FOR any Celtic coach it must be the ultimate dream to walk out for a major final and see the stadium packed with 82,000 green-clad fans.

That is the incredible sight that awaits Hoops performance consultant Jim McGuinness tomorrow afternoon.

While Ronny Deila's Bhoys are scrapping for Premiership points against Motherwell in front of half as many fans in Glasgow, all eyes will be on McGuinness in Croke Park, Dublin.

As coach of Donegal's Gaelic football team, he has taken the county to their second All Ireland final in three years.

His team of amateur sportsmen, in green and yellow, will battle with the green and white of Kerry for the right to lift the Sam Maguire Cup.

But after the big match the Irishman's thoughts will turn to playing mind games with Celtic's highly paid stars.

McGuinness was recruited in November 2012 to help with the development of the club's youth players.

But this summer Deila asked him to work with his first team, inviting him to get inside their heads and drive them on to success.

The Norwegian calls him his "psychology expert" but McGuinness has not been asking the Hoops heroes to lie down on a couch and give him their life stories.

"I started working with the first team in the close season," he revealed. "When my duties with Donegal allow, I come over two or three days a week.

"I've been out on the training pitch, mostly observing or trying to be useful by putting out cones and fetching balls. What I'm looking for is one-to-ones with the players to find out if they have any issues holding them back.

"We want the players to have a mindset for growth. So we try to identify barriers in their lives or careers, mentally or physically, and address them."

McGuinness has been involved for two years in aiding the progress of Celtic's development squads and has been hugely impressed with the club's commitment to developing their own stars of the future.

He is reluctant to name names when it comes to predicting who might make the step up from promising kid to first-team regular.

But he points to Callum McGregor as an example the youngsters training at Lennoxtown can aspire to.

Though he has gone from Celtic's Under-20 team to the Scotland squad, McGuinness is sure there is more still to come from the talented 21-year-old midfielder.

"It's great to see Callum starting to fulfil his potential," he said, "but he's still developing at that age.

"He is on a progress curve and I'm hoping he'll keep improving.

"But there are a lot of quality young players at this club. It's a privilege to work with them.

"Some can look great at 15 or 16 but that's a time of great change in their lives, on and off the pitch. The last thing they need is the added burden of expectation.

"Often players come through at 17 or 18 because they've been left alone to develop at their own pace. My job at Celtic has involved putting systems in place to give every player the support they need."