Daizen Maeda’s unlikely Celtic message

The forward provided the goals and energy that won the domestic double but was expected to move on during the summer transfer window.

After joining Celtic in January 2022 Maeda signed a four year contract in the summer of 2023 soon after Brendan Rodgers took over as manager.

When Kyogo Furihashi was sold in January 2025 Maeda came in off the left wing to devastating effect.

A total of 33 goals were scored with a purple patch in the spring time.

Against Bayern Munich in the Champions League he excelled home and away.

It has been claimed that Maeda cleared his locker out at Lennoxtown before the summer 2025 transfer window ended.

When Martin O’Neill returned for a second time he told a media conference how Maeda had been expected to go to Wolfsburg last summer.

Now after another dramatic season it seems that the Maeda Years at Celtic may not be about to end.

In a strange story BBC Scotland reported:

As he prepares for Friday’s final Group F game against Sweden, Maeda was asked what he had learned in his four-and-a-half years playing football in Scotland.

“That, if you do your best, the supporters will feel it, and they’ll want to root for you,” he said.

“So I want to continue doing my best in Scotland.”

Told that a female member of Scotland’s back-room staff had said “tell him I love him”, Maeda responded: “Getting people to love and accept you, not just in Japan but in foreign countries like Scotland too, is not easy.

“So it makes me so happy that your friend said that.”

The female member of the Scotland backroom staff seems a bit far fetched.

Why would she be messaging a reporter previewing the match between Sweden and Japan?

Was the conversation in English or Japanese?

Maeda is the master of the unexpected.

His place in Celtic folklore is assured. There may be another contract and another season for him in his adopted home.