As the Celtic side look to settle and make themselves at home in Japan, the Japanese members of the squad will be looking forward to a return to their homeland and meet up with friends and family over the next few days.
But Celtic’s Daizen Maeda has already met up with an old friend in Takuya Kida. Maeda was Kida’s teammate in his Yokohama F Marino’s days and in a hilarious interview with Celtic TV, we get to see the Celtic winger give Kida a ribbing and show a side to himself that we have never seen before.
In a short Q&A, Maeda was asked a few questions about Kida and his answers were simply brilliant.
What is your first impression of him?
Maeda: “Nothing really special being like ‘so this is the guy called Kida’. -What does that mean?”
Kida: “That is such a silly answer.”
Kida’s best performance?
Maeda: “I have not seen it yet.”
Kida: “He just doesn’t remember it.”
Kida’s worst performance?
Maeda: “Almost every game.”
Kida: “You’ve got to be joking.”
The Yokohama star went on to praise his friend and talked and, looking forward to the friendly in two days time, Kida was glowing in his praise of Celtic and our players.
Kida said, “I am very much looking forward to playing against a strong team with a worldwide name such as Celtic.
“They also have great Japanese players and we are also going to face Daizen and Tomoki, who worked together here at F.Marinos.
“I believe this is a great opportunity and very excited to see them on the pitch and also playing against that wonderful team would be a great chance for us.
“It could be also a big opportunity to show the world what F Marinos is all about.
“So I want to put everything into it.”
This was a great piece of content by Celtic. Maeda looks stone cold whenever he is on the football pitch and it was great to see this warm side to his personality.
Celtic are set to face Yokohama on the 19th of July and after that, they will travel to Suita to take on Gamba Osaka in the second leg of the tour.
The Celtic fans will be looking forward to seeing the team line up for the first time under Brendan Rodgers to catch a glimpse of how we will set up to play next season.
In other news, Mikel Arteta expecting Arsenal exits as Celtic wait on Kieran Tierney situation
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