Japan talent seam

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I saw “Japan first country to qualify for 2026 Word Cup” and quickly clicked on the line-up for their win against Bahrain.  Neither Daizen Maeda nor Reo Hatate made it off the bench.

Japan top their group with 19 points, Australia are second, nine points adrift.  Reo and Daizen did not get into the team because Japan have an ever-expanding talent pool of excellent players to choose from.

Celtic used links to City Football Group to align with the Japanese market in 2021.  Ange Postecoglou, Koygo, Daizen and Reo came and transformed the club.  The years since would be unrecognisable without this influence from Japan.  Despite this, Japan is no longer on our radar; Korea has also slipped from our scope.

We had First Mover Advantage in 2021.  The value available may not be exactly the same as then, but it feels like we have walked away from the richest seam of talent we have seen pull on Celtic shirts in decades.

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474 Comments

  1. quadrophenian on

    Celtic Mac on 22nd March 2025 8:14 pm

     

     

    Re the boxing memories…I agree it’s the end of what seemed like a glamorous era. My fave was underdog Smokin’ Joe and ev en as a wean, I hated Ali’s baiting of him.

     

     

    I’m sure in oor family photies box there’s a picture of my cousin meeting Cassius/Muhammed out front of the old McDonald Hotel at Eastwood Toll; the McDonald was sort of a ritzy spot back in the day.

  2. Quadrophenian

     

     

    Ali had a nasty streak about him.(Look how he fell out with Malcolm X) Unforgiveable given that Joe Frazier helped him out when he was barred from fighting in the USA after around 1966/67. To try and portray Joe as some kind of Uncle Tom, when he was of a sharecropper family from SC, before he left for Philly was ludicrous. For which Ali got knocked down and beaten in Madison Square Garden in their first and best fight. The other fights were about attrition, and even those that Ali won…. he lost.

  3. Login.

     

     

    Wtf

     

     

    Has happened to the wonderful life changing place CQN was

     

     

    Sold for a pound ?

  4. Good Morning Celts – Grand Day To Be A Tim

     

     

    Hopefully Scotland will beat the Greeks tonight, though the visitors have are a very good side.

     

     

    TimHorton @ 8:25 PM,

     

     

    If you include the one that they shared it’s 54.

     

     

    If you also include the one that R2ngers won, like the old firmists do, then it’s 55.

     

     

    Aff oot

     

     

    Hail Hail

  5. Go

     

    Good morning from a damp North Staffs.

     

     

    Good win for the Vale yesterday although it was a hard slog. I would have subbed our scorer at half time – what do I know. If and it’s a big IF we win our game in hand on Tuesday we go 3rd.

     

     

    https://www.celticnewsnow.com/hoople/

     

     

    Surprisingly got it in 3

  6. Chairbhoy

     

    Don’t forget the original r1ngers tied the 1890-91 title with Dumbarton. That’s surely 1/2 a title.

  7. lets all do the huddle on

    Don’t forget the original r1ngers tied the 1890-91 title with Dumbarton. That’s surely 1/2 a title.

     

     

     

    Think Big Jimmy had a bet on Dumbarton to win the title that year and the bookies only paid him out 2 shillings and 6 pence instead of a crown so that only counts as half a title

  8. Morning all – Scotland v Greece on FS2 at 1200 central for my fellow USBhoys.

     

     

    Tried the Hoople from Gene’s link for the first time and also got it in 3️⃣

  9. ordinary joe on 22nd March 2025 7:32 pm

     

     

    Among it all you do make some decent points.

     

     

    I cannot remember street parties in the town centre when we won the league up until a few years ago.

     

     

    PS : It used to be legal to drink on our streets

     

     

    HH.

  10. I see wee Nicola has turned to comedy, think she’s been having a laugh at the expense of Scottish voters for years.

  11. Did you hear about the wee wummin who didnae know her hubby had bought a campervan wae someboby else’s money?

     

     

    That kind of comedy?

