First he was bald, then natural before becoming a blond, he scored a hat-trick in the Scottish Cup before being branded as being ‘terrible on the ball’ by the former Japan international Marcus Tanaka, then he put in a tremendous shift for his country in their World Cup qualifier win over North Korea this week. He’ll be back at Celtic next week and doing all his Daizen things at Livingston before turning is attentions to Ibrox.

Daizen Maeda celebrates with teammate and compatriot Tomoki Iwata after completing a hat-trick in the second half of a Scottish Cup football against Livingston on March 10, 2024.

Welcome to the fast and furious world of Daizen Maeda. He may have detractors, and may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but there’s no-one with those negative opinions about Daizen within the Celtic squad, as his Celtic teammate Greg Taylor explains.

寒い中応援ありがとうございました！
次に向けて良い準備します！ pic.twitter.com/TFBb5h4zT1

— 前田大然 Daizen Maeda (@M_daizen_1020) March 21, 2024

“Not within this building, and certainly not by me. I’m Daizen’s biggest fan and I’ll never under-appreciate him as a player,” the Scotland left-back said, as reported by Daily Record. “He’s a breath of fresh air, he works ever so hard for the team and is always willing to do that bit more.

“His pressing, I think he’s genuinely one of the best at pressing in the world. I think his presses and his numbers are right up there. In training I actually think he recharges the battery through the week at times!

“There’s a couple of days out there where you think Daizen’s just getting ready for the weekend, and sure enough, when the weekend comes he normally doesn’t stop. That’s a good way to be, he knows his body.”

Daizen Maeda played the full game as LW today🇯🇵 His chasing worked very well, and he created several chances from left side. He couldn’t score a goal, but showed that he’s an important player in both attack & defense👏@M_daizen_1020 @jfa_samuraiblue pic.twitter.com/NhKuOJ1UV4

— Yatao (@yataoda4) March 21, 2024

On Daizen three looks in a week, Taylor reckons is all good as it’s helped add goals to his game. And the Celtic left-back reckons he developed a great understanding with Daizen over the past few seasons and that can only be good for Celtic.

“He said he was growing it for his daughter, so that’s quite a nice touch and it’s worked for him, he’s notched a few goals since! He’s got many strengths and adding goals to his game will only improve him. Our relationship is really good, I think you can see that going back through the last few seasons, we work really well together.

“His strengths complement mine really well and it’s a relationship that’s been pretty strong through different circumstances. He’s been on the left, he’s been on the right, he’s been playing up front at times as has happened this season, but that’s part and parcel and it’s nice to have that relationship back.”