Celtic attacker Hyunjun Yang’s rapid rise continued on Thursday as he made his debut for South Korea.
The speedy winger joined the Hoops from Gangwon in late July, signing a five-year deal in Glasgow. Since then, he has made just one start. However, he has generally impressed in a Celtic shirt and seems to have a lot to offer.
That view appears to be shared by his international boss Jurgen Klinsmann. Earlier in the week, we brought you some interesting quotes from the former Germany forward. Klinsmann spoke mainly about Hyeongyu Oh but also referenced Brendan Rodgers saying good things about Yang and Hyeokkyu Kwon.
That was backed up on Thursday evening as Klinsmann gave Yang his first taste of senior international football. The winger came on for the final ten minutes of South Korea‘s 0-0 draw with Wales in Cardiff.
Yang replaced Mainz man Lee Jae-sung on his debut with Celtic forward Oh not brought on in a fixture that was refereed by Willie Collum.
It may not seem like a huge development but it is surely evidence that Yang is seen as someone who can contribute at full international level.
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We don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves with the 21-year-old. He’s yet to score for the club and only really has that assist for Matt O’Riley at Aberdeen to his name.
He’s really not played a lot of football and questions do remain about his end product. Can he be more than just a tricky dribbler?
Yet, there is something really exciting about him. The buzz of anticipation whenever he got the ball in the first half of the St. Johnstone was palpable. He is someone who is genuinely capable of getting people out of their seats.
His battle for game-time is only going to increase over the coming weeks. When everyone is fit, we have seven first-team wingers at the club — Yang, Liel Abada, Daizen Maeda, Luis Palma, Marco Tilio, James Forrest and Mikey Johnston.
There are big question marks over most of those, for various reasons. With the club soon to play two matches most weeks, there will be opportunities for Yang. We can’t wait to see more of him.
In other news, every Celtic absentee at Ibrox and when we can expect to see them play again