THE FIRST PROPER sighting of Seamus Coleman was back in December 2009, watching on from Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil, tucked into a pocket hard on the border with Argentina and Paraguay.
The city is a gateway to the Iguaçu Falls, a Unesco heritage site described officially as ‘one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world’.
The cascading falls are indeed a breathtaking sight, but can they really compete with the long-lasting impression made by a 2-2 Premier League draw between Everton and Tottenham, footage beamed through by ESPN on a small TV in the corner of a hostel bar?
Our interest was piqued first by the involvement of Everton in the fixture, and second the presence of the 21-year-old Donegal native on the home side’s bench. It wasn’t Coleman’s Everton debut – that came when handed a start in a 5-0 Europa League beating away to Benfica the previous October – or his first taste of the Premier League – that occurring with a 10-minute cameo off the bench in the same month away to Bolton Wanderers.
But 18 days after Thierry Henry handled the ball in Paris, it was a breakthrough for Irish football, the home debut of a player who would go on to have a top-flight career in England of remarkable longevity and cement his legacy with a sustained international contribution as well.
Coleman’s emergence had been flagged. Jason Mosey Byrne, a one-man tourism board for all things Killybegs, had confidently declared during our college days in Galway that ‘Seamie is something special’. This was during his time as a Sligo Rovers defender, and he doubled down on New Year’s Day 2009 when Coleman’s move to Everton was rubber-stamped for the famous sum of £60,000. The claim has been vindicated in spectacular fashion over the course of 433 first-team appearances and 17 years with Everton.
And that first home game set the tone. Tottenham face Everton in next Sunday’s Premier League final day after a nerve-shredding season fighting relegation. Spurs were in a vastly different place in December 2009 under the guidance of Harry Redknapp and in a campaign that would culminate with the prize of Champions League qualification at the expense of Manchester City.
After 15 minutes, Coleman was pressed into action, his entrance necessitated by an injury to Joseph Yobo. He joined a defence that featured Tony Hibbert, Lucas Neill and Leighton Baines, tasked with quietening the attacking quartet of Aaron Lennon, Jermaine Defoe, Peter Crouch and Niko Kranjcar. For good measure Gareth Bale was thrown into the mix as a half-time substitute and Everton slipped 2-0 behind by the hour mark.
If the outlook was daunting, the newcomer was not perturbed. He thrived in both the attacking and defensive side of his game. With 12 minutes left he skipped past Bale on the right, drove into the box and teed up Louis Saha to volley to the net. Eight minutes later he surged forward again, clipped to Baines at the back post and his shot was diverted in for the equaliser by Tim Cahill. The drama-laden finale was capped off by Tim Howard’s save from Defoe’s injury-time penalty.
With that, the imagination was fired and the 17-year subscription to the Seamus Coleman fan club began.
It’s one that now contains a hefty membership, having enjoyed constant growth. Coleman confirmed on Friday what had been suspected for a while, that this will be his final season as an Everton player. He will sign off as the club’s record Premier League appearance holder, currently on the 372 mark.
Coleman’s impact stretches beyond that bald statistic; he has provided something powerful and yet intangible. It began under the stewardship of David Moyes and will finish under the Scot. In between, Coleman has been managed by Roberto Martinez, Ronald Koeman, Sam Allardyce, Marco Silva, Carlo Ancelotti, Rafa Benitez, Frank Lampard and Sean Dyche. There have been caretaker spells for David Unsworth, Joe Royle, Duncan Ferguson, and indeed Coleman himself briefly steered from the sideline alongside Leighton Baines. That’s an array of figures from different football cultures, but they have all leaned on Coleman, the lifeblood of the Everton dressing room.
It has been remarkable to witness the acclaim in which he is held.
“Seamus deserves a lot of credit as a human being for what he’s done for Everton.” – Moyes’s verdict at a press conference on Friday.
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"Seamus deserves a lot of credit as a human being for what he's done for Everton." 🔵 pic.twitter.com/r2MKibechx
— BBC Sport Merseyside (@bbcmerseysport) May 15, 2026
In September 2020, Ancelotti considered where to rank Coleman’s status as a captain, and placed him alongside such luminaries as Paolo Maldini, John Terry and Sergio Ramos.
