Daizen Maeda gets a month off to spend time with newborn son

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The Celtic Star

·23 May 2025

Daizen Maeda gets a month off to spend time with newborn son

Daizen Maeda will want to get the Scottish Cup final against Aberdeen won so that he can begin the 9000 mile journey back to his home in Japan to hold his new born son for the first time…

Daizen Maeda poses with his Scottish Premiership winners medal after the season s final league match against St. Mirren on May 17, 2025. Photo IMAGO

And Scotland’s Player of the Year is going to get more time that initially expected as he will NOT take part in Japan’s World Cup qualifying dead rubbers after the national team’s head coach decided to rest many of his experienced overseas players with qualification already assured.

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Ali Lajami of Saudi Arabia controls the ball against Daizen Maeda of Japan during the FIFA World Cup qualifier Asian third round Group C match between Japan and Saudi Arabia at Saitama Stadium on March 25, 2025 in Saitama, Japan. (Photo by Kenta Harada/Getty Images)

With a place at next year’s World Cup already secured, the Japan Football Association on Friday called up seven newcomers to the Samurai Blue squad for the two remaining Asian qualifying matches. Hajime Moriyasu will select from emerging talent playing in the J-League to play in the two remaining matches away to Australia on 5 June and at home to Indonesia on 10 June with that final qualifier taking place in Suita, Osaka Prefecture.

That is great news for the Maeda family who will now be able to spend a month together back in their homeland with the new addition to the family getting to met his dad. When he’s older he’ll hear all about why his dad wasn’t there at his birth. It’s quite an incredible story for a dad to tell his son.

Moriyasu explained his reasoning when naming his squad for the remaining two World Cup qualifiers.

The Japan national manager said:

“Some of the regular players who are always in the squads have been left out for these games. Considering that some of the main players had played a lot of games before and suffered frequent injuries throughout the season, we decided not to call them up this time. The guys who have played a lot of football deserve a rest.”

Moriyasu clearly wants Japan to win both matches

“There are no dead rubbers for the national team,” Japan head coach Hajime Moriyasu told a media conference in Chiba, near Tokyo. “There are no games we can afford to lose. I chose my players with the determination to win, no matter who plays.”

Daizen certainly falls into the needing a rest category, as indeed does Reo Hatate with the pair having played well over 100 games between them this season. Reo of course is currently sidelined with the injury picked up at Aberdeen last week so would have been unavailable anyway but Brendan Rodgers reckons he’ll be fine for the start of pre-season.

PFA Scotland POTY Daizen Maeda. Photo PFA Scotland.

Daizen was given time by Rodgers to head home to Japan to be at the birth but matters went slower than expected and he returned to Glasgow to play in the recent dead rubber at Ibrox. He then decided to stay on and see out the season, picking up multiple awards and a medal along the way, with another hopefulyl coming tomorrow at Hampden.

Daizen himself gave this happy update, as reported by Scottish Sun: “I now have a baby boy. I’ve just seen him on video calls. I haven’t seen him face-to-face yet so I just want to go into the off-season and see him.”

Daizen Maeda, Celtic’s POTY. Photo Celtic FC

With a place at next year’s World Cup already secured, the Japan Football Association on Friday called up seven newcomers to the Samurai Blue squad for the two remaining Asian qualifying matches.

Brighton winger Kaoru Mitoma And Celtic’s Daizen Maeda were among the mainstays left out of the squad. The seven new faces include 18-year-old Fagiano Okayama midfielder Ryunosuke Sato, Bristol City’s Yu Hirakawa and Sparta Rotterdam’s Shunsuke Mito.

Hajime Moriyasu, Head Coach of Japan, looks on prior to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Round of 16 match between Japan and Croatia at Al Janoub Stadium on December 05, 2022 in Al Wakrah, Qatar. (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

“There are no dead rubbers for the national team,” Japan head coach Hajime Moriyasu told a press conference in Chiba, near Tokyo. “There are no games we can afford to lose. I chose my players with the determination to win, no matter who plays.”

The 27 man Japan squad for the two World Cup qualifiers is as follows:

Goalkeepers: Keisuke Osako (Sanfrecce Hiroshima), Kosei Tani (Machida Zelvia), Zion Suzuki (Parma)

Defenders: Yuto Nagatomo (FC Tokyo), Tsuyoshi Watanabe (Gent), Koki Machida (Royale Union Saint-Gilloise), Ayumu Seko (Grasshopper), Hiroki Sekine (Reims), Junnosuke Suzuki (Shonan Bellmare), Kota Takai (Kawasaki Frontale)

Midfielders/Forwards: Wataru Endo (Liverpool), Yuki Ohashi (Blackburn), Daichi Kamada (Crystal Palace), Ryoya Morishita (Legia Warsaw), Shuto Machino (Holstein Kiel), Keito Nakamura (Reims), Kaishu Sano (Mainz), Yu Hirakawa (Bristol City), Koki Kumasaka, Mao Hosoya (Kashiwa Reysol), Takefusa Kubo (Real Sociedad), Yuito Suzuki (Brondby), Joel Chima Fujita (Sint-Truiden), Shunsuke Mito (Sparta), Kodai Sano (NEC Nijmegen), Kota Tawaratsumida (FC Tokyo), Ryunosuke Sato (Fagiano Okayama).

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