It’s one of the downsides of Celtic players being great at what they do. Those with real potential will always be eyed up by clubs from the top five European leagues, and rarely are they unable to attract the youngsters away from Glasgow. And as another of the club’s youngster makes a name for himself well beyond Parkhead, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for him.
The son of former Celtic player, Rudi Vata, 17-year-old Rocco Vata is showing real potential at the youth and developmental levels for both club and country. He was with the first-team squad in Austria for preseason and scored against Wiener Viktoria.
Vata has been shining for Celtic B this season and drew even more attention when he netted in an impressive performance away against RB Leipzig’s youth side earlier this month and then scored this week when playing away against a Fulham under-21 side in the Premier League International Cup.
He has also represented Ireland at several youth levels breaking into the U19 team in September. Unfortunately for Celtic, his performances seem to have caught the eye of some of Europe’s biggest clubs.
Europe’s big clubs are watching Celtic youngster
As reported by TuttoMercatoWeb, AC Milan and Juventus have followed Vata very closely, as have AS Roma, Arsenal and Manchester City.
That’s quite some list of clubs to have watching your performances. The type that could easily turn the head of a young player. But Vata’s strong connection with Celtic, with his father having represented the club during his career, might end up helping the Hoops keep hold of him.
We saw Ange Postecoglou give a couple of chances to Ben Doak in the first-team, most possibly in an attempt to convince him that there was a path to senior football for him at Celtic. Could he do the same with Vata as well? Time shall tell.