If Viljami Sinisalo didn’t get just how big Celtic were before he joined the club this week then he certainly will now.
The Finland international joined from Aston Villa in a deal worth around £1m and immediately flew out with the team for the 2024 USA Summer Tour.
The youngster is still getting to grips with life at such a huge club but it is clear that he has been doing his homework by asking his footballing friends what it’s really like at a club like Celtic.
John McGinn’s secret Celtic advice
Sinisalo’s first point of contact was former Aston Villa teammate and huge Celtic supporter, John McGinn.
The Scotland midfielder gave Sinisalo some advice about joining Celtic which the young ‘keeper has shared and some that he said he is going to keep to himself.
Sinisalo said [Daily Record], “Absolutely. I spoke to Ginny a lot about moving up to Scotland.
“Obviously, it helps that I’ve lived there before. I spoke to him a lot. He said you should jump at this opportunity.
“It’s massive and he gave us a little bit of advice, which I won’t tell! He’s a great man, John. I’m grateful for everything he’s done for me at Aston Villa and how he’s helped me settle into life in Scotland.
“He’s a big character. Absolutely. He’s funny. At Villa, he even gets the not-so-English-speaking people laughing, he gets everyone involved.
“John said I should jump at this chance. He gave us a little bit of advice, which I won’t tell!”
Sinisalo’s Celtic homework and Teemu Pukki
However, Sinisalo also shared how he spoke to former Celtic striker, Teemu Pukki about the Celtic move.
Pukki spent just over a year at Celtic after joining in 2013. After just one season he was sent out on loan to Brondby before making the mover permanent in 2015.
Being his international teammate, Pukki was the next obvious choice to get the lowdown on Celtic and Sinisalo shares the amount of time he also spent doing his research on the club.
Sinisalo continued, “Teemu I’ve spoken to, obviously. Celtic is a massive football club. You watch TV every Saturday and Sunday. During the week, you watch Celtic play in Europe.
“You can watch Celtic play Barcelona in Europe in the Champions League. You watch the big games on telly. You get all that shown back home in Finland as well. So it’s a football club I’ve always seen.
“I’ve been used to watching them when I was younger, so it’s nothing new in terms of how big it is. So it’s just very exciting to join something so massive.”
Contracted to 2029, young Sinisalo has clearly been earmarked as a Celtic goalkeeper for the future. With the arrival of Kasper Schmeichel to the club this week, the young Finnish international will spend this season learning from the Denmark goalkeeper.
With the new season kick-off just two weeks away, Sinisalo won’t really know what Celtic is all about until he makes his debut at Celtic Park and it is a debut he will hope will not be too far away.
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