In May 2022, after a tumultuous Thursday night where Everton secured top-tier survival, coming from 2-0 down to defeat Crystal Palace, there was a scene filmed afterwards in the home dressing room where Lampard dragged Coleman into the middle of the room and delivered his tribute.
“This fella is…one of the best – the best – people I’ve ever met. As a man, as a man, and who you are.”
Coleman was clearly uncomfortable with that level of attention, but it has been inescapable, such has been the outsized contribution he has made to the club. In recent times, Coleman’s appearances on the pitch have been curtailed, but his presence has remained crucial.
With Everton teetering on the brink of relegation and financial implosion, Coleman during times of prolonged strife was the adhesive that ensured the players stuck together.
What otherworldly qualities does he possess to inspire such devotion from team-mates?
Speaking on Ben Foster’s podcast, the Fozcast, last month, Michael Keane was clear-minded that Everton would have plunged through that relegation trapdoor if it wasn’t for Coleman.
“Having him there, it’s priceless. The way he is in the changing room before a game. The way he speaks to everyone and makes sure everyone’s happy. But then if things are going tough, he’s the man you want in your corner, he’s the man who can motivate you.”
Michael Keane with Seamus Coleman. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
‘The passion he has for this football club, you’ll never see anywhere else in football.’
The loyalty to Everton has been unwavering. There was speculation that Coleman might move higher on the football ladder, particularly when he was at the peak of his powers, earning a spot on the PFA Premier League Team of the Year for his exploits in 2013-14.
A clip surfaced in the last few days of Coleman’s skills on show in a 3-0 win over Arsenal in April 2014. That victory put Everton on the cusp of clinching Champions League football, but they lost three of their last six games that season and slipped to fifth. It was in keeping with a repeated setting of disappointment throughout Coleman’s Everton career, but his wholehearted nature was to the fore as he continued to lead on pitch.
👌 | Six years since those Seamus Coleman skills against Arsenal!
This is the game 𝙮𝙤𝙪 picked to be shown next on YouTube. Join us for the full 90 minutes on Wednesday evening! 🎬 pic.twitter.com/XIDnNyGM0z
He did that on the international stage as well. Season ticket status afforded us a regular view of Coleman’s attempts to inspire. His solitary goal for Ireland came in October 2016 against Georgia, the product of a dogged, persistent run where he refused to give up on an attack. The following March came that sickening leg break against Wales and a lengthy spell on the sideline.
A few years back I worked with David Meyler on his autobiography and during his recollections of Ireland’s 2018 World Cup campaign, a recurring theme emerged.
The win over Wales in October 2017…
“After the final whistle sounded at the Cardiff City Stadium, one of the first people over to congratulate me was Seamus Coleman. It must have been frustrating for Seamus to watch that Wales game but his attitude after in going around to everyone, summed him up. It was a measure of the man. I was desperate to qualify for Russia so that Seamus could play there.”
The loss to Denmark in November 2017…
“Watching the second-half was devastating. I wanted to get to the World Cup, not just for myself, but to give Seamus the chance to lead Ireland out. I was conscious I was a stand-in captain and always pointed out he was our leader. After what he’d been through with his leg break and people doubting him, imagine if he could have come back to that?”
Seamus Coleman and David Meyler in 2018. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
If he didn’t get the World Cup happy ending, Coleman did come back to wring more years out of his top-flight Everton career.
Back in January 2011, I hung around Goodison Park with my younger brother after we had watched a frustrating 2-2 draw with West Ham, a Marouane Fellaini goal rescuing a point for Everton against a team that were bottom of the table.
The Killybegs communications man had put word out to Coleman that we were over for the game and though clearly irritated by the performance, he came out of the dressing room and chatted amiably. A friend recently recounted seeing him in Croke Park at the Division 1 league final between Donegal and Kerry, days after the pain of Prague, and being struck by Coleman’s thorough decency in making time for everyone who approached him.
His Everton career was largely played out at Goodison Park, but he got to experience the shiny new home at Bramley Moore-Dock after the move this season. On our first trip there last November, heading to the upper concourse in the towering South Stand, a collage of legendary Everton figures caught the eye.
There in the middle was Coleman, snapped with his mouth open. Was it a roar of encouragement, a shout of celebration, a demand for effort during game? Perhaps all of the above, but it captured the sense of leadership that shone through more and more for a club that has been caught up in chaos and upheaval in recent times.
