Son Heung-min is a South Korean professional footballer who plays as a winger or striker for Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur. He joined Hamburger SV at the age of 16 and debuted in the German Bundesliga in 2010. In 2013, he moved to Bayer Leverkusen for a club record €10 million before signing for Tottenham for £22 million two years later. Son has represented South