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Damien Duff

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Damien Duff
Personal information
Full name Damien Anthony Duff
Height [convert: invalid number]
Position(s) Winger
Team information
Current team
 Fulham
Number 16
Youth career
Leicester Celtic
Lourdes Celtic
St. Kevin's Boys
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1996–2003 Blackburn Rovers 185 (27)
2003–2006 Chelsea 81 (14)
2006–2009 Newcastle United 69 (5)
2009– Fulham 32 (6)
International career‡
1998– Republic of Ireland 81 (7)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 18:12, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 20:30, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Damien Anthony Duff (born 2 March 1979) is an Irish footballer. He currently plays as a winger for Premier League club Fulham and internationally for the Republic of Ireland. Previously he has played for Blackburn Rovers, with whom he won the Football League Cup; Chelsea, where he won the League Cup and twice won the Premier League; he also played for Newcastle United until their relegation in 2009.

Club career

Blackburn Rovers

Born in Ballyboden, County Dublin, Ireland, Duff joined Blackburn Rovers as a trainee in 1996 after playing for Leicester Celtic, Lourdes Celtic and St. Kevin's Boys as a schoolboy in Dublin. He made his Blackburn debut at the age of 18 against Leicester City on the final day of the 1996–97 season for which he won the Man of the match award. In his first full season (1997–98) he scored four goals. Blackburn were relegated the following season.

Duff helped Blackburn achieve promotion back to the Premier League in (2000–01) and then win the League Cup the following season. Following the World Cup 2002 Duff signed a new four-year contract with Rovers, though press reports had suggested that he was to change clubs. Despite injury problems in the 2002–03 season he finished top goalscorer for Rovers with 11 league goals helping his team to a 6th place finish and a place in the UEFA cup.

Chelsea

In the run-up to the 2003–04 season Chelsea made a series of bids for Duff, with a £17m offer eventually triggering a release clause in the player's contract. Duff chose to move to West London in July. His first season at Chelsea was plagued by injury, and he missed the latter stages of the season, including the UEFA Champions League semi-finals. Duff scored six goals that season. He was instrumental[citation needed] in securing for Chelsea the club's highest league finish for 49 years as well as the Champions League run, but the season ultimately ended trophyless and with the sacking of manager Claudio Ranieri.

The arrival of Dutch winger Arjen Robben and new manager José Mourinho posed a threat to Duff's place in the starting line-up for the 2004–05 season, but an injury to Robben at the start of the season saw Duff as the only available winger. Mourinho, however, did not play Duff in the early part of the 2004–05 season, preferring a more narrow approach. Duff eventually got into the side after four games and, when Robben returned to the side, Duff's versatility saw him move to the right wing and form a wing partnership with Robben. The season proved to be successful for both Duff and Chelsea. He scored ten goals, including a crucial strike in a 4–2 win against Barcelona in the Champions League, while the team won the Premiership title and the Football League Cup in which Duff scored the winning goal in the semi-final against Manchester United.

Newcastle United

In July 2006, Duff agreed terms over a £5m move to Newcastle United, signing a 5 year contract.[1] Duff made his competitive debut in a UEFA Cup Second Round Qualifying first leg against Latvian side Ventspils.He scored his first goal for Newcastle in September that year in a 2–0 victory over West Ham United away at Boleyn Ground. Duff suffered a knee injury in November that kept him out for four months, during which Newcastle had a bad run of defeats. He returned but was then ruled out for the rest of the season due to an ankle injury in a 2–1 loss to Portsmouth in April 2007.[2] Sam Allardyce later described Duff's injury as 'career threatening'.[3] Duff made a full return to fitness in December.

Duff was linked with an exit from the club, but remained at St. James' Park and made some key contributions[citation needed] in the aftermath of Kevin Keegan's departure and Joe Kinnear's appointment as interim manager.

Under the new appointment of Alan Shearer as manager, because of his versatility, Duff was asked to play as Left Back. In the final match of the 2008–09 Season, against Aston Villa in a crucial relegation decider, Duff unluckily scored the deciding own goal that sent his side down. Much as when he did when with Blackburn, Duff confirmed his intention to stay at the relegated club and help them back into the Premier League. Duff scored Newcastle's first goal of the 2009–10 season against West Bromwich Albion.

