Kyogo Furuhashi: From early rejection to Andres Iniesta partnership & Celtic stardom

One phone call changed everything for Kyogo Furuhashi. Racked with self-doubt and frustration, he was contemplating giving up on his dreams of making it as a professional footballer.

Those hopes had been tarnished by a series of trials with J-League clubs which failed to yield a single offer for the young striker in his final year at Chuo University in Japan.

The notion he would be freewheeling alongside Andres Iniesta in a mere couple of years seemed absurd.

Disillusioned, Kyogo phoned home and said to his mother, "maybe I should call it a day".

The blunt response of "suit yourself" was enough to jolt him back from the brink.

"'I must be nuts', I thought," Kyogo told Fifa earlier this year as he recalled being at a career crossroads.

"My parents had paid for me to get this far, attend university and play all the football I wanted," he added. "It was the slap in the face I needed to redouble my efforts."

The rest, as they say, is history for the 28-year-old.

Kyogo is now celebrating a second successive league title with Celtic, where he is idolised and has reached 50 goals in just 77 appearances.

Here, BBC Scotland charts the making of a modern Celtic icon, who on Sunday was named the PFA Scotland men's player of the year.

When his perseverance was rewarded with a leap into the professional ranks in early 2017 at the age of 22, it was to the second-tier J2 League with FC Gifu.

The circuitous route to the top proved beneficial for a striker regarded as a late developer, giving him significantly more game time than he would have been afforded as a J-League rookie straight out of university.

He made 44 appearances in his debut campaign, scoring six times, before a shift from the flank to centre-forward the following season fast-tracked his progress. A burst of eight goals in eight games signified Kyogo as one of Japan's brightest prospects.

Vissel Kobe promptly took him to the J-League in summer 2018 and dropped him into a soap opera scenario. Having bought the club in 2014, billionaire business magnate Hiroshi Mikitani wasn't shy in spending, with ageing European stars Iniesta, David Villa, Lukas Podolski and Thomas Vermaelen all brought in.

A first major trophy was delivered with Emperor's Cup success in 2019, but the hefty outlay geared towards league glory didn't pay off.

"Mikitani was trying to buy a couple of stars and make an instant champion - it didn't work at all," says Dan Orlowitz, football writer with the Japan Times.

"You have to understand Vissel are the biggest punchline for J-League watchers. Mikitani has no patience - they went through something like 10 managers in four seasons from mid-2017."

Despite that managerial churn, Kyogo flourished as the attacking fulcrum in tandem with Barcelona and Spain icon Iniesta.

Kyogo's intelligent movement was the perfect foil for Iniesta, still a master passer in his 30s. Those years sharpened Kyogo's game and left a big impression.

"Even if Vissel were a joke as a club sometimes, for Furuhashi to play with Iniesta and Villa and Podolski, and to train with them every day, that's a masterclass," adds Orlowitz.

"Iniesta was a mentor. He really helped Kyogo develop. They had such a rhythm that when Kyogo left there was a disconnect between Iniesta and the rest of the formation."

Kyogo remembers it as a "blessed time" and made sure to listen and act upon every morsel of advice as he learned from a legend.

"It was precious, I'll never forget it," Kyogo told Fifa. "Every day it was just so much fun to go to training. It was so full of surprises and I could feel how much I was growing. I absorbed a lot.

"Before our season kicked off, Iniesta said to me, 'just be yourself and all will be well - play with confidence', and it really inspired me to let my confident side show on the pitch."

Ange Postecoglou, then at the helm of Yokohama Marinos, was among the admirers as Kyogo's talent rocketed, accumulating 49 goals and 18 assists in 111 appearances for Vissel.

When Postecoglou swapped Japan for Glasgow in June 2021, he was faced with a gargantuan Celtic rebuild. The first piece of the jigsaw - and arguably still the most important - was the £4.6m signing of Kyogo.

Celtic were still reeling from the chaos and calamity of the failed 10-in-a-row season. With Odsonne Edouard soon to depart, the club needed a striker to hang their hopes upon.

Enter Kyogo, who has come to embody the Postecoglou project with his exhaustive work-rate, dynamism, and quality.

The striker ended his debut campaign in Scotland with 20 goals in 33 games, despite missing three-and-a-half months with a hamstring injury.

This term he has kicked on again. In big games, Kyogo comes up with big goals.

He has a knack of scoring against Rangers - there was the last-gasp equaliser at Ibrox in January, the match-winning double in the League Cup final and another two in the 3-2 league win last month.

And it was apt that when Celtic were toiling against Hearts at Tynecastle on Sunday, it was their Japan star who again stepped up, netting his 30th of the season - and reaching a half-century of goals for the club - to secure their second title under Postecoglou.

Kyogo's stats set him apart.

He is the Premiership's leading scorer this season on 24 and has the highest shot conversion rate (29.6%) while averaging a goal every 90 minutes, also a league best. His expected goals (xG) is just 18.72, amplifying his ability to convert difficult chances.

The Japanese is the first Celtic player since Moussa Dembele in the treble-winning season of 2016-17 to reach 30 goals, and has even invited debate over whether he is the club's best striker since Swede Henrik Larsson.

"He's such a huge figure for Celtic," says former Scotland midfielder Michael Stewart.

"He's done it since the day he arrived with the energy he brings. He's been a massive signing for Celtic and will continue to be."

Yet while he is the darling of Celtic, Kyogo's recent international omission causes befuddlement on these shores.

There was a revealing moment in a documentary on Kyogo in his homeland. He sits cross-legged on the couch at his flat in Scotland watching Japan manager Hajime Moriyasu announce his squad on television for last winter's World Cup in Qatar.

A rueful look and slight shake of the head accompany the realisation he has been left out. At 28, his chance of a World Cup may never come again. The camera lingers on his expression. For fans accustomed to his beaming grin, it's a jarring sight.

Kyogo's reaction since has highlighted the strength of character behind the trademark smile as he powers Celtic to the brink of a treble. His manager and team-mates need no convincing of his talent, which comes with no airs and graces.

Midfielder Matt O'Riley describes the humble forward as "genuinely the nicest man I've ever met", while Postecoglou adds: "From the moment this guy arrived he's been outstanding.

"There's not much of him out there and he's up against big strong defenders who get very physical with him at times. But make no mistake, he's a winner."