One of the longest running “Will he? Won’t he?” affairs in our recent history is about to end. I have listened to the arguments on both sides of this for such a long time now that in most ways it will be a relief to reach the finish line, no matter what that looks like.
Rocco Vata is not a Celtic regular.
But it’s true that there are a lot of people in our support who will feel a deep sense of regret and consider it a bad day if he does, in fact, sign a contract with another club and leave this club with only a development fee.
For others they will take that one fact, that he has yet to prove himself, and consider it a matter of very little consequence if the decision he takes is to go. I have to admit to being more in that camp than the first one. I have to confess to a certain indifference.
But not complete indifference.
I am receptive to the suggestion that Celtic might be losing a prospective talent.
I’m just not that sure what we could have done about it. As I’ve said before, although it obviously bears repeating, no club in our position would go out and needlessly spend millions on talents from elsewhere if the solution to a problem position was playing in our own youth academy.
We’d just promote him into the team. Why hasn’t that been done here?
Two managers have had a good look at Vata and neither believes that his talent, as it stands, justifies that. The offer we’ve put on the table will obviously reflect that belief. And if you’ve listened to his dad, Rudi Vata, he believes that his kid has a lot to learn.
But of course, that’s the trouble … cause Rocco Vata isn’t a kid now, he’s a grown up, he’s capable of looking at the lay of the land and making his own decisions and I think – reading between the lines of what his dad has said – that he made it a while ago and that people in his inner circle have tried, in vain, to change his mind and get him to commit to Celtic.
His dad knows that this is the surest way to first team football and the kind of future he thinks he can have.
I get the very strong impression that his son has made up his mind, and over the course of the next couple of days I think that’ll be confirmed.
I would love to be wrong, but I’ve been following this saga the whole way and I have never believed that Rocco Vata would stay at Celtic, and I’ve written that several times, always with regret. He’s another one of our promising young players who will leave before we knew what it was that we had.
That hurts. That’s never cool. But we’re sadly used to it now.
The thing is … when has this made us look stupid? How often has that happened?
You can count on the one hand the number of our academy players who have gone on to huge careers away from Celtic Park. The cautionary tale will always be Islam Feruz, but he’s not the only one, just the most spectacular crash.
What of those who left when we were offering them a path to the team and who thought the grass was greener somewhere else only to find it wasn’t? Is their decision made less terrible to behold because they still have modest football careers?
I like that he’s got confidence. A lot of players have confidence.
If the players who went before him didn’t have the confidence they never would have gone. On its own it means nothing, and he should be concerned that his dad evidently isn’t convinced that he’s ready for this step. Regardless, he seems ready to take it. I wish him luck, because he’ll need it.
If he leaves, Rocco Vata is betting on beating the odds. And those odds are huge. If his career takes off the moment he’s out the door a lot of people at Celtic will look pretty foolish, although most will be blameless as we tried to make him stay.
He’s a young guy.
If he ends up like almost all the others, wondering what might have been had he taken a different path, he’s going to have a long time to regret it.
The latest podcast is out now! You can listen to it below!
What podcast platform are you using to disseminate your podcast?
I can’t find it on apple podcasts
None yet. Setting something up soon for that mate. I’ll update as soon as.
I think the biggest issue in all of this is there being very little for players if a certain age, or level of development, to do. And this reflects heavily on the state of Scottish football. There should be some form of meaningful reserve/colt set up. I’m sure we’ve lost many prospects because it’s either the current colt team or the first team, outwith u18s etc. And I’ve long campaigned for our club to loan more players to other teams in our league so that fans can get some form of look at how they can play in the spfl at least, not to mention possibly helping other teams against sevco
Always disappointing to see young talent leave the club.
I do believe with Brendan Rodgers record of developing young players that he may have been better advised to stick around as I’m sure if he developed even further & is good enough he most definitely would have given him an opportunity. Maybe the boy is in a hurry and of course the financial benefits of a move down south are very attractive. However the grass is not always greener. All that aside the best of luck to the young lad and I hope he has great career.
I am convinced that he’s just not ready for the first team, or that he’s not got a good attitude. He must have some kind of talent as why else would Celtic offer him a new contract? Clearly though, it isn’t the immense talent that would leave his manager with no choice other than to pick him.
If he goes, he goes, all the best Rocco but Celtic will go on without him.
Finally see the back of Rocco Vata ìm sick reading about him going here there and everywhere if he was that good he’d be in the team already.If your good enough your old enough just like Karamoko Dembele ad infinitum not good enough bye
A succession of managers haven’t played him mate, probably tells you all you need to know, but I can’t understand why they’d offer him a new contract.
That TWO managers haven’t given him his breakthrough is fairly telling indeed…
He might be confident but the grass certainly isn’t always greener on the other side…
Not when you leave Celtic it general ain’t for sure –
Certainly not at Plymouth Argyle, or Hibernian anyway…
You’ll still be greener but Celtic FC they certainly ain’t !!!
Hi James,
First time replying but long time reader of your work. The reason Rocco waiting so long was because he wanted to stay. The offer just wasn’t there and the possibility of being loaned out to a 1st or 2nd division Scottish club would have done nothing for his progression on confidence. I wish him luck and hope we don’t regret this but fear this is 1 that got away
Rodgers will have the best idea of his potential with the fact he’ll of seen him twice over. He would have been the highly regarded youngster the first time Rodgers was here & he never got a sniff even against lower league teams in the cup games.
Ange gave him very few games which says as others above have mentioned he isn’t good enough or he doesn’t have the correct attitude.
I think Rodgers only giving him last resort appearances this previous season when we were short of players says a lot too. If he goes he goes if he stays he’ll very likely not feature prominently so I feel like getting him on a contract would be purely to get a transfer fee for him in a years time.