If you have secured universal approval from your peers, managers and supporters, then that is something deeply meaningful and admirable.
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Everybody likes and respects Seamus Coleman – there's no better legacy than that
THE FIRST PROPER sighting of Seamus Coleman was back in December 2009, watching on from Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil, tucked into a pocket hard on the border with Argentina and Paraguay.
The city is a gateway to the Iguaçu Falls, a Unesco heritage site described officially as ‘one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world’.
The cascading falls are indeed a breathtaking sight, but can they really compete with the long-lasting impression made by a 2-2 Premier League draw between Everton and Tottenham, footage beamed through by ESPN on a small TV in the corner of a hostel bar?
Our interest was piqued first by the involvement of Everton in the fixture, and second the presence of the 21-year-old Donegal native on the home side’s bench. It wasn’t Coleman’s Everton debut – that came when handed a start in a 5-0 Europa League beating away to Benfica the previous October – or his first taste of the Premier League – that occurring with a 10-minute cameo off the bench in the same month away to Bolton Wanderers.
But 18 days after Thierry Henry handled the ball in Paris, it was a breakthrough for Irish football, the home debut of a player who would go on to have a top-flight career in England of remarkable longevity and cement his legacy with a sustained international contribution as well.
Coleman’s emergence had been flagged. Jason Mosey Byrne, a one-man tourism board for all things Killybegs, had confidently declared during our college days in Galway that ‘Seamie is something special’. This was during his time as a Sligo Rovers defender, and he doubled down on New Year’s Day 2009 when Coleman’s move to Everton was rubber-stamped for the famous sum of £60,000. The claim has been vindicated in spectacular fashion over the course of 433 first-team appearances and 17 years with Everton.
And that first home game set the tone. Tottenham face Everton in next Sunday’s Premier League final day after a nerve-shredding season fighting relegation. Spurs were in a vastly different place in December 2009 under the guidance of Harry Redknapp and in a campaign that would culminate with the prize of Champions League qualification at the expense of Manchester City.
After 15 minutes, Coleman was pressed into action, his entrance necessitated by an injury to Joseph Yobo. He joined a defence that featured Tony Hibbert, Lucas Neill and Leighton Baines, tasked with quietening the attacking quartet of Aaron Lennon, Jermaine Defoe, Peter Crouch and Niko Kranjcar. For good measure Gareth Bale was thrown into the mix as a half-time substitute and Everton slipped 2-0 behind by the hour mark.
If the outlook was daunting, the newcomer was not perturbed. He thrived in both the attacking and defensive side of his game. With 12 minutes left he skipped past Bale on the right, drove into the box and teed up Louis Saha to volley to the net. Eight minutes later he surged forward again, clipped to Baines at the back post and his shot was diverted in for the equaliser by Tim Cahill. The drama-laden finale was capped off by Tim Howard’s save from Defoe’s injury-time penalty.
With that, the imagination was fired and the 17-year subscription to the Seamus Coleman fan club began.
It’s one that now contains a hefty membership, having enjoyed constant growth. Coleman confirmed on Friday what had been suspected for a while, that this will be his final season as an Everton player. He will sign off as the club’s record Premier League appearance holder, currently on the 372 mark.
Coleman’s impact stretches beyond that bald statistic; he has provided something powerful and yet intangible. It began under the stewardship of David Moyes and will finish under the Scot. In between, Coleman has been managed by Roberto Martinez, Ronald Koeman, Sam Allardyce, Marco Silva, Carlo Ancelotti, Rafa Benitez, Frank Lampard and Sean Dyche. There have been caretaker spells for David Unsworth, Joe Royle, Duncan Ferguson, and indeed Coleman himself briefly steered from the sideline alongside Leighton Baines. That’s an array of figures from different football cultures, but they have all leaned on Coleman, the lifeblood of the Everton dressing room.
It has been remarkable to witness the acclaim in which he is held.
“Seamus deserves a lot of credit as a human being for what he’s done for Everton.” – Moyes’s verdict at a press conference on Friday.
“I think it’s a dying breed, people like Seamus, who puts the club literally first.” – Dyche’s summation on the same day.
In September 2020, Ancelotti considered where to rank Coleman’s status as a captain, and placed him alongside such luminaries as Paolo Maldini, John Terry and Sergio Ramos.
