As close to being a staple of Russian gazillionaire Roman Abramovic’s Chelsea All-Stars as any man can be in a squad good enough to field three handy teams, and the only consistently electrifying performer on Brian Kerr’s Republic of Ireland side, these are exciting times for 24-year-old Damien Duff. Not that you’d know it to look at him.

In a studio-cum-gallery in Fulham, the tousle-haired young Dubliner with the magic in his feet almost goes unnoticed as he mooches in to fulfill one of those niggardly clauses in the boot contract that obliges him to pose at length for promotional snaps and talk to the press.
A notoriously reluctant interviewee, Duff seems chipper enough for a man whose enthusiasm for self-promotion is similar to that reserved by most of us for trips to the dentist. “How’s it going?” he enquires of the assembled throng, comprised as it is of a couple of hacks, two PR folk, the photographer and his assistants. Flesh pressed and pleasantries duly exchanged, the £17 million pound man is ushered into an alcove where he changes into the first of an eclectic wardrobe of fully engineered fabrics incorporating Climalite and APV technology to maximise comfort. Or kit, to give it its technical term.
Throughout the ensuing photo-shoot the man they call Duffer is co-operation itself, demurring only when a stylist makes to rearrange his hair. “Eh, it’s actually supposed to be like that,” Damien protests. The only other occurrence, or non-occurrence, of note is his complete indifference towards one of the props given to him by the photographer: Damien Duff is the only man I have ever met who, upon being handed a football, can resist the temptation to juggle it. No big deal, in fairness, but this marked reluctance to show off is indicative of this remarkable footballer’s famous modesty.
On the pitch, it’s a different story. Arguably the finest left winger in Europe, if not the world, Duff’s slight build and just-got-out-of-bed dishevellment bely his explosive pace, on-the-ball wizardry and pin-point accuracy. If Ireland are to beat Switzerland in Basle on October 11th, as they surely must to be in with a shout of qualifying for next year’s European Championship, another peerless performance will be required from Irish football’s quiet man. His duties in front of the camera completed, we adjourn to a nearby sofa and get the tape rolling.

BG: You’re making it very difficult for your gaffer Claudio Ranieri to leave you out of the Chelsea side. Considering the massive fee that was paid for you and the fantastic players you’re training with each day, how important was it for you to get off to a flyer this season?
DD: Obviously it was important but I’ve signed for four years at Chelsea so it’s not as if I have to impress straight away. But obviously it would help a great deal, especially when it comes to trying to impress the fans and everyone around the club. Hopefully I’m doing that at the minute and hopefully I can keep it that way.

BG: Against Wolves the other day you scored one goal and made two. Would you agree that you’re playing very well?
DD: Em, it’s not really for me to say how well I’m playing. I know I feel good, the best I’ve ever felt. But as regards playing well… you know it’s really not for me to say. I’m not a bragger.
London’s a difficult place for anyone to settle into, but with you being in the public eye it’s probably going to be harder. How have you found life in the Big Smoke so far?
It’s been grand. Obviously it’s a bit mad around the centre of the city, but I’m renting a place out for a couple of months and I hope to be moving out in a couple of weeks or so. I’ve been in the centre since I came here, but I’ve been looking at a place out Surrey way so hopefully I’ll move out there where it’s a bit quieter.

BG: I believe you were living in a hotel for a while. I wouldn’t imagine that’s ideal.
DD: It isn’t, no. You know, some of the lads I signed with… Wayne Bridge and Glen Johnson are still in the hotel. I was there for about 10 days but living like that is not really for me. You know, ordering room service for your dinner all the time just doesn’t feel right so I moved around the corner into an apartment which was furnished and that made it easier. I’d much prefer to be there than in a hotel.

BG: Unlike some of your colleagues, you’ve always been conspicuous by your absence from the tabloids. Are you too fond of the quiet life to feature in three-in-a-bed romps and drunken-footballer-on-the-rampage stories?
DD: Eh… I dunno if I’m quiet by nature. I suppose those things you’re talking about are just part of that lifestyle that always gets put with footballers. (There follows the first of several very long silences in which we stare balefully at each other.) I dunno really. I’ve got a girlfriend and I’m a very happy man. I’m playing for a great club and that’s all that matters to me.

BG: Claudio Ranieri has said that only “a stupid man” would think Chelsea can win the League this year. Do you think he’s spoofing?
DD: Well that’s just manager-speak, isn’t it? You’d think that with all the money we’ve spent over the summer it’s up to us to just go and win it. It’s as simple as that really.

BG: Are footballers as bothered about winning the Premiership now that a fourth place finish will guarantee them a crack at the Champions League?
DD: Definitely. I can’t speak for anyone else at the club but I know that my number one aim this year is to win the Premiership. That’s your bread and butter and that’s what I’ve always been brought up on.

