Celtic will continue their preparations for the new season this week in Japan.
Yes, it may have crept up on some of you, but the team are venturing over to Asia for some more training and a couple of relatively high-profile matches.
Straight Champions League qualification has afforded the club the luxury of an Asian tour, and while the South Korean leg has been called off, Japan is still on the cards.
Brendan Rodgers‘ side will face two J1 League sides over the next week in what is the club’s first venture to Japan since 2006.
It’s not totally clear when the team will fly out but it does seem likely to be on Monday. The flight should take them roughly ten hours, while there is currently an eight hour time difference in Japan.
Wednesday’s fixture against Yokohama F. Marinos is a 7pm kick-off local time, meaning an 11am start in Scotland. Celtic matches kicking-off before noon are extremely rare occurrences, so we can look forward to Wednesday.
The game is a homecoming for Hoops pair Daizen Maeda and Tomoki Iwata as they go up against their former sides.
Marinos are the reigning champions of Japan and joint-top of the current campaign as well. They are managed by former Rangers player Kevin Muscat and play at the immense Nissan Stadium — the 70,000 arena that hosted the 2022 World Cup final.
The team’s other fixture is on Saturday against Gamba Osaka. Yokohama and Osaka are around six hours apart by car (Google Maps) but there is no further time difference.
Again, the game at the neat 40,000 Panasonic Stadium Suita is a 7pm kick-off meaning that it will start at 11am on Saturday for most of us.
Maeda netted in the stadium for Japan against Peru last month, in a match that also saw Kyogo Furuhashi and Reo Hatate start.
Gamba Osaka are the club we signed Yosuke Ideguchi from. The midfielder won’t be part of our plans for the game though as he’s currently back in Japan on loan with Avispa Fukuoka.
Both matches are being shown worldwide on Celtic TV, so you can expect the club to be going all-out with their coverage.
In other news, Brendan Rodgers has been speaking about Kieran Tierney
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