Now that the Japan Tour is officially concluded for the summer, Callum McGregor has been speaking about how the trip has made him appreciate the impact our Asian Bhoys have made at the club in such a short period of time.
McGregor was reflecting on the ten-day stay and how adjusting to simple things like adjusting to the time difference on the short visit has opened his eyes to how difficult it must have been for the likes of Kyogo and Reo Hatate to make the permanent move to Glasgow.
McGregor said [Celtic YouTube], “It’s been great actually [the tour]. It’s been different to come to the other side of the world. Now I think I have an appreciation of how the boys in the squad do it coming from Japan and coming from Korea.
“It’s really difficult and you see it even with the time difference how difficult that is to readjust. So you kind of get a newfound appreciation for the boys that come along and settle into Glasgow really quickly.
“So it’s been nice to see it and obviously we had a tough game the other night which hopefully blew the cobwebs away and then we’re looking forward to the game at the weekend.”
In Celtic’s first season, Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda and Reo Hatate all made blistering starts to their Celtic careers. Kyogo’s goals in the early stages of the campaign helped to keep Celtic within touching distance at the top of the table.
Hatate and Maeda gave us a boost when they joined in January and made an instant impact as they reinforced the squad at a time when we were really thin on the ground. All three made a significant impact on our double-winning year.
Yosuke Ideguchi also joined in the January window but a debut injury pretty much ended his season and he has never recovered since. He is currently on loan at Avispa Fukuoka.
Hyeongyu Oh, Tomoki Iwata and Yuki Kobayashi all came in at various stages of last season and also contributed in some shape or form to securing the Treble.
All of these players were under instant pressure to make their mark at Celtic and when you think that not only did they have the eyes of half of the country on them at all times, they also didn’t speak the language, had to adjust to a whole new culture and settle into a new home.
The job our Asian Bhoys have done for the club since they came to Glasgow has been outstanding and McGregor was bang on the money to point that out.
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