Julian Araujo doesn’t want to let his Celtic injury affect his World Cup aspirations.
The defender was confirmed to be missing the remainder of the season, putting a premature end to his spell in Glasgow after just 12 appearances.
In those appearances, Araujo has managed to establish himself as an unlikely fan-favourite, with his passion making Celtic feel like his perfect home.
His eyes are firmly on the other side of the Atlantic now, though, with a home World Cup in the offing.
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Julian Araujo returns to Mexico’s High Performance Centre after Celtic injury
As reported by Estadio Deportes, Araujo has travelled to the Centro de Alto Rendimiento (High Performance Centre) in Mexico City.
There, he is working hard at recovery and effectively playing his last card in a bid to make the tournament.
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In their first home World Cup games since 1986, Mexico will play in Group A. They face South Africa and Czechia in Mexico City and South Korea in Guadalajara.
It’s been nine months since Araujo appeared for his country, in a CONCACAF Gold Cup tie against Luis Palma’s Honduras.
Having automatically qualified for the tournament as co-hosts, Mexico have had no World Cup qualifiers to contend with, instead playing six international friendlies in the full-back’s absence.
However, Araujo is on his international manager’s radar, with manager Javier Aguirre revealing talks between the pair last month.
Aguirre said: “It’s true that I also spoke with Julian Araujo, who is currently doing well in Scotland.
“Right back is a position where I have many options.
“We have Rodrigo Huescas at FC Copenhagen too and I want to see our players in Europe in the future.”
Araujo has 16 international caps to his name, having made the decision to switch allegiance from the USA to the country of his family’s heritage as a teenager.
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How Celtic players fared in the recent international break
A mixed international break for Celtic players so far
Unlike Araujo, some Celtic players prepared for the tournament with international players last month.
Hyunjun Yang’s costly error for South Korea in their 4-0 defeat to Ivory Coast will be a blow for his hopes of appearing at this summer’s tournament, and even potentially competing against Araujo.
However, Daizen Maeda had the honour of captaining Japan for the first time as they ran out 1-0 winners against Scotland at Hampden.
It’s also been a happy week for Sebastian Tounekti, who scored his first international goal in Tunisia’s 1-0 win over Haiti.
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