Since the arrival of Ange Postecoglou as manager, Celtic have signed four Japanese players. Kyogo Furuhashi was signed in the summer and has already gone down in the history books of the club, scoring a magnificent brace in the Scottish League Cup final despite not being fully fit and guiding them to the first piece of silverware of the season. Recently, the club have brought in the likes of Daizen Maeda, Yosuke Ideguchi and Reo Hatate as well.

Considering the success that Kyogo has already enjoyed, being arguably the club’s standout player this season, it is safe to say that there are a lot of expectations from the trio who have arrived from J1 League in the winter transfer window.

Their early arrivals gives them the chance to get accustomed to their surroundings and teammates during the winter break. And now, they have been handed a double boost by the Japanese FA.

As reported by Japanese FA’s website, Maeda and Hatate have been removed from the national team’s squad for the upcoming game against Uzbekistan due to their international transfers.

Celtic handed double boost by Japanese FA

This is a result of the Japanese national team being made up of players only from the J1 League, due to the current circumstances.

This will come as a boost for Celtic simply because of the fact that they will have their summer signings available as well as the fact that international travel is not very safe at this point of time. It remains to be seen what the Japanese FA decides to do for their upcoming World Cup qualifiers though, in terms of team selection.

It will also be interesting to see how Maeda, Hatate and Ideguchi settle in at Celtic. While Kyogo did incredibly well, that should be considered as an exception and not the norm.