After much hype and anticipation, Celtic’s Champions League clash with Bayern Munich ultimately ended in defeat.
On Wednesday night at Parkhead, despite a late rally, the Hoops were narrowly beaten 2-1 by the Bundesliga leaders in the first leg of their tie, leaving Brendan Rodgers’ side on the brink of elimination as they head to Bavaria next Tuesday.
Nevertheless, many of the Celts’ most impressive players did put in an eye-catching performance, with one of Ange Postecoglou’s finest buys seeing his stock continue to rise.
Celtic's Japanese connection
When Postecoglou was appointed Celtic manager in the summer of 2021, barely anyone in the entire western hemisphere had ever heard of him.
The Aussie had a big job on his hands upon his arrival, considering the Bhoys had finished a whopping 25 points behind Rangers the season before, enduring a first trophyless campaign for over a decade.
Off the pitch, with no director of football in place, he was tasked with leading the recruitment, and 14 players arrived during that first summer, to replace the ten who departed, including Scott Brown, Odsonne Édouard, Kristoffer Ajer and Ryan Christie who, between them, made 1,121 appearances for the club.
Many of Postecoglou’s signings were roaring successes, but it was his knowledge of the Japanese market that really came to the fore.
Having won the J1 League title with Yokohama F. Marinos, Ange convinced the Celtic board to sign Vissel Kōbe striker Kyōgo Furuhashi for £4.5m, and what a piece of business this would prove to be.
Kyōgo scored a hat-trick on his home Premiership debut against Dundee, bagging 16 goals in the first half of his first season at the club, including a brace during the League Cup final victory over Hibs, and his impact, in business terms, would essentially prove to be proof of concept, as a Japanese influx was to follow.
Six months after Kyōgo’s arrival, another trio of Japanese players joined him in Glasgow, namely Yosuke Ideguchi, Reo Hatate and Daizen Maeda in January 2023, before both Yūki Kobayashi and Tomoki Iwata were signed the following season too.
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So, now that Kyōgo has departed for Stade Rennais, another of the Japanese contingent has really come to the fore and proved to be an exceptional value-for-money signing.
Celtic's current best player
Daizen Maeda’s header against Bayern Munich this week, following on from his hat-trick against Raith in the Scottish Cup on Saturday, took his tally to 22 goals for the season, as well as 51 for the club in total.
Having previously netted against Slovan Bratislava, Borussia Dortmund and Club Brugge in the league phase, Maeda has become the first Celtic player since Joe Craig in 1977/78 to score four or more goals in a single European Cup campaign.
In the intervening years, Mo Johnston, Henrik Larsson, Chris Sutton, Kenny Miller, Georgios Samaras and Moussa Dembélé had all reached three; Adam Idah’s last chance to join his team-mate on four is likely to come at the Allianz Arena on Tuesday.
Given that Maeda has now scored 11 goals across all competitions since Boxing Day, right-back Alistair Johnston described him as “one of the most in-form players in Europe”, while analyst John Walker praised his “elite pressing and work-rate”.
Speaking on Premier Sports’ Scottish Football Social Club, former Hearts and Hibs midfielder Michael Stewart notes that Maeda has “stepped up a level” in recent weeks, adding he has become “top class”.
So, let’s compare the Japanese forward to some of Celtic’s other top strikers of the last decade.
Maeda
145
51
24
194
Kyōgo
165
81
19
126
Édouard
179
87
38
140
Dembélé
94
15
81
121
Griffiths
261
123
51
118
As shown in the table, Maeda’s statistics are comparable to Celtic’s best forwards of the past decade, which is impressive considering he’s predominantly been deployed out-wide.
Having been signed for just £1.6m, transfermarkt believes Maeda is now worth over four times that, £7m, proving to be one of the Hoops best value editions of recent years.
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