Celtic trio Kyogo Furuhashi, Reo Hatate, and Daizen Maeda look set to face off against the likes of Neymar, Vinicius Jr, and Gabriel Jesus next month in a stunning international glamour match.
Japan boss Hajime Moriyasu has yet to name his squad for the friendlies against Paraguay and Brazil respectively. However, Kyogo, Maeda, and Hatate were all included in the World Cup qualification camp back in March. Unfortunately, Yosuke Ideguchi hasn’t been called up since 2019, and given his lack of minutes at Parkhead, is unlikely to be thrown in this month either.
Despite there being no competitive games in June’s camp, Moriyasu has already hinted that he’ll turn to his strongest players as they prepare for Qatar 2022 [Excite]. Japan will face Paraguay on June 2nd before the Brazil clash 4 days later. The Kirin Cup will then get underway on June 10th.
Japan have already confirmed their spot at the World Cup this winter. And speaking via Japanese outlet Excite, Moriyasu touched on Kyogo’s speed in particular ahead of the clash with the Brazilians:
“I am not sure how many different types of forwards I can call up, since there is a limit to the number of players I can call up. But I know we have speedy players up front, such as Asano against Australia in March and Furuhashi against Australia at home (in October).
“We are getting results that our opponents don’t like through our attacking options. We would like to make use of speed as a weapon for Japan.”
Japan unlikely to cut Celtic stars from friendly squad ahead of World Cup
Some nations will be looking at their friendly matches as an opportunity to test out some of the alternative options they have available. Perhaps provide some chances for others to stake a claim for a World Cup spot at the end of the year.
However, Moriyasu sounds as though he’s set to call on Japan’s speedy players for the upcoming games. Kyogo certainly falls into that bracket as he mentions above. So too does Daizen Maeda, who featured in Japan’s World Cup qualifiers at the beginning of the year.
Hatate only earned his first cap for his country back in March. But considering he’s broken into the squad, he could be one of the players given a chance against Paraguay and Brazil.
The latter certainly don’t look to be taking things easy either. Indeed, Brazil boss Tite has named a star-studded squad for their Asian friendlies against South Korea and Japan.
It’ll certainly be a glamour clash with Celtic players hopefully going to be involved. It also gives them an early chance to shine against some of the players they could come up against in next season’s UEFA Champions League.
Regardless, we’ll see what squad and team Moriyasu goes with come game-day. Hopefully, all 3 Celtic players are involved in some capacity.
In other news, Celtic legend Scott Brown explains his managerial philosophy
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