Celtic star Daizen Maeda earned minutes on international duty with Japan today as they saw off China to cement their World Cup qualification prospects.
After his cameo against Indonesia last week in a 4-0 victory, the Samurai Blue ran out 3-1 winners in Xiamen after a double from Koki Ogawa, and Ko Itakura’s effort sent them ten points clear of Australia in Third Round Group C.
Although the Socceroos face Bahrain this evening, Maeda came off the bench against China for a brief cameo that was extended due to a lengthy chunk of injury time in the second half.
Kyogo Furuhashi joined his Celtic teammate in the latter stages. Now, the duo, alongside unused substitute Reo Hatate, will head back to base ahead of the Bhoys’ trip to face Hearts at Tynecastle this weekend.
In rather unusual circumstances, Maeda has taken to social media after the game to react to a hilarious incident that occurred earlier today.
Daizen Maeda’s hilarious social media post surfaces
Posting on social media platform X, Maeda reacted to a video clip circulating online that showed him hitting a shot that appeared goal-bound during the warm-up, only for the ball to cannon off the post and hit him in the face!
Reacting to the rather unfortunate yet humorous incident, the 27-year-old put up a quote tweet that read via translation) “It’s funny, isn’t it? I did it on purpose.
Seeing the funny side, Maeda has racked up over 600,000 impressions from his ability to share some laughter with his adoring public, so fair play to him for brushing it off and laughing about it.
Now, he will make the journey back to Glasgow refreshed after only featuring twice in cameo displays for Japan during the break.
Daizen Maeda and company gear up for Celtic fixture run
As Celtic fans are all too aware, Tynecastle on Saturday is the start of a hectic fixture run that could see the Bhoys’ fate become clearer, encompassing all competitions.
Club Brugge await next midweek in the Champions League, while Ross County, Aberdeen and Hibernian come in quick succession after that.
The games keep coming thick and fast for Celtic, signifying that everyone will need to be ready in order to keep legs fresh to ensure results fall the way of the reigning Scottish Premiership champions.
Maeda will be a central part of that, and he will fancy his chances of doing some damage after nine goals and three assists this term.