In May 2022, after a tumultuous Thursday night where Everton secured top-tier survival, coming from 2-0 down to defeat Crystal Palace, there was a scene filmed afterwards in the home dressing room where Lampard dragged Coleman into the middle of the room and delivered his tribute.
“This fella is…one of the best – the best – people I’ve ever met. As a man, as a man, and who you are.”
Coleman was clearly uncomfortable with that level of attention, but it has been inescapable, such has been the outsized contribution he has made to the club. In recent times, Coleman’s appearances on the pitch have been curtailed, but his presence has remained crucial.
With Everton teetering on the brink of relegation and financial implosion, Coleman during times of prolonged strife was the adhesive that ensured the players stuck together.
What otherworldly qualities does he possess to inspire such devotion from team-mates?
Speaking on Ben Foster’s podcast, the Fozcast, last month, Michael Keane was clear-minded that Everton would have plunged through that relegation trapdoor if it wasn’t for Coleman.
“Having him there, it’s priceless. The way he is in the changing room before a game. The way he speaks to everyone and makes sure everyone’s happy. But then if things are going tough, he’s the man you want in your corner, he’s the man who can motivate you.”
Jordan Pickford sang from the same hymn sheet in conversation this week with Wayne Rooney.
‘The passion he has for this football club, you’ll never see anywhere else in football.’
The loyalty to Everton has been unwavering. There was speculation that Coleman might move higher on the football ladder, particularly when he was at the peak of his powers, earning a spot on the PFA Premier League Team of the Year for his exploits in 2013-14.
A clip surfaced in the last few days of Coleman’s skills on show in a 3-0 win over Arsenal in April 2014. That victory put Everton on the cusp of clinching Champions League football, but they lost three of their last six games that season and slipped to fifth. It was in keeping with a repeated setting of disappointment throughout Coleman’s Everton career, but his wholehearted nature was to the fore as he continued to lead on pitch.
He did that on the international stage as well. Season ticket status afforded us a regular view of Coleman’s attempts to inspire. His solitary goal for Ireland came in October 2016 against Georgia, the product of a dogged, persistent run where he refused to give up on an attack. The following March came that sickening leg break against Wales and a lengthy spell on the sideline.
A few years back I worked with David Meyler on his autobiography and during his recollections of Ireland’s 2018 World Cup campaign, a recurring theme emerged.
The win over Wales in October 2017…
“After the final whistle sounded at the Cardiff City Stadium, one of the first people over to congratulate me was Seamus Coleman. It must have been frustrating for Seamus to watch that Wales game but his attitude after in going around to everyone, summed him up. It was a measure of the man. I was desperate to qualify for Russia so that Seamus could play there.”
The loss to Denmark in November 2017…
“Watching the second-half was devastating. I wanted to get to the World Cup, not just for myself, but to give Seamus the chance to lead Ireland out. I was conscious I was a stand-in captain and always pointed out he was our leader. After what he’d been through with his leg break and people doubting him, imagine if he could have come back to that?”
If he didn’t get the World Cup happy ending, Coleman did come back to wring more years out of his top-flight Everton career.
Back in January 2011, I hung around Goodison Park with my younger brother after we had watched a frustrating 2-2 draw with West Ham, a Marouane Fellaini goal rescuing a point for Everton against a team that were bottom of the table.
The Killybegs communications man had put word out to Coleman that we were over for the game and though clearly irritated by the performance, he came out of the dressing room and chatted amiably. A friend recently recounted seeing him in Croke Park at the Division 1 league final between Donegal and Kerry, days after the pain of Prague, and being struck by Coleman’s thorough decency in making time for everyone who approached him.
His Everton career was largely played out at Goodison Park, but he got to experience the shiny new home at Bramley Moore-Dock after the move this season. On our first trip there last November, heading to the upper concourse in the towering South Stand, a collage of legendary Everton figures caught the eye.
There in the middle was Coleman, snapped with his mouth open. Was it a roar of encouragement, a shout of celebration, a demand for effort during game? Perhaps all of the above, but it captured the sense of leadership that shone through more and more for a club that has been caught up in chaos and upheaval in recent times.
If you have secured universal approval from your peers, managers and supporters, then that is something deeply meaningful and admirable.
Everybody likes and respects Seamus Coleman.
There’s no better legacy than that.
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