BG: So you wouldn’t be prepared to settle for anything less?
DD: No, definitely not. As I said, with the money we’ve spent and the squad we have, which I think is the best in the Premiership, we should really be winning the League if we get our finger out. We have a lot of good players but it might take us time to gel. Who knows?

BG: There’s been a lot of talk about how Claudio Ranieri is going to struggle to keep all his players happy. How do you think he’s doing so far?
DD: He’s not going to keep everyone happy. It’s as simple as that. You’ve probably seen how the papers have been trying to stir things up over the past couple of weeks saying this player is unhappy and that player is unhappy.

BG: You were one of those players…
DD: I was, yeah.

BG: Would you care to tell us what happened there?
DD: Well I don’t really want to bring it up again, y’know.

BG: Why not set the record straight here?
DD: Okay. All I did was make a joke. I said I’d love to play 90 minutes some time and laughed. That was it. But obviously the papers have to sell their copies, so they made up a story saying I’d criticised the manager. They did it with Frank Lampard the other day as well, but it’s not really a surprise. They’re going to do that because we’re a big club, we’ve spent loads of money and everyone wants us to lose. Because of that, the papers are going to stir things up.

BG: When something like that happens, can you relax safe in the knowledge that your manager will read between the lines and know that your comment was a joke that’s been taken out of context?
DD: Well I was hoping it wouldn’t get back to him but I think it did. We were away in Prague at the time and it was hard on me because I was trying to prepare for a big Champions League game and I hear about all this going on at home. But I’m learning all the time. You literally cannot say anything to the papers because they’ll twist it to suit themselves. But I know that the people close to me will know that I didn’t mean what I said the way it was printed.

BG: I’d imagine that anyone with an ounce of common sense would know you didn’t mean what you said the way it was printed.
DD: Well, you’d hope so but I dunno. If you buy those papers you’re probably going to believe what’s in them.

BG: You said earlier that everyone wants Chelsea to lose. Do you really believe that?
DD: Definitely, yeah. When we were playing Wolves on Saturday anyone who wasn’t a Chelsea fan wanted us to lose that.

BG: But that’s poor little Wolves who everyone feels sorry for. I’d say there’s a lot of people out there who’d prefer to see Manchester United or Arsenal taken down a peg or two.
DD: I suppose that’s just because they’re all big clubs. As far as I can tell, any neutrals out there would love to see Chelsea do badly.

BG: Denis Irwin was marking you against Wolves and Mark Kennedy was playing too. Is there any part of you that felt sorry for giving two Irish lads such a hiding?
DD: No, not at all. That’s what I wanted to do before the game and I was happy we done it afterwards. I just wished them all the best for the rest of the season. That’s life, y’know.

BG: Claudio Ranieri seems like a nice man. Is he?
DD: He’s alright… a very hard man to work for. He works us very hard in training, he always expects the best and I suppose if you’re not doing it for him he’s always got someone else who can come in for you. As long as he picks me I don’t really care what he’s like.

BG: How does his regime compare to that of Graeme Souness at Blackburn Rovers?
DD: It’s a lot tougher at Chelsea than it was at Blackburn. With them, training was probably a lot more easygoing. With Chelsea, you come in and you’ve to be proper at it from start to finish. There’s 22 or 23 world class players so you can’t be messing about. The work is intense every day but I’m not going to complain about that because it can only improve me as a player.

BG: The esteem you’re held in by Irish people moved one journalist to write that you’re within a couple of goals of becoming the national pet. As someone who’s renowned for being quite shy and modest, how do you feel about that kind of adoration?
DD: I suppose it just comes with the job. Obviously I’m the proudest man ever to be pulling on the shirt, but that adoration, as you call it, will mean nothing to me if we don’t go and do the business against Switzerland. I’m not in this for the adulation. It comes with the job, but the job is playing football and that’s what I love doing.

BG: Ah yes, Switzerland. How will the Irish team approach that game considering a draw might not be good enough to see us progress to the play-offs for Euro 2004?
DD: We just have to win. It’s as simple as that. I don’t know where I’ll play or how we’ll play or even if I’ll play, but we just need to win. End of story.

BG: It’s a very winnable game, but it could be tricky.
DD: Yeah, Switzerland is a tough place to go. It’s going to be in Basle and they did really well in the Champions League last year. A lot of their players play for the Swiss team and they showed what a good side they are when they beat us at home. I think with the attacking options we have we’ve got to go there and win.

BG: Since Roy Keane left the scene, there’s a lot of extra pressure on you to perform for Ireland, not least because you’re the best attacking option we have. Are you aware of that pressure, and if so, does it affect your game?
DD: Well, people are putting a lot of pressure on me. I noticed that in the build up to the Russia game, especially because Robbie [Keane] was missing. There’s nothing I can do about that because it comes with the job so I just have to get on with it and do my best.

