Celtic star Jota will gladly learn some Japanese to remove the only barrier to his burgeoning relationship with Kyogo Furuhashi.
The 22-year-old Portuguese attacker, on loan from Benfica, and the Japan international have been key recruitments to Ange Postecoglou’s new-look Hoops side and again they combined to great effect again against Ferencvaros on Tuesday.
A defence-splitting pass from Jota in the second half at Parkhead allowed striker Furuhashi to brilliantly break the deadlock against the Hungarians.
Celtic went on to win 2-0 to breathe life back into their Europa League campaign with their first three points after two defeats.
Asked about the partnership with Furuhashi, Jota said: “Well unfortunately Kyogo doesn’t speak English so it’s been quite difficult.
“Actually it’s funny because I said to Kyogo if he didn’t learn English then it’s no worries because I will try to learn some Japanese so we can talk.
“I will definitely go to learn some Japanese to speak with him but I think the most important thing is on the pitch we are starting to get to know each other.
“I’m starting to get to know Kyogo and his movements are unbelievable.
“Game after game we are going to get better. He really can move, he’s one of the best players I’ve seen with his movement.
“I saw his move and I wanted to play the pass and it was good because he scored.
“We had been looking for something like this. We had two games with negative results and we wanted to do something good.
“I think we did very well and now we are looking to the next games.”
It was Celtic’s third successive win for the first time since August and Jota insists Postecoglou’s hard work in reshaping the side is “definitely” paying off.
He said: “Big things and big achievements need some constructions.
“There are rough times, there are good times but we just need to believe. That’s the most important thing.
“We are all starting to believe in the ideas and to try and get through the difficulties and yes I think the future will tell us what we have been preparing and hopefully some good things are going to happen.”
After such a convincing win, Jota believes Celtic can complete the double over Ferencvaros in Hungary next month.
He said: “For sure. All the games are different though and we will try to learn as much as possible from this game and try to fix what we didn’t do so good.
“I think it will be a good game in Budapest but now we are focusing on our games in Scotland first so we have time to think about that match.”
