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Brendan Rodgers is excited to advance Celtic's pre-season preparations in Japan after a "fantastic week" in Portugal ended with a 4-1 friendly victory over Portimonense on Saturday.
The newly-hired Hoops manager has relished overseeing his team's training camp in the Algarve over the past week.
Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers is looking forward to his team's Japanese tour, which includes matches against Yokohama F.Marinos and Gamba Osaka. The tour will help them prepare for their Premiership title defense, which begins on August 5.
“It is a tough schedule over the two weeks, here in the heat (in Portugal) and it will be similar heat in Japan, with the humidity,” Rodgers told Celtic’s website on Saturday.
“Obviously the teams we’re playing out there are already halfway through their season, so it will be a step-up again in challenge for us, but that’s what we want.
“We need that challenge at this time of the season to improve our fitness level. We’ll get back today (Saturday), recover tonight and then we’re away tomorrow, and I’m really looking forward to Japan.”
Rodgers was happy with Celtic's performance as Reo Hatate, Liel Abada, Ben Summers, and Oh Hyeon-gyu scored in a behind-closed-doors victory over Portuguese top-flight team Portimonense.
“We’ve had a fantastic week, so to finish off with a decent performance and a good result for the guys, even though that is not the most important thing at this stage, I was really pleased,”
“Obviously the heat’s been sweltering here but in terms of the intensity and some of the football was very good. There’s still a long way to go but I’m really pleased.
“You can see with some of the goals we scored, our pressing high up the pitch and looking to win it, and then we took our chances. It was a really good run-out.
“For some of the guys, the international guys, it was their first bit of game-time but overall it’s been a really good week.
“It’s been a tough week for the players and the staff, because there’s been no real time in the schedule for much, but they’ve worked really well in this first part of the tour which was really pleasing.”