  12. Just listening to ‘Football Anthems’ Colin Murray’s show on Radio 5……

     

    They were discussing Wigan Athletic FC’s choices, not got a lot to sing about these days, but apparently they sing or sang ‘You are my Sunshine’ over the years. But, more recently, well since 2012 their fans have often also sang ‘I am a Believer’ that great hit for the Monkees from the 1960’s…which is played on air. after which self-styled musicologist (Professor) Pat Nevin interjects;

     

    “I have to say, ‘I’m a believer’ one of the great singles certainly from the 60s, written by ….(he pauses for effect)….. Neil…Sedaka”

     

    Just goes to show he not only talks rubbish live on air about football but aboot fitba anthems an aw…..

     

    Wee numptie. Hope Brian McClair was listening….

  13. Back to Basics - Glass Half Full on

    Celtic Mac – great post on the boxing.

     

     

    Early 1970s was a genuine golden era for the heavyweight division.

     

     

    Add to your list Earnie Shavers, Ron Lyle and Jimmy Young (all sadly deceased) and you can see the depth of talent.

     

     

    Always felt sorry for Young.

     

     

    IMHO he should have been world champion.

     

     

    I always suspected he didn’t have the right … ahem … “representation”

  14. back to basics

     

     

    BoxRec is the go to source for individual boxer’s records.

     

    Jimmy certainly took the fights, fought Foreman, Ali, Lyle, lost title eliminator to Ken Norton in 78, and even fought and lost to up and coming fighter Gerry Cooney (who battled bravely against Holmes in 82)

     

    Of course you never know what’s going on behind the scenes (unless you are Norman Mailer) with the fighters and the fights, and the referees, (Hagler losing to Leonard), touched on in movies such as The Set Up, Raging Bull of course, and brilliant

  15. back to basics

     

     

    ….brilliantly in Pulp Fiction, and many others. Hard to tell fact from fiction in boxing.

  16. garygillespieshamstring

     

     

    So true.

     

     

    Easy done.

     

     

    Especially with nonagenarian, hippy mother in law.

  17. That’s the 3 high rise flats in Maryhill brought down today. Quite a bang heard in Knightswood. Watched it on someone’s live stream. They came down exactly the same as the Twin Towers, I.e. controlled detonation.

     

     

    Throws grenade and steps back….

  18. fourstonecoppi on

    Gene on 23rd March 2025 11:18 am

     

    I see wee Nicola has turned to comedy, think she’s been having a laugh at the expense of Scottish voters for years.

     

     

    Seriously??????

  19. ART OF WAR re: controlled explosion

     

     

    Now, now then. You’ll have the moon howlers out.

  20. bigrailroadblues on

    Moon Howlers played at the Amphora back in the day. Support band for Warren Zevon.

  21. garygillespieshamstring on

    Vale bhoy

     

     

    Most women could remember the precise date and time you left the toilet seat up thirty odd years ago. :)

  22. Fourstonecoppi

     

    Seriously ? Just an observation from Engerland – I suppose her record should speak for itself

  23. Vale bhoy

     

    Pathetic though the diversion is of a caravan,it is not far more relevant the zionist lobby group “friends of child killers” oops israel has on what historically once the party of the working class,

     

    It has turned it into a marketing excuss to harm the weakest and poorest in our society at the behest of feral capitalism

     

     

    HH

  24. bigrailroadblues on

    GGH

     

    Mrs BRRB can remember the precise date and time when she first walloped me 30 years ago. Still got the scars.

  25. Adolescence is truly remarkable. I can’t believe each episode was one continuous shot.

     

     

    Incredible show and achievement.

  26. off football, I want to know WHEN, the world is going to tell Israel to fucking stop this genocide. If they do not then we should back Palestine with the necessary gear s to fight back. But of course, there is no appetite in the west that in any way may upset Israel.

     

    Maybe a wee nuke in TelAviv would get the message home

     

     

    KINGLuBO

     

    I fucking detest bullies