Ange Postecoglou has highlighted just how proud Celtic are of Cameron Carter-Vickers after the USA international was selected in Gregg Berhalter's squad for the World Cup.
No shorter than four Celtic players have been called up for the month-long tournament in Qatar - namely Carter-Vickers, Aaron Mooy, Josip Juranovic and Daizen Maeda - whilst Reo Hatate and Kyogo can call themselves unfortunate not to have made the call up to the Japan squad after their shock omission last week.
It makes for interesting reading, and Hoops fans will be tuned into their televisions to see their favourite stars blossom on the international stage. Yet for Postecoglou, there is one equally important task at hand first - the visit of Ross County on Saturday. And the Australian has stated that whilst he is excited for his international stars, the club must finish strongly ahead of the break which commences after the weekend.
He said: “The whole club is proud of him, the way he has gone about it. We brought him in last year and he had had a couple of appearances for the national team but until that point he had played mainly Championship football. I think he saw this as an opportunity to take his football to another level.
“He has just been brilliant for us since the day he arrived. He has embraced everything within the club and his performances speak for themselves. He has now taken on leadership as well. It’s a credit to him, he is the one that has put in the hard work and I couldn’t be happier for him.
“I think he has found his place at this football club. During the off-season we had the option to take up the loan and there was never any doubt in our mind about doing that, but he was never in any doubt about where he wanted to be. He wanted to become a permanent member of this football club. Everyone is really proud of him and looking forward to his performances there.”
Elsewhere, the Australian boss was overjoyed with how his team have performed so far in the season domestically as they sit top of the Scottish Premiership by seven points. He continued: “Yeah, it’s obviously been strong under challenging conditions, and in terms of our fixture scheduling we’ve had 14 games - eight of those have been away from home, and we’ve only had six at Celt can the league.
“When you consider all of that and look at our results, they’ve been outstanding but our performances have been really strong too and that’s a credit to the players.
“We need to finish off our work, keep going, and what we do know is that if we do come through this period with such strong performances is that when we resume, whilst the schedule will still be fairly busy, it won’t be as challenging as what we’ve been through due to the Champions League.”
Watch the full press conference above.
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