GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - FEBRUARY 08: Celtic's Daizen Maeda scores to make it 5-0 during a Scottish Gas Men's Scottish Cup match between Celtic and Raith Rovers at Celtic Park, on February 08, 2025, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Alan Harvey/SNS Group via Getty Images)
A ‘shadow’ Celtic side showed no mercy on Raith Rovers as they delivered a 5-0 victory to go into Monday’s quarter-final draw for the Scottish Cup.
Daizen Maeda was the star of the show with a typical hat-trick that takes his tally for the season to 21 with 50 in all in just over three years at Celtic.
Starting off playing as a centre forward the Japanese internationalist gave Celtic a sixth minute lead and barely paused until he completed his hat-trick in the 77th sliding in at the back post as if it was the opening goal of his career.
Make it a hat-trick! ?
Daizen Maeda with a spectacular performance to hit the 50-goal milestone for Celtic ?#ScottishCup | @ScottishCup pic.twitter.com/4uWSLYmTGG
— Premier Sports (@PremSportsTV) February 8, 2025
Maeda’s hat-trick overshadowed a productive showing from Yang Hyun-jun who scored Celtic’s fourth and had two assists from his outing.
The tragedy of course is that Maeda will miss Wednesday’s match at home to Bayern Munich through suspension, on current form he is a threat to any defence at home or it Europe.
Luke McCowan was the other scorer, putting Celtic 3-0 up in the 47th minute with the Championship side barely able to test Celtic debutant Viljami Sinisalo.
Rodgers made nine changes to the side that beat Dundee 6-0 in midweek with the only downside today a first half injury to Paulo Bernardo which saw him replaced by Reo Hatate after 37 minutes.
(Photo by Alan Harvey/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Daizen double for his 20th of the season! ?
A speedy counter and @CelticFC take control before the break ?#ScottishCup | @ScottishCup pic.twitter.com/5UcZDgS9yh
— Premier Sports (@PremSportsTV) February 8, 2025
? A quick start courtesy of @M_daizen_1020!#CELRAI | #ScottishCup | #CelticFC?
— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) February 8, 2025
The guy is having an amazing season,surely player of the year.
In the context of the Celtic fc vs Raith Rovers game; Daizen is a Japanese male name that means Outstanding. True. Maeda means “in front of a Paddy Field”. On this Blog site of Joe’s, he posted a couple of comments of Real Ibrox Fans expressing their liking of Daizen as an extraordinary footballer. The Bullet Train called Daizen @maedasteel. Joe took the two comments from the Follow blog site. I think by now, most young Scot Fans of the S Premiership League, have an affinity towards Daizen the footballer.