Daizen Maeda scored a peach of goal at the weekend to top off a wonderful performance from him and his Celtic teammates at a very difficult away venue. The Toni Macaroni Arena is traditionally a very tricky fixture for the Bhoys but the team rallied in the last game and really put in a rousing, spirited display to get the job done.
As if it wasn’t hard enough, we had the unenviable task of needing to overcome this obstacle with 10-men after only half-an-hour gone into the match. Joe Hart rushed out to meet Livingston’s Mo Sangare and as soon as the two met, you knew Joe would be heading up the tunnel for an early shower. It had the hallmarks of a disaster written all over it.
In light of this thought, Brendan’s men remained vigilant and organised with a man less than the home side and grew in confidence and strength as the game went on. We built on that opening penalty kick by Reo Hatate through a really well worked Matt O’Riley goal, which the phenomenal Daizen Maeda helped to set up for his equally industrious teammate.
Maeda was a constant throughout that fixture and everything we did that was strong seemed to revolve around him, whether it be in an offensive or defensive manner. He set the tone after the sending off of our goalkeeper and really showed why he is so crucial to this current Celtic team. His never-say-die attitude to proceedings was exactly what we needed in that potential banana skin face-off against a team that historically causes us issues away from Celtic Park.
His efforts merited a goal for sure that afternoon and he eventually got just what his performance deserved in the end up to put us three ahead in injury time and seal the three points to head back to Glasgow with. It was a stormer of a goal and Celtic have released video footage of it from every angle so that the Hoops supporters can appreciate how sweet a strike it was from the Japanese star.
Take a look at this one…
Paul Gillespie
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Undoubtedly a goal of the season contender.