Why Celtic’s Japan tour triple threat is a no-brainer… if scheduled correctly

I am, of course, speaking about recent reports that Celtic are in the early stages of planning a trip to Japan.

It’s not just the natural appeal of taking Kyogo Furuhashi, Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda and Yosuke Ideguchi to their home nation. It’s not just Ange Postecoglou returning to the scene of one of his greatest successes. It’s doing both of those things with all five men decked out in Celtic colours; the colours Shunsuke Nakamura made primetime in Asia almost 20 years ago.

A triple threat, the holy trinity… call it what you will but there was no way those three things were going to be ignored from a business standpoint. It’s a no-brainer – if it can be scheduled correctly.

The Hoops did try to exploit their burgeoning reputation in the Asian market during the mid-2000s with a game against Yokohama F Marinos in August 2006. This wasn’t a tour but a one-off match. Celtic lost 3-0, leaving Nakamura “ashamed”.

“I felt sorry for my team-mates as they had to travel a long way and then play in the heat,” Nakamura added in the aftermath of the match, which also prompted Gordon Strachan to claim he now knew he ‘could rely on’ only 14 or 16 of his squad.

This was after the start of the 2006-07 season remember. The Hoops had already – following an actual tour of America and several other friendlies besides - beaten Kilmarnock 4-1 in the opening game five days previous and were scheduled to play Hearts three days after Marinos.

Whatever response Strachan sought at the time, it didn’t work. Hearts won 2-1 at Tynecastle thanks to a late Roman Bednar strike. Celtic then went and played Chelsea in another friendly at Stamford Bridge. They drew 1-1 in London before beating St Mirren at home and drawing away with Caley Thistle to ensure that by the time their prolonged friendly schedule had concluded they’d dropped points in two of their opening four league games.

That’s the key, you see. Scheduling. The prospect of a tour of Japan truly is too good to pass up for the club but it has to be at the right time.

As with any tour, or even any away trip, there are a lot of logistics involved the second it comes to leaving Scotland (nay, Glasgow) but for the sake of argument let’s say it is to be next summer as reported.

That means Celtic players will be involved in their usual hectic domestic schedule from July to November then jet off to Australia for the Sydney Super Cup (another business decision that couldn’t really be ignored) or Qatar if their nation made the World Cup.

Following that? Back to the usual hectic domestic schedule through until the end of May, maybe a couple of weeks off in summer (the Asian Cup is slated for June and July 2023, as is the CONCACAF Gold Cup) and then it’s onwards to Japan.

Amid growing concerns over the number of minutes and travel-time elite players have to rack up, that will be a lot to absorb. No doubt about it. There’s also a reason the club has chosen the relatively close confines of Austria for much of its pre-season schedules over the past decade and it wasn’t for the Wiener schnitzel.

Yet still. Going to Japan, like squeezing in that trip to Sydney in November, just makes too much damn sense. The fans over there get a chance to see the team up close again (presuming Covid restrictions have been eased); Kyogo, Maeda, Postecoglou and the rest get the chance to take their new side to familiar places; the marketing teams have a field day. It’s a winner.

But once more: scheduling. If it’s done early enough to avoid any of the nonsense post-league-opener travelling that  Strachan’s side had to undertake but also late enough that players have had some semblance of a decent break, then it will be workable.

Above all else, the balance between the obvious and plentiful marketing commitments that such a trip will bring and the actual football preparations required must be weighted appropriately and decisively in favour of the latter. If not, that’s where an open goal can morph into an own goal. It can’t be ignored.

This piece is an extract from today’s Celtic Digest newsletter, which is emailed out at 4pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from The Celtic Way team. 

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