Celtic tried to sign Oh Hyeon-gyu in the summer, according to Suwon Samsung Bluewings manager Lee Byung-keun, who reckons his former star player will be a hero in Glasgow.
The Hoops completed the signing of the 21-year-old South Korean international this week and boss Ange Postecoglou admitted he had tracked Oh for a while.
And his former club in his homeland have revealed the Scottish champions first made their move in the summer, before his World Cup heartache, where he missed out on their squad for Qatar.
Lee said: "The first offer came from Celtic in the summer.
"Back then I had a meeting with Oh and he told me that playing in Europe was his dream.
READ MORE: Inside Celtic star Hyeongyu Oh's brutal national service
"He has now fulfilled his dream and I know he will be a success.
"Celtic have many good players there from Japan, but Oh is as good as they are. He goes to Scotland full of confidence in his own ability.
"He wants me to come over too so I can cheer for him once he gets into the team.
"But he's left me with a huge problem. My biggest worry for the forthcoming season is finding someone to replace him and that won't be easy.
"It was difficult for me and the club to grant his wish to be transferred because we know how difficult it will be to find a new player like him.
"But we would never stand in any player's way who wants to go to Europe. And Oh had a very strong desire to go there.
"I wish him all the success in the world, but he won't need it."
Our Celtic Digest newsletter brings exclusive content directly to you rather than solely through the website. You can already find us on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram but we will also send bespoke opinion pieces and special features directly to your email inbox every evening. Not only will you receive this article from Sean Martin, Tony Haggerty or Aidan Macdonald (or, sometimes, from all three) but you will also get easy access to our best content from the last 24 hours too. It’s a great way to keep up to date with what’s happening at Ange Postecoglou’s Scottish champions. To sign up, simply take five seconds to type in your email here. Simple!
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here