IT is easy to imagine Daizen Maeda doing quite well as a baseball player had he pursued his other sporting passion. It doesn’t take much to picture the Celtic buzzbomb whizzing round the bases to home plate.
Ironically though, the defensive side of the game was his strength as a youngster, before football took over and he pursued a career that has now taken him all the way to Scotland, and soon, the Champions League.
Baseball remains a passion however for the forward, who watches the sport when seeking an outlet from the pressures of professional football. So, when he was asked what he had seen of the Champions League when he was a youngster in Japan, and if he had dreamed of making it to that level one day, the answer was maybe not what you would expect from your average footballer.
“Nothing at all,” Maeda said. “Because I don’t watch football on TV. I only watch baseball on TV.
“Why no football? Because I don’t want to think about football on my days off.
“I like to switch off and shut everything down. I think it is very important to have a different outlet.
“As I’m from Osaka, Hanshin Tigers is my favourite team. I played baseball when I was younger but I enjoyed it more playing football so that is why I followed this path. What was I good at in baseball? Defence!
“It’s not only the Champions League I’m looking forward to in the new season. I’m excited to play in the domestic league and the cups, also. I’m looking forward to all of the season and it beginning again.”
Given how little time Maeda has had off in the past year or so, it is understandable why he might want to switch off from football now and again.
He arrived at Celtic in January after a full season in the J-League, and with internationals in the summer after the Scottish Premiership ended, he has had only a limited time to recharge the batteries.
Frighteningly for defenders though, Celtic’s equivalent of the Duracell Bunny has hinted that he hasn’t quite shown just how quick he can be since arriving on these shores, and he is hoping that his pre-season preparations will get him up to full speed.
“I’m taking my time because my maximum condition will be ready for the beginning of the season,” he said. “I’m working with my tempo and rhythm to get ready.
“Pre-season has been normal, really. It’s been hard work as always. Last season, I had a really long season. After the season finished with Celtic, I had international matches to be involved in. I then had two weeks of rest and came back here.
“I'm trying to work gradually but also hard to make sure I'm ready.”
Celtic took the latest step in their pre-season preparations with an entertaining 2-2 draw against Blackburn Rovers on Saturday, with some predictable signs of rustiness and sloppiness still evident in their play given the time of year.
Rovers scored within the first couple of minutes after an uncharacteristic error from Callum McGregor, before Jota and David Turnbull pulled Celtic ahead by the interval. Late on though, a slack pass from Yosuke Ideguchi left Chris Jullien with no option but to concede a foul on the edge of the box, and Rovers midfielder Ben Brereton-Diaz hammered it home to level the score.
Despite the defensive lapses that still need to be ironed out, supporters would have left Celtic Park enthused by the quality of attacking play on show, particularly from the likes of Jota, who put on a masterclass on his return to Glasgow as a permanent Celtic player.
Maeda was similarly buoyed by the way that the attacking cogs seemed to be slipping back into gear, and he thinks that the forward line can be an even greater threat in the coming season.
“Every time I make a forward run, I know I will be receiving good passes,” he said. “I really believe in my team-mates and would like to make more goals.
“Do I think that understanding will get better? Well, in general during the last season I felt I built good relations with all my team-mates, especially the attacking players.
“So, yeah, there are still several games before the new season begins so hopefully we can improve even more by the time the competitive football starts again.
“We must create goals, so will try hard to do so.”
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