Rudi Vata has spoken glowingly of his son Rocco’s opportunity at Celtic.
Just a week or so ago it seemed that it was only a matter of naming his next club with the teenager out of contract in the summer and various Italian clubs showing interest in taking him abroad.
Last season, playing mostly as a winger, Vata made four appearances off the bench but with three wingers signed during the summer and doubt over his medium term future he has had to content himself with playing in the Lowland League.
Playing under Stephen McManus and Darren O’Dea, Vata has been used as a striker this season with Celtic suddenly caught short due to Oh Hyeon-gyu and Daizen Maeda being involved in the Asian Cup.
Unexpectedly involved against Buckie Thistle on Sunday, Vata came off the bench to score his first top team goal with a fresh opportunity opened up for as long as Japan and South Korea are involved out in Qatar.
? ‘I tell him all the time: when the manager is wrong, he’s still right.’
Rudi Vata details how he’s helped his son Rocco cope with his frustrations at not getting more minutes for #CelticFC.
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I think he wants to be with Celtic, and I think it’s right for him to be at Celtic to get more game time. If he gets that game time, I think he will produce what he’s capable of producing.
He’s improved a lot, he is ready to play, all he needs to do now is get that opportunity. After that who knows.
The supply of home grown players at Celtic has started to thin out, restricting options for UEFA competitions.
If Vata can be integrated into the first team squad and signed up onto a new contract it would provide multiple benefits, and the chance to surpass his Dad’s records as a Celtic player.
Sounds like he is a brat who wants to jump the line.
Pay yer dues son
If he was good enough, he’d be in the side. You just start to sound like Ianis Hagi’s dad when you go on like that…..
Editor: You have to then ask why the Academy is no longer producing players when Tilio, Bernabei, Yang, Siegrist, Haksabanovic, Iwata, Lagerbielke are deemed good enough.
There is probably also an element of the best youth talent not joining us these days because of the lack of first team opportunities. But now our glorious leaders have short-sightedly locked us back into the perennial death race with the Huns (Mk2), there will be less opportunities than ever for our own youth players to get in the first XI, so they are better off elsewhere.
One of the aspects of the historic missed opportunity of 2012 which annoys me most is that if we were far and away the strongest club with only sporadic challenges (like Bayern Munich) then there could have been more opportunities for our academy players to make the starting XI. We could have become a true centre of excellence like La Masia, instead of an academy which churns out mediocre players who go on to have patchy careers for lesser clubs, which is all it currently does.