A satisfied Brendan Rodgers declared Celtic’s Japan tour a roaring success, and paid tribute to the ‘incredible’ supporters who made it so.
The Premiership champions will head home after rounding off their trip to the Far East with a 1-0 win over Gamba Osaka on Saturday. And Rodgers is set to touch down in Glasgow with a new centre-back joining his ranks – the club are poised to sign Legia Warsaw defender Maik Nawrocki on a five-year contract.
But as he reflected on a productive week’s work in Yokohama and Osaka, Rodgers was struck by the overwhelming presence of green and white shirts. Plenty Scottish fans made the long journey to follow their heroes, and were joined by local supporters keen to see Celtic’s Japanese contingent in action.
“20-odd years ago, you'd never anticipate coming to Japan and seeing so many shirts,” Rodgers told Celtic TV. “It's an amazing country with a huge population, but to see so many Celtic supporters out here, it's been incredible.
“I know some have travelled from back home, but you also see the locals, our Japanese players have created an interest in and where we've been there are so many Celtic tops, that's what you want.
“You want to be able to take your club anywhere in the world as that's the type of club Celtic is. It's a wonderful institution and that fan base is only growing. It's been a great trip. We've got a couple more days to go.
“We still got hard work to do out here and then we'll get back and I think the cooler temperatures will help us as well. That will help speed up our run on intensity, but overall been a great trip.”
Saturday’s friendly against Gamba was a quieter affair than Wednesday’s 6-4 defeat to Yokohama F. Marinos, the only goal coming late on from substitute Alexandro Bernabei. The left-back chased down his own scuffed pass to rob the home goalkeeper and tap into an empty net.
Well, it's great you can make a pass like that and it is so bad it ended up in a goal,” Rodgers said. “Massive credit to him. He's played a great ball out in Portugal with the outside of his foot and we got a goal. He tried a similar thing tonight and kicked the ground. I always say you played the last pass and it wasn't so good, but kept going andgot his reward. It was great for the supporters to feel a goal in the stadium.
