Celtic have singed four Japanese players; Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda, Reo Hatate and Yosuke Ideguchi; since the appointment of Ange Postecoglou as manager. And all things considered, it does look like they have managed to strengthen the Hoops’ squad significantly although it will be interesting to see how things turn out over the coming weeks and months. The early signs have been very promising.

One man who impressed immensely on his Celtic debut is Hatate, who got the man of the match award for his performance against Hibernian.

He was an unused substitute in the Scottish Cup tie against Alloa Athletic but is expected to have a huge role to play moving forward, especially with Callum McGregor and David Turnbull out injured while Tom Rogic will be heading out on international duty.

Amidst all this, it looks like Hatate has been well aware of Celtic for a while due to Shunsuke Nakamura’s time at Parkhead. When asked about what he knew about the Hoops before joining on the club’s official Twitter, he said:

Hatate knew about Celtic because of Nakamura

Nakamura was one of Celtic’s most exciting players a little over a decade ago and he will always be remembered fondly by the fans, especially because of some of his incredible free-kicks.

It is safe to say that while a different kind of player, Hatate has made a bright start to life at Celtic as well and should be hoping to leave his own mark at Parkhead.

While the signing of Maeda might have grabbed most of the headlines, many believed that Hatate has the higher ceiling out of the Japanese trio that Celtic brought in this month and it is not hard to see why after his exceptional performance on his debut. Hopefully, the midfielder will continue to build from here and get even better with time and experience.