When Tottenham clashed with West Ham in the Premier League on February 19, pre-match commentary focused on only one name: Son Heung-min. A few days before the London derby, Tottenham made the controversial decision to substitute Son – who was co-owner of last year’s Golden Boot award. That is only the second time, the Korean striker has not started in an English Premier League match since 2020.
On the day of the match, Son warmed up with his teammates and the camera lens continuously focused on the 30-year-old striker. Spurs’ calculations changed as the game progressed. They found the opening goal at the beginning of the second half, but needed another goal to finish the opponent. Son entered the field in the 68th minute and he only needed 4 minutes to make the difference. Son escaped from the West Ham defense, picked up a smart pass from Harry Kane, and then coldly put the ball in the net. More than 60,000 fans at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium stood up after this important goal of Son. Spurs have squeezed into the Top 4 of the Premier League, qualifying for next season’s Champions League.
It was one of the many winning moments that Son brought to Tottenham during his seven years with the club. At that time, the 30-year-old striker became the greatest Asian male player in football. His face is present on billboards and advertising videos of the Premier League – the most attractive and harsh tournament on the planet. Son’s rapid rise also marks the strong upward momentum of Asian football, with many teams having made a big splash at last year’s World Cup finals in Qatar. The fact that Son won the Premier League top scorer award last season is clearly unique, because so far, no other Asian player has done it, even dared to dream. Remember, the Premier League is the “big brother” of European football, ranking above La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1. Son also received the Asian Best Player award organized by China’s Titan Sports Media Group. , voted by journalists in more than 40 Asian countries.
“I’m not sure if we’ll see another Asian player like Son in the next 100 years,” said Shin Moon-sun, sports commentator and professor of sports data at the University. Korea’s Myongji, exclaims. The ability to control the ball while sprinting as well as the ability to shoot well with both feet is the key to helping Son stand out in the Premier League. This season, Son has fallen somewhat with a significant decrease in the number of goals. That’s why he was benched by coach Antonio Conte more often. However, when he fell into a difficult situation, this striker actually became stronger. Remember last September, Son only came on from the bench against Leicester, but scored a hat-trick to help Tottenham beat the opponent 6-2. “Having a player like Son on the bench means that in a moment I can change the game,” Conte said at the time.
In fact, Son was used to struggling. He left his native Korea at the age of 16, moving to Hamburg, Germany. As one of the very few Asian players in Europe, Son had to overcome the prejudice and conservative attitude of European clubs that Asian players were just average. “There are big, huge challenges, but I’ve never been afraid of these challenges. When I was a kid, I always wanted to follow my dream. Pursuing this dream never made me happy. I’m scared,” Son shared about his experience in an interview with Nikkei Asia. Son’s rise seems to herald the rise of Asian football around the world, highlighted by the performances of Japan and South Korea at the 2022 World Cup. To be fair, however, there is still one There is a relatively large gap between Asian and European football, despite Son admitting that Asian clubs have many good players that not everyone pays attention to.
Son himself is such a player. His father and brother are both professional footballers. Son started playing football when he was in 3rd grade, under the tutelage of his father, Mr. Son Woong-jung, a talented player but had to retire early at the age of 28 due to injury. “He is my idol, my role model. He is a great friend, a football teacher. The important thing is that my father is very strong, strong on the pitch. Off the field, he is a great father. Thanks to him, I am where I am today”, Son confided. Mr. Woong-jung coached his son Son until the age of 14, when the striker took his middle school team in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, to the final of the junior high soccer tournament. Although Son’s team lost the match, this individual striker took the top scorer award with 5 goals, thereby attracting the attention of scouts in professional tournaments.
Later, Son transferred to Dongbuk High School, an elite sports school in Seoul with many top soccer players. At the age of 16, Son was targeted by the Hamburg youth team. He grew up here before having 2 years devoted to Bayer Leverkusen – a famous team in the Bundesliga. Son scored 29 goals in 87 appearances for Leverkusen, helping the club win tickets to the Champions League, the continent’s most prestigious club competition. However, Son was not satisfied. In his autobiography, “Thinking about Football,” Son wrote about the tensions that befell then Leverkusen head coach Roger Schmidt, who frequently withdrew him from games without a match. satisfactory explanation. Son finds this humiliating. “I was stressed by repeated withdrawals during the second half of the 2014/15 season,” Son wrote in the book, published in Korean in 2020.
Son’s fortunes began to change since Daniel Levy – chairman of Tottenham – appeared at Leverkusen. However, the situation did not always go smoothly when the Bundesliga side refused to let Son leave. When negotiations were likely to fall apart, Woong-jung said he loudly asked the general manager of Leverkusen to resume negotiations. “The head coach of Leverkusen doesn’t trust Heung-min. I have no reason to let my son stay at the club with a coach who doesn’t trust him,” Woong-jung said. Finally, Son also left Leverkusen to join Tottenham, signing a five-year contract with the club in August 2015, bringing him to the top of the Premier League. His explosive pace and precise finishing skills set him apart at Tottenham. Not only that, but Son also combined well with Kane, and the English striker formed a scary pair of Spurs. So far, Son has pocketed 99 goals in the Premier League, ranked 34th in the list of the best scorers in the tournament.
Success abroad made Son think about developing football at home. In 2018, he founded a football academy in his hometown of Chuncheon at a cost of 14 million USD, most of which he contributed with his own hands. So far, two graduates of Son’s football academy, Choi In-woo, 20, and Ryu Dong-wan, 21, have been recruited by German clubs. And although he has not collected any titles with Tottenham, Son’s influence has surpassed Hidetoshi Nakata or Park Ji-sung in any year, both professionally and commercially. According to Mike Wragg, managing director of Nielsen Sports’ Asia-Pacific, Son’s success is “an important part of making Tottenham a more sellable sponsorship property, while also attracting a large fan base, It’s not just the fact that Son is an Asian player.”
However, no one knows what will happen to Tottenham’s commercial appeal in South Korea and the rest of Asia, when Son leaves the club in 2025 due to the expiration of his contract or possibly earlier. Unlike older generations, today’s young fans tend to follow the player instead of the team. Obviously, Tottenham need to plan for what could happen if Son leaves one day. Chadwick, a professor of sport and geopolitics in France, said: “There is growing evidence that fans primarily interact with players, especially as the fans are now Gen Z and Gen. Alpha. I think it will be inevitable if a part of the fans leave Tottenham when Son leaves.” Similar to music idols, Son has been sweeping world football with the unprecedented influence of an Asian player.