BG: If we’d beaten Russia we’d be sitting pretty on top of the group now. What was the atmosphere like in the dressing room after the match?
DD: It wasn’t bad, you know. We were all good. We could have done a lot better but looking back at the results now, after they beat Switzerland, we’d be nearly home sailing if we had beat them, which we should have done and were expecting to do at Lansdowne Road. But it never turned out that way so we’ll just have to go and do it in Switzerland instead.

BG: Now that the dust has settled, what are your feelings about the World Cup? Is it something you look back on with happiness or regret. We’ll never have a better chance of winning it, so for you, is it a case of what might have been?
DD: Definitely what might have been.

BG: The business of Roy Keane’s departure must have been fairly traumatic. Were you able to enjoy the World Cup with all that palaver going on?
DD: Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, the whole Roy incident… (very long pause)… even though it wasn’t nice… (very, very long pause)… you know, the Roy thing was a great thing to be involved in, to be able to say you were there and you seen it. (Laughs). Even for me as a player, you know, because I’m just a big kid at heart. But from a football point of view I do wonder what might have been because we should have beaten Spain.

BG: You didn’t volunteer to take a penalty in the shoot-out against Spain. If you could go back in time, would you take one?
DD: I definitely would now. I know it’s easy to say afterwards, but on the night… I’ve just never liked penos. But if there’s a penalty shoot-out now I’ll always take one. I took one for Chelsea in one of my very first games in a tournament in Malaysia.

BG: And…
DD: And I missed. So there you go, that’s why I didn’t take one against Spain.

BG: It’s said that when Brian Kerr was managing the Irish youth teams, he used to tell you to ignore his team-talks and do whatever you liked. Is that still the case now that he’s managing the senior team?
DD: Well, Brian’s just able to get the best out of me, which is all that matters. He lets me follow my instincts in the final third and pretty much gives me free rein to do what I want. I’ve always loved working for him and he’s always done brilliantly by me.

BG: A lot of the Irish players might never have heard of him when he got the Ireland job. What do they make of his methods?
DD: Well, just some of the senior lads really. The younger lads, and it is a very young squad now because he’s brought a lot of young lads through since he’s come in, would know him well. I think he’s done a brilliant job and I don’t think some people realise that back home. There’s been some criticism of him already which I find unbelievable.

BG: It’s well-documented that you’re fond of the quiet life, which you’re unlikely to get playing for Chelsea. Was there a temptation for you to stay put at Blackburn? Did you have a choice?
DD: Well I had the option so if I’d wanted to stay I would have stayed. That’s why I was mulling over the decision for about a week. I flew up and down from Blackburn to Chelsea three times in the space of 10 days before I signed the contract. I loved life at Blackburn but Chelsea offered me an opportunity I just couldn’t turn down.

BG: Roy Keane claims that he has no close friends in football and Niall Quinn told me once in an interview that he doesn’t have many really good friends in the game. What about you?
DD: My closest friends are outside football.

BG: Are they lads you grew up with?
DD: Yeah. My family, friends I grew up with… you know, footballers can always be gone tomorrow so you don’t tend to get too close to them. I’ve a lot of good mates in football, but all my closest friends wouldn’t be footballers.
Are there any defenders you particularly don’t like playing against?
There’s a lot of good full-backs in the Premiership, right and left, who are guaranteed to give you a tough game. Luckily for us, a lot of them are in the Irish team… the likes of Steve Finnan, and Steve Carr. You need look no further than them.

BG: Richard Sadlier was an Irish international with a lot of promise, but he had to retire because of injury recently. You’ve had your own problems in that department. Can you appreciate the difficulty of his situation?
DD: When something like that happens it tends to put your own injuries in perspective. When I was at Blackburn I’d be suicidal because I’d pulled my hamstring, but the physio would just point at Jonathan Douglas, this younger lad at Blackburn that I got on great with. He’d done his cruciate ligament and he was out for a year. I mean I think we’re all gutted for Richard because he was on fire when he did get injured. He’d just broken into the Irish team so I’m sure if he hadn’t injured himself he’d be a regular now. It’s a real shame for him, what happened.

BG: What did you make of the recent rumpus between Manchester United and Arsenal at Old Trafford?
DD: Yeah, I seen that. What Arsenal done wasn’t nice but it’s up to the FA to sort it out now. These things happen, don’t they?

BG: Referees are getting a particularly bad rap this season, which I don’t think is fair. The number of players cheating makes their job impossible. Would you agree?
DD: Eh, I dunno. If you’re going on about players diving, well, they’ve always dived.

BG: It’s not always been as bad as it is now.
DD: Ah, I think it has. We all have a dive or two in our locker. Referees are always going to get stick. It’s just part of their job and they’re never ever going to keep everyone happy.