembers the semi-finals. It’s about getting to the final.”
And Duff is careful not to look too far ahead considering that free-scoring Waterford are the form horses in the First Division, where they have secured a playoff spot.
The RSC is close to selling out with extra terracing going in behind both goals and the Munster club fancy another upset having already sent St Pat’s and Dundalk packing.
Duff said: “They’re a very dangerous team and have the X Factor up front. If they started better you’d say they might have romped the league, not Cork.
“We’re talking an awful lot about finals here but there’s an amazingly tough task ahead of us. It’s the second hardest game we could have got.
“They’re a very good and dangerous team. You’ll have to play near on the game we played against Bohs in the quarter-finals, which was the perfect game.
“Anyone who watches League of Ireland football will know how tough a tie this is going to be.”
But Duff feels Shels are a different side now than they were at the start of the season and added: “Sometimes you can feel it.
“Maybe you walk into the dressing room before a game and there’s a silence, a nervous silence. Now, you walk in and the boys back themselves to dominate more.
“It’s an amazingly tight dressing room. It’s there to see. Watch our team from early this season and I think they’re a different team.”
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