Ryunosuke Sato: Celtic should be paying attention to Hayato Inamura’s teammate

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Four years ago, Celtic looked like they’d cracked the code with the J-League market.

Kyogo Furuhashi, Reo Hatate and Daizen Maeda were all brought to Glasgow for a combined fee of less than £6 million.

Since then, signings such as Yuki Kobayashi and Shin Yamada have been less successful, leading to debates over whether it’s the right place for Celtic to be shopping.

But as we’ve seen first-hand, there are great players in Japan — you just have to sign the right ones.

Should Celtic still be shopping in the J-League market?

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Ryunosuke Sato: Celtic could be the perfect destination for Japan’s latest prodigy

Hayato Inamura is another unsuccessful recent J-League addition. After just one start in the first half of the season, he was sent on loan to FC Tokyo.

Among his teammates is a 19-year-old who looks like the next big thing.

READ MORE: Darren O’Dea says what Celtic fans ‘don’t want to hear’ about Liam Scales

That 19-year-old is Ryunosuke Sato, a diminutive dribbler who can play as an attacking midfielder and a winger.

In Japan, only exceptionally talented teenagers are fast-tracked into the J-League at first-team level. Most play at university level until their 20s, as Kyogo and Hatate did, for example.

At the age of just 18, he was named as the division’s player of the year last season on loan at Fagiano Okayama.

Since transitioning into the first team at his boyhood club in Tokyo, he already has five goals in just 12 appearances in 2026.

This earned him a call-up to Rikizo Matsuhashi’s senior Japan squad for the first time in March, though he missed their clash with Scotland through injury. In their 1-0 win over England at Wembley, he was an unused substitute.

Earlier in the year, he was the top-scorer and most valuable player at the under-23 Asian Cup, which Japan won.

Reports in Japan have listed Wolfsburg as monitoring him “very closely”, with Union Berlin and Leeds also credited with an interest.

Sato makes the most of his 5 ft 7 in stature with an exceptional work-rate out of possession and deceptive upper body strength, hence his ability to operate in midfield.

He is lightning quick across a few yards, and can take corners and free-kicks. If Celtic want a young player to base their rebuild around, they should look no further.