I AVOIDED A TEX HEX
OWEN COYLE came close to signing Hibs and Scotland midfielder John McGinn in a megabucks American deal.
But the then Houston Dynamo manager believes he’d have risked stunting the rising star’s progress by becoming embroiled in a FIFA battle with St Mirren.
Rather than moving to Easter Road, McGinn could have switched to the MLS after agreeing the deal to move to Texas under Coyle just over two years ago.
But the now Ross County boss set self-interest aside when it became clear the Paisley side would take their cash demand to the world authority, effectively freezing out the youngster.
Coyle said: “I had agreed a deal to sign McGinn at Houston but St Mirren weren’t allowing him to go.
“Because it was outside the European market he’d have been a free agent but what would’ve happened is St Mirren were prepared to appeal.
“I didn’t want the boy in limbo for months as it would have been detrimental to his career – and we’ve all seen his progression since. We saw how good he was when he came out to America.
“He has a bit of everything. Coming from a good footballing family, he’s someone I’ve a lot of time for.”
Admiration for McGinn aside, Coyle knows the threats Hibs hold but is quietly confident County have a few of their own capable of creating an upset today.
He added: “Easter Road always generates a good atmosphere, very similar to Tynecastle. They have some very good individual players and we’ll need to be on our mettle for that.
“But our performances at Tynecastle and Ibrox show we can go to the big arenas and perform. There’ll be two attack-minded teams going all out to win the game.”