CIS Cup 1/4 Finals and Naka to Japan?

By: Matt | October 27th, 2008

In recent history, whenever Celtic have reached this level of the CIS Cup they always seem to falter. A combination of the coaching staff not wanting players hurt, youth and reserve players filling out the line up, and a small club seeing its only chance of hardware usually are the reasons why this occurs. Yet, this Tuesday’s match at Killie might be different. For one, it is at Killie and not Celtic Park, where these matches usually draw around 30,000 supporters. Perhaps this will bring a better atmosphere to the match. There is also the fact that Celtic have been playing youth and reserve players for the last two matches due to injury. While these players relish their first team chances, if they are haphazardly thrown into a match without any work together then there is a chance for a lack of chemistry. If Gordon Strachan continues to play the likes of Cillian Sherridan, Glen Loovens, and others, then there is already a familiarity with these players. At the beginning of the season, Gordon Strachan said that Celtic would be going for as many cups as possible, so I would not expect to see that much of a different line up than from Saturday’s match. Kilmarnock will be coming out full tilt, as they are one of the “small clubs” that seem to be in contention for the CIS Cup. After Killie’s disappointing weekend loss to Falkirk, they will be looking to get back on track, so it could still be a tough game for Celtic.

Over the weekend, there were reports that the Mhan from Japan, Shunsuke Nakamura, will rejoin the J-League in Japan in January. Reuters reported, “Celtic’s Shunsuke Nakamura is reportedly poised for a return to Yokohama F-Marinos in Japan’s J-League, though the club said on Friday nothing had been decided yet. Local media earlier reported Nakamura will rejoin Yokohama, who are preparing an offer of more than $10 million to re-sign the Japan midfielder in January’s transfer window.” Yet when asked about it, Gordon Strachan denied any such deal and said that he was confident that Naka would finish out his remaining 6 months on his contract. Ten million dollars would be a good amount for an aging Naka though…