Yokohama , July 18, 2023: Brendan Rodgers said Tuesday that he had returned to coach Celtic “quicker than I had thought” and pledged to continue the attacking philosophy of predecessor Ange Postecoglou.
Rodgers has begun his second stint in charge of the Glasgow giants after replacing Postecoglou, who left for Tottenham after leading Celtic to the Scottish domestic treble last season.
Rodgers won all seven available trophies during his first stint at Parkhead in two-and-a-half years between 2016 and 2019, before leaving to join Leicester.
The Northern Irishman is back at the Hoops after being sacked by Leicester in April and he said it was “a great privelege” to return.
“I had hoped that one day again I would have the opportunity — it’s maybe come a little bit quicker than I had thought,” Rodgers said in Japan, where Celtic will play Yokohama F-Marinos on Wednesday in the first game of their pre-season tour.
“I’m very proud and privileged to be back here again and I’m very ambitious to have a successful period.”
Celtic have won 11 of the last 12 Scottish Premiership titles and 17 domestic trophies in the past seven seasons.
Postecoglou won five of those during his two years in charge but the lure of the Premier League proved too much to resist as he takes on the challenge of trying to revitalise Spurs after a disastrous 12 months.
Rodgers said he would look to “tweak” Celtic’s tactics but stressed that he and Postecoglou’s “principles are very much the same”.
“Defensively it’s very aggressive, it’s very synchronised, very coordinated, it’s full of emotion and aggression,” he said.
“Then when you have the ball, the challenge is to create goals and score goals.”
Postecoglou coached Yokohama in the J-League before joining Celtic and he brought several players from Japan to Parkhead.
Kyogo Furuhashi was named Scotland’s player of the year last season after scoring 27 goals, while Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda, Yuki Kobayashi and Tomoki Iwata are also on the club’s books.
Rodgers said his Japanese players were “doing a phenomenal job”.
“I think the humility, the hard work, the quality, also what has improved over the years and years is the tactical idea of the game,” he said.
“You can look around the world and Japanese players are really progressing so well.”