According to the February issue of FourFourTwo magazine Duff was worth £14m, placing him 92nd in the magazine's 2009 Football Rich List.[4]

Fulham

After playing one game for Newcastle in 2009–10, Duff returned to the Premier League, signing for Fulham for an undisclosed fee, and re-joining Roy Hodgson, his first manager at Blackburn Rovers.[5] He made his Fulham debut coming on as a substitute against Amkar Perm in the Cottagers' Europa League qualifier match, setting up the third goal in a 3–1 win.[6]

Duff played his first Premiership game against one of his old clubs Chelsea. The game was at Craven Cottage and Chelsea went on to win the game with a 0–2 win. Duff scored his first league goal for Fulham in a 2 – 1 victory over Everton, scoring in the 79th minute to give the Cottagers a vital win. His second goal for Fulham was scored against Manchester United after Bobby Zamora had set him up in a 3 –0 win.[7]

International career

Duff taking a corner for Ireland in 2008

At junior level, Duff played for Ireland in the 1997 and 1999 FIFA World Youth Championship. In the former tournament in Malaysia he scored the first ever Golden Goal in a World Cup match at any level [2].

Duff made his senior début for the Republic of Ireland in 1998 against the Czech Republic. He has since gone on to win 83 caps for the Ireland Squad, scoring seven goals. He played every game for them at the 2002 World Cup and was voted their player of the tournament scoring a goal against Saudi Arabia en route to the second round. Damien Duff was ranked the 124th best footballer in the world on the official listings of FIFA in 2009.

Personal life

Duff married his girlfriend Elaine in June 2010 in Midsomer Norton, Somerset.[8][9]

Honours

Blackburn Rovers
Chelsea
Newcastle United
Fulham

Statistics

[10] Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1996–97||rowspan="7"|Blackburn Rovers||rowspan="3"|Premier League ||1||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||1||0 |- |1997–98 ||26||4||4||1||3||0||colspan="2"|-||33||5 |- |1998–99 ||28||1||4||0||3||0||1||0||36||1 |- |1999-00||rowspan="2"|First Division ||39||5||3||1||2||1||colspan="2"|-||44||7 |- |2000–01 ||32||1||5||0||2||2||colspan="2"|-||39||3 |- |2001–02 |rowspan="8"|Premier League||32||7||2||0||5||1||colspan="2"|-||39||8 |- |2002–03 ||26||9||colspan="2"|-||2||1||3||1||31||11 |- |2003–04||rowspan="3"|Chelsea ||23||5||1||0||2||0||11||1||37||6 |- |2004–05 ||30||6||2||0||6||2||10||2||48||10 |- |2005–06 ||28||3||5||0||colspan="2"|-||6||0||39||3 |- |2006–07||rowspan="4"|Newcastle United ||22||1||colspan="2"|-||2||0||9||0||33||1 |- |2007–08 ||16||0||3||1||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||19||1 |- |2008–09 ||30||3||2||0||1||0||colspan="2"|-|||33||3 |- |2009–10||rowspan"1"|Championship ||1||1||0||0||0||0||colspan="2"|-||1||1 |- |2009–10||rowspan="2"|Fulham||rowspan="2"|Premier League ||32||6||4||2||0||0||14||1||50||9 |- |2010-11||1||0||0||0||0||0||0||0||1||0 Template:Football player statistics 3367||52||35||5||28||7||54||5||484||69 Template:Football player statistics 5 367||52||35||5||28||7||54||5||484||69 |}

Statistics correct as of matches played 17:57, 15 August 2010

[11] Template:Football player national team statistics |- |1998||5||0 |- |1999||8||0 |- |2000||3||0 |- |2001||6||1 |- |2002||11||1 |- |2003||9||4 |- |2004||7||0 |- |2005||8||0 |- |2006||6||1 |- |2007||3||0 |- |2008||6||0 |- |2009||9||0 |- |2010|||| |- !Total||81||7 |}

References

  1. ^ Newcastle unveil new signing Duff — from BBC Sport, 24 July 2006.
  2. ^ "Season over for Duff". Sky Sports. 2007-08-03. Retrieved 2008-10-15.
  3. ^ "Big Sam won't rush Duff". Sky Sports. 2007-10-16. Retrieved 2008-10-15.
  4. ^ FourFourTwo Magazine- February 2009
  5. ^ ""Fulham tie up Duff deal"". Sky Sports. 2009-08-18. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
  6. ^ [1] Fulham 3–1 Amkar Perm: Cottagers Earn Comfortable Home Win
  7. ^ "Fulham 2 – 1 Everton". BBC. 13 September 2009. Retrieved 14 September 2009.
  8. ^ Somerset Guardian, 24 June 2010
  9. ^ Interview with Damien Duff — from Hot Press, 28 June 2002 "I’ve played left wing all my life, so I suppose it is there that I am most settled."
  10. ^ Damien Duff | Newcastle United | Squad | Profiles
  11. ^ http://www.national-football-teams.com/v2/player.php?id=3366

External links

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