Today Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou had a very important decision to make this afternoon. Whatever he decided could have potentially had huge consequences for not only today, but for the 2nd January.
I went into more depth on this before the game here: Sleepless nights for Ange Postecoglou over Cup Final decision – Champions 67
In that article I said I couldn’t predict whether the manager would play Kyogo Furuhashi in the league cup final today for Celtic against Hibs, and honestly I didn’t know myself if he should or not. But I did say, whatever the manager decides, I back him 100%. And today showed he got the decision to play Kyogo from the start, absolutely spot on.
The wee man had a quiet first half, you could tell he wasn’t 100% as we didn’t see the usual chasing and harrying of the defenders that we normally see from him, you could tell he was trying to air on the side of caution, with the manager admitting after the game that he was determined to play to help the team today, even when he was ‘on one leg’.
And in the 2nd half he did just that, scoring the equaliser literally within 20 seconds of the kick off from Hibs taking the lead, his control of the ball from the high pass over the top from Callum McGregor was exquisite, and the finish deadly.
And Kyogo’s second goal of the game came from another high ball from Rogic, who was intelligent enough to take the quick free kick to the Japanese star, who lofted the ball beautifully over the Hibs keeper.
Postecoglou made the brave decision to play Kyogo from the start today and his two incredible goals won us the league cup. The manager can sleep soundly tonight knowing that he got such a massive decision bang on.
