Celtic voting power works as Kyogo belter rightfully celebrated

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You can say two things for certain about us Celtic supporters, we love Kyogo, and we’re good at online voting.

Those two attributes came to the fore this week, when a Kyogo wonder-goal was part of UEFA’s Europa League Goal of the Group contest.

You know the one. Ferencvaros at home, Jota looks up for millisecond, delivers a perfect ball to Kyogo in transit, the Japanese striker takes one brilliant touch, sets himself, then slots it home.

Celtic fans celebrated it raucously at the time, and did so again this week. In a loaded category, Kyogo won 43% of the votes [UEFA]. Euro 2020 winner Lorenzo Insigne garnered just 4%. The second most faithful fanbase, it seems, are Dinamo Zagreb, who mobilised for 22% of the vote for Mislav Orsic effort.

It had to be Kyogo, though. As much for the assist as for the goal itself. And it speaks to the impact the Japanese striker has made since he came to Celtic Park.

It was Kyogo who helped us get to the Europa League in the first place, with goals against AZ Alkmaar. Then in the group stage, he scored twice, and set up 3 more [Transfermarkt].

In all competitions, he’s scored 14 goals in 22 outings, with 8 coming in the league. Very, very impressive stuff from the summer signing.

Celtic rock the vote as Kyogo rightly awarded

Listen, of course I’m biased. That Kyogo goal to put Celtic ahead against Ferencvaros, though, it was art. And it was the perfect encapsulation of the skill, speed and intensity Ange Postecoglou wants from his team.

Passing movements are all well and good, and we dominated possession in that game against Ferencvaros. Sometimes, though, there’s nothing more satisfying than a well-executed counter-attack, just when our opponents were on their heels.

The timing only makes us pine for him more. Celtic getting Kyogo back for the Premier Sports Cup Final would be absolutely ideal, given his propensity for unsettling defenders and goalkeepers alike. He won’t have any nerves, but there’ll be some in the opposition that he can absolutely exploit.

What Celtic fans surely want now is a few months, at least, of uninterrupted Kyogo time. We won’t get that, likely, given the qualifiers he’ll presumably need to play for Japan. But if he keeps fit for the rest of the season, he could rack up quite the tally of goals.

100% of us would vote for that.

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