The first piece of the jigsaw - and arguably still the most important - was the £4.6m signing of Kyogo.Ĭeltic were still reeling from the chaos and calamity of the failed 10-in-a-row season. When Postecoglou swapped Japan for Glasgow in June 2021, he was faced with a gargantuan Celtic rebuild. "Before our season kicked off, Iniesta said to me, 'just be yourself and all will be well - play with confidence', and it really inspired me to let my confident side show on the pitch." Kyogo Furuhashi spent three years playing alongside Spanish great Andres Iniesta at Vissel Kobe Taking Scottish football by stormĪnge Postecoglou, then at the helm of Yokohama Marinos, was among the admirers as Kyogo's talent rocketed, accumulating 49 goals and 18 assists in 111 appearances for Vissel.
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It was so full of surprises and I could feel how much I was growing. "Every day it was just so much fun to go to training. "It was precious, I'll never forget it," Kyogo told Fifa. Kyogo remembers it as a "blessed time" and made sure to listen and act upon every morsel of advice as he learned from a legend. They had such a rhythm that when Kyogo left there was a disconnect between Iniesta and the rest of the formation." "Even if Vissel were a joke as a club sometimes, for Furuhashi to play with Iniesta and Villa and Podolski, and to train with them every day, that's a masterclass," adds Orlowitz.
Those years sharpened Kyogo's game and left a big impression. Kyogo's intelligent movement was the perfect foil for Iniesta, still a master passer in his 30s. Mikitani has no patience - they went through something like 10 managers in four seasons from mid-2017."ĭespite that managerial churn, Kyogo flourished as the attacking fulcrum in tandem with Barcelona and Spain icon Iniesta. "You have to understand Vissel are the biggest punchline for J-League watchers. "Mikitani was trying to buy a couple of stars and make an instant champion - it didn't work at all," says Dan Orlowitz, football writer with the Japan Times. Having bought the club in 2014, billionaire business magnate Hiroshi Mikitani wasn't shy in spending, with ageing European stars Iniesta, David Villa, Lukas Podolski and Thomas Vermaelen all brought in.Ī first major trophy was delivered with Emperor's Cup success in 2019, but the hefty outlay geared towards league glory didn't pay off. Vissel Kobe promptly took him to the J-League in summer 2018 and dropped him into a soap opera scenario. A burst of eight goals in eight games signified Kyogo as one of Japan's brightest prospects. He made 44 appearances in his debut campaign, scoring six times, before a shift from the flank to centre-forward the following season fast-tracked his progress. The circuitous route to the top proved beneficial for a striker regarded as a late developer, giving him significantly more game time than he would have been afforded as a J-League rookie straight out of university.
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When his perseverance was rewarded with a leap into the professional ranks in early 2017 at the age of 22, it was to the second-tier J2 League with FC Gifu.
"'I must be nuts', I thought," Kyogo told Fifa earlier this year as he recalled being at a career crossroads. The blunt response of "suit yourself" was enough to jolt him back from the brink. The notion he would be freewheeling alongside Andres Iniesta in a mere couple of years seemed absurd.ĭisillusioned, Kyogo phoned home and said to his mother, "maybe I should call it a day".
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