Soccer

Jota admits his 18 months away felt like a decade after making Celtic return

Celtic have secured Jota on a five-and-a-half-year contract after he swapped places with Kyogo Furuhashi.

Jota is back at Celtic Park
Jota is back at Celtic Park (Andrew Milligan/PA)
By Gavin McCafferty, PA

Jota admitted his 18 months away from Celtic Park felt like a decade.

But the Portuguese winger felt like he had never been away after his first training session back.

Celtic have secured Jota on a five-and-a-half-year contract after he swapped places with Kyogo Furuhashi. The 25-year-old has completed his move from Rennes 18 months after leaving Celtic in a reported £25million move to Saudi Arabian side Al-Ittihad.

Former Benfica player Jota scored 28 goals across two seasons with Celtic.

Speaking at a media conference, Jota said: “I’m buzzing. It feels like home and for me that’s something that I was aiming for. Going to Lennoxtown and training, it just felt like nostalgic but it felt like I’ve never left.

“It’s obviously been a year and a half with some difficulties, mostly inside the pitch where I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to play and obviously physically it’s not my best moment but that will come quickly with minutes, game time, training and I just can’t wait for it.”

Jota found game time limited in Saudi Arabia, mainly because his club subsequently signed another foreign player after already filling their quota. He then struggled to make a major impact in France.

“It’s life isn’t it? It’s choices that you make and you have to live with them and you have to go through them,” he said.

“I’m someone that believes that we shouldn’t go outside or try to feel different things, you really need to go through it and I was no different from that.

“So I’ve learned a lot of stuff, I’ve known myself in different ways and I think that’s all positive because I’m much more mature. I have a different vision from what I want and what I want to achieve and I’m very aware of myself so that’s what I take from it.

“I kept in touch with a lot of guys from Celtic and even if sometimes it was on a joke, like ‘hey why don’t you come back’, there was always this feeling that there’s a very good place over there, somewhere that I felt really good, so why not come back one day?

“Obviously, and I’m being truthful, I didn’t know that it was going to be so fast but the last year and a half felt like 10 years so coming here it’s just like a great feeling of joy and happiness.”

That experience increased Jota’s appreciation of what he had at Celtic the first time round.

“It’s only when you leave that then you can look back and see I had that,” he said. “In the end it was just going through processes, difficulties and overcoming them and I’m proud of myself on that matter.”

Japanese striker Furuhashi departed for the French Ligue 1 side after hitting 85 goals for Celtic following his arrival in the summer of 2021.

The 30-year-old told his new club’s website: “After some great years with Celtic, I was looking for a new challenge in a recognised league. Physically and technically, the league is very competitive.”