Cillian Sheridan sits in his apartment in the picturesque city of Bialystok in Poland preparing for training with the local top tier football team Jagiellonia Bialystok. Sheridan lives here with his girlfriend, Jodie, and their Irish accents have already marked them out as slight curiosities in a city that adores its high-flying football club.

Sheridan has enjoyed some remarkable highs. He has played against Lionel Messi twice – for the Republic of Ireland against Argentina in the first international at the Aviva Stadium in 2010 and for Apoel Nicosia in the Champions League in 2014 – but his career has always been peripatetic. Poland is the latest stop in a professional career that has also taken in Scotland, Cyprus and Bulgaria.

Sheridan has been scoring regularly in Poland since he made the move from Cyprus in January. With six goals in 10 games, he has driven the club to the top of the table and piqued the interest of Martin O’Neill, who had confirmed that the striker is in his thoughts. But, for now, Sheridan is concentrating on settling into his new life and pushing his club towards what would be their first ever Ekstraklasa title. “I can’t even start to think about an international recall,” he says. “It’s something I’d love, of course, but my only thoughts can be here in Poland.”

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Sheridan grew up in the small Irish town of Bailieborough, County Cavan, where gaelic football dominates. “Our school was really focused on gaelic football, so that’s what I started focusing on. I did OK and got to play Cavan minors. Beyond that, my first real love was basketball. I was totally obsessed with the NBA growing up. Football was something you played in the park or at lunchtime with your friends at school – nothing more.” Standing at 6ft 5in, Sheridan was even offered trials by scouts from Aussie Rules team Brisbane Lions. That opportunity came to nothing but it whet his appetite for the prospect of a career at professional sport.

Sheridan started to play football seriously at the suggestion of a local coach and had to play for a Dublin club to be recognised. “When I was playing for Belvedere in Dublin, every weekend it seemed like there was some lad going over for trials. It just became part of a routine. I got the opportunity to go over with Celtic and did OK, eventually moving over there at 17. So that was my first taste of moving away from my home in Ireland and I suppose the start of settling away from what I know best.”



Sheridan grew up enveloped in Irish sports and transfixed by the feats of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant on the basketball court so, unlike many of his friends, he wasn’t a diehard Celtic fan. “Like every Irish boy I would always look out for their results but I wouldn’t have considered myself seriously interested. It was a blessing and a curse, I suppose. It shielded me from the enormity of what I was doing at that age, in that I didn’t even know a lot of the first team, but also I didn’t realise what I was taking on.”

Sheridan played in the Champions League for Celtic against Manchester United in 2008, but his time at the club was also stunted by inconsistency and frequent loan spells, which made him crave the stability of first-team football at a permanent home. CSKA Sofia were interested so, without hesitating, he flew over to Bulgaria to start a new life.

“I suppose before you go to Bulgaria, you have preconceived notions in your head about what it’s going to be like. Not long after I got there, we were going to an isolated training camp about two hours away from Sofia. We were sitting waiting to go when the president of the club, who was surrounded by bodyguards, got on our bus and started talking in Bulgarian. I didn’t know what’s going on and was confused. Before I know it, our laptops and phones have all been taken and we’re driving into the middle of nowhere. I was worried, thinking, ‘what the hell have I got myself into,’ but they just did that so we focused on football for the camp. You just have to adapt quickly.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sheridan takes on Dani Alves at the Camp Nou stadium while at Apoel Nicosia. Photograph: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images

After a promising start in Sofia, the marquee signing lost form and confidence. “Looking back, at times I was young and stupid. I was 21, trying to work out how things are in Bulgaria. I got lazy in training and wasn’t doing things right. Even with the language, I was expecting people to always speak English. How ignorant is that? When you’re young you don’t think about that. You lack perspective. It’s only when I look back now, I realise I had nobody to blame but myself at times.”

When you come off the pitch you realise you’ve inadvertently told Lionel Messi to fuck off, you just lose yourself

The warmer climes and laid-back atmosphere of Cyprus helped Sheridan to rediscover his love of the game. He won the league and cup double in both of his seasons at Apoel Nicosia and turned out at the Nou Camp against Barcelona in the Champions League. It felt a long way from playing for Baileborough Shamrocks on a Sunday afternoon. “You play in a situation like that and it’s almost like it’s too much for your brain to process. The Nou Camp is an incredible place, because you actually have to climb up into the stadium. You feel like you’re going into a coliseum with all of the noise. Then there’s the surreal part: you’re in the tunnel, there’s Neymar, there’s Messi, you name it, but it’s funny, once the whistle blows, you forget yourself. I remember getting annoyed at something in the game and telling the player to fuck off. Then, when you come off the pitch you realise you’ve inadvertently told Lionel Messi to fuck off. You just lose yourself.”

Recently, Sheridan saw that Messi had posted a picture of the room in his house where he keeps all of the shirts he has collected from opposition players. He noticed two Apoel jerseys and cursed himself for not asking him to swap shirts, but previous awkward encounters had made him reticent. “I never ask to swap jerseys, because it’s happened twice. First I was playing for Celtic at Old Trafford and I gestured to Ronaldo after the game. He just said something in Portuguese which I understood to mean sorry mate it’s taken. Then, years later for Apoel against Barcelona, I tried the same with Piqué. The same response, just in Spanish. It obviously wasn’t meant to be.”

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His new life in Poland suits him. He loves the city and the locals have embraced their tall Irish centre-forward. “From the first game here, I just felt that it was right. There’s an intensity in the pace of the football and off the field. I have just loved the welcoming atmosphere in the town. My Polish is terrible. I am really trying to pick up bits and pieces, really by listening, and even with tiny bits of their language they really appreciate it. I get asked for selfies and autographs, which is nice. The only time I get a bit annoyed is when they ask me to grin but sometimes when they say that I just laugh, so they get what the want anyway.”

The Jagiellonia Bialystok fans know they are just a few victories away from winning the first title in their 96-year history, something Sheridan has picked up from his daily conversations in the locals coffee shops. “It would mean a huge amount to win the title, of course, the first one in the club’s history. On a personal level, I would love to get back to the Champions League but, even though we are at the top of the table, we are still third favourites or something, so we feel like underdogs in a way.”

At the age of 28, Sheridan is playing the best football of his life and wants to prolong his career in the game he loves by any means necessary, whether that be his plant-based diet or by using sports psychology. He remains close to the friends he made in Baileborough and returns when he can but Poland remains his home for now. “I have been away from home from the age of 17 and I’m lucky I don’t really feel homesick too often. I always just try to make the best of my life wherever I am. At the moment I consider myself very lucky to be where I am in Poland and want to keep this career going as long as I possibly can.” This Irish footballing exile has created a career far from home but this is where he has found his form and the love of a city.

• This article is from Behind the Lines

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