Daizen Maeda

Yes 100% Sickened, gutted, severely * off - called it whatever you want. Celtic are capable of keeping Daizen he’s not a Matt O’Reilly where we will be offered £25 million and the player offered £80,000 a week or something in that range. If there is any possibility of keeping him then we must do it, it would be idiotic to let a player like that go. Your attitude is ‘it’s our business model so let’s punt him?’. No, you take each player on its own merits and Daizen is not a player you let go if you are capable of keeping him. You won’t find another player like him, Rodgers has described his pressing and work rate as ‘world class’, you don’t idly stand by and let a player like that walk out the door, because ‘it’s our business model’ when I believe it is in our capacity to keep him. Other players such as O’Reilly, Jota, KT and many before them were never going to turn down the opportunity to move. Daizen won’t be offered the money that they were, we are very strong finically, I would be sickened if we don’t do everything in our power to keep an almost unique player (certainly for the Scottish League) like Daizen Maeda.

 

Think he's * brilliant on the left, on the right and upfront. Such an enigma. Can cross to the moon with one touch, score with his * and do the most technically brilliant finishes the next minute. He's just different gravy from anyone in world football.

If we are still in the game after the 1st leg in dortmund I genuinly think he'll make the difference away from home.

 

Hope he's in Munich!

 

* hahaha

 

Not many lyrics there...

Some suggestions.... He'll kill you...die son
Clean up like a Dyson
He's no dime a Daizen
Erm pretty hard name to rhyme.. Lol

 

It's awright if he ends up in Dortmund he can just sprint down the Autobahn to Munich. There's no speed limit on the Autobahn, he'll be ok

 

Exactly .
Maeda played all their games at the World Cup...
Hatate gets picked a lot. I think Ideguchi even got a call up when he was nowhere near our first team.

Kyogo was our main striker, playing at Champions League level. So somehow going to a smaller club and battling relegation in the French league gives him a better chance of a call up?

 

I think the answer to your question is - yes, it does.

If you look at their squad, most of the players in midfield or attack who get regular minutes play in England, Germany or France. A couple for big teams in Portugal and Netherlands who also play Champions League.

They all play at a higher level, week in week out, than Kyogo did, and Reo and Daizen do. Now the argument is that Reo and Daizen get call ups and that's true. But really when you look at it, Reo only sometimes makes it off the bench, and Daizen, although comes on as a sub alot, hasn't actually started many games for Japan in the past 2 years since the WC.

So, Kyogo, who only got called up on occasion and missed the world cup, will look at that and absolutely think that the level he's playing at weekly is important to that manager. He's probably been advised as much.

Champions league is great, it's such a pull for us to sign players. But it doesn't really hide the fact that 4/5 games these guys play are at a lower level than the other guys in their position for Japan.

I think he has a dream to play at a world cup for his country and this next one is his last chance.

 

Maeda is in his prime age and has probably got another 8 years of his career in front of him. He's an established international, with a good country, and loads of tournament experience. He's got skillsets that are stunningly hard to source, alongside an attitude that perpetually great. Definitely has flaws, but even those appear to be getting smoothed...

I think you're being very optimistic that we're not going to receive a huge offer for him if he keeps this up, and that any club in the bigger leagues couldn't offer him moneys and wages that would look us like absolute minnows in comparison...

Hopefully that doesn't happen, but it really wouldn't surprise me... And there's, again, not much we can do but swallow down the bitter pill if it does...

Edit: actually just realised we have him until summer 27, so I'd consider dropping a new contract in the summer at the latest to push that to 28/29. More money for him and more stability for us. Probably noone offering him big money at 30/31yo, so that would take care of itself...

 

Japan must also include some players from the Japanese League surely.

Playing for say Yokohama Marinos in the J League can't trump playing for Celtic in the Champions League.
The standard of the J League alone must be not far off SPL standards. Must be something similar. And not only that Kyogo had been playing against Dortmund, Leipzig, Atalanta in the most elite football competition. He's faced Athletico Madrid. Lazio, Feyenoord and Real Madrid too.

I know your saying the majority of their midfield and attack play in bigger leagues. But if they pick J League players at all then they cant discriminate against the Scottish League on grounds of level of competition.

And although your saying it does.....I do not believe battling relegation in France with a smaller club than Celtic should stand you in better stead for getting picked for Japan.....than if you were first choice star striker for Celtic, still playing at the highest level in Europe.

The French league is better than Scotland. But its by no means filled with top quality teams. PSG, Monaco and Lille are where Celtic are, in the knockout stage of Champ League. Lyon are still in Europa League, Marseille didn't qualify for Europe, Lyon were cheating and are getting relegated.
PSG are a bigger club than Celtic. But I don't believe any of the rest are

 

In their most recent squad only 2 of the outfield players are based in Japan, one of which is Nagatomo who previously played for Inter Milan and is a legend there. The other wouldn't have made the squad if Tomiyasu (Arsenal) or Ito (Bayern) were fit.

So it does seem that it's hard for J League players to make the cut as well. Interestingly 3 of the players in the latest squad play for Reims, who are similar level to Rennes (of not lower in recent years).

You're right that there isn't many clubs in France bigger than Celtic, you could give an argument for Marseille, but its not really about Celtic, it's about Scottish football and for one reason or another playing in a good league seems to be more valued than playing in a poorer league whilst in the CL

 

Id be more gutted losing him than any of the previous players. Thats not necessarily just down to his footballing ability, you just can’t help but love the guy, he gives 100% for the club and would run till he drops for Celtic.

 

It's the reason England mostly ignore any of their players that play in Scotland. They just don't take the level of competition seriously. Alan Thompson and Fraser Forster got one call up each while with Celtic. Hooper was ignored, so was Chris Sutton (although I believe he fell out with the F.A some years before).

TavPen is a perfect example. England's record goalscoring defender of all time. Never considered once for his country. Goldson, part of a defence that nearly broke the world record for number of minutes without conceding a penalty. Again never even looked at.
But aswell as seeing the competition as too weak to take these statistics seriously, the F.A are not ignorant to the dubious nature of these statistics and how they were achieved. "Penalty to rangers!" ...even the English joked about it

We have never really had any of our players picked for England. Although in the late 80s/early 90s woods, steven, wilkins, hately, butcher were all getting picked while at rangers. Paul Elliott at us got overlooked though.
And they picked the bawbag * gascoigne when he was with them aswell
So it's not always been the case that they won't pick players from Scotland.

 

I always remember Van Dijk was straight in the Netherlands squad as soon as he moved to Southampton, despite being clearly ahead of what they had whilst at us. It's frustrating

 

It's why Gary Hooper left aswell...infatuated with getting picked for England. It back fires on Hooper though and he just downward spiralled in England.

 

Very interested to see if Maeda or Idah plays through the middle in the big games in 2 months time. Idah will take the hump if its not him id my feeling.

 

He will mega shine in Munich