Celtic duo Daizen Maeda and Kyogo Furuhashi only had a place on the bench for Japan’s victory over Germany this weekend, but got a close-up view of the last remaining hours of Hansi Flick’s time in charge of the Germans.
Japan surged to a 4-1 victory at the Volkswagen Arena in Wolfsburg with Junya Ito, Ayase Ueda, Takuma Asano and Ao Tanaka all on the scoresheet.
Maeda and Kyogo have been training and working within Hajime Moriyasu’s group over the last few days but weren’t selected in the eleven or off the bench – which is probably a decent thing from a Celtic perspective.
Both players face a heavy schedule of matches over the next few months so a bit of rest will do them no harm at all. There’s a chance they feature in Tuesday’s match against Turkey, which takes place in Belgium.
The Japan result was enough for the German FA to sack Flick on Sunday afternoon, who has been under increasing pressure through a period of poor form. They have lost four of their last five matches and, in total, he has won less than half of his 25 games in charge.
While it may be more of a reflection of Germany’s weakness, the result also demonstrates just how talented this Japanese group is. There’s no shame for Kyogo nor Maeda not to make it into their first team.
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Celtic fans would love to see Kyogo treated as a main man for his country, and hopefully, there are still opportunities ahead for him to earn that status.
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