ARNE ENGELS celebrated his full international debut in Belgium’s 3-1 Nations League win over Israel last night.
The cap breakthrough came just a week after the 20-year-old midfielder became the most expensive player in Celtic history following his deadline-beating £11million move from Bundesliga club Augsburg.
Engels followed that up two days later by making his first appearance for Brendan Rodgers’ champions at a buzzing Parkhead as the champions overwhelmed Philippe Clement’s Ibrox outfit 3-0 to maintain their 100 per cent start to the new campaign.
The skilful playmaker took his bow in front of 60,000 fans in the rollicking derby just after the hour mark when he replaced Paulo Bernardo who had made an impressive contribution with the hosts already two goals ahead with strikes from Daizen Maeda and Kyogo Furuhashi.
AMAZING…new Bhoy Arne Engels is blown away by the Celtic support after the 3-0 derby triumph.
Engels joined in the celebrations after Callum McGregor thumped in a spectacular third 15 minutes of time.
Afterwards the new Bhoy did the lap around the pitch with his new colleagues and looked into a camera and said breathlessly: “Amazing!”
And the joy factor continued when he made his international baptism as a 74th-minute replacement for Yuri Tielemans against Israel who had ex-Celt Liel Abada an an unused substitute.
Kevin De Bruyne hit a double and Tielemans chipped in with the other to make certain of a winning start for the new Hoops star.
The whirlwind will continue a week today when Celtic host Hearts at another sell-out Parkhead before the Champions League campaign kicks off against Slovan Bratislava under the lights in the east end of Glasgow the following midweek.
