Ange Postecoglou has expressed his delight that Aaron Mooy has been called up for the World Cup and his belief the player is 'as ready as he will ever be' to play a part for the Socceroos.
Mooy joined Postecoglou's Celtic team at the start of the season after leaving Shanghai Port for fear China's response to the COVID-19 pandemic would affect his World Cup prospects.
The move paid off as Mooy was named in the Australia squad for Qatar on Tuesday.
In contrast Tom Rogic, who left Parkhead in the summer but has struggled for playing time even after belatedly joining West Bromwich Albion, was left out.
"I'm delighted for Aaron," said Postecoglou, who coached Australia at the 2014 World Cup.
"I'm sure, particularly with his recent form and playing Champions League football, he is as ready as he will ever be for World Cup football, which is going to be challenging in his own right.
"It's fantastic for him. Aaron came in very late, missed all of our pre-season, and hadn't really trained with a team for a long time.
"I think he is in a good space, physically he feels comfortable now and his football has improved because of that.
"The World Cup exciting for any player, to play against the best in the world, and hopefully he comes back feeling good about things.
Celtic also have Japan forward Daizen Maeda going to the finals while Cameron Carter-Vickers (USA) and Josip Juranovic (Croatia) hope to join them.
"All our representatives, they obviously represent their club and themselves but us as a club and it will be great to see them all on the world stage," added Postecoglou.
However, the Australia said he had no plans to omit the Qatar-bound players from Celtic remaining matches before the tournament - against Motherwell on Wednesday and Ross County at the weekend.
"Our main focus is still us and trying to maintain a level of performance while making sure we don't over-burden any players," he said.
"I will pick a team that I think will get the job done for us and gives us the best chance of success and it will be the same on the weekend.
"You obviously hope the guys who are going away come through unscathed but it's one of these things in football, you could try and protect players from anything happening but it could happen in the first training session for their country.
"It's better that we just go about our business as normal as possible. The aim for the players themselves, they would much rather go out and play football and feel good about themselves than go a couple of weeks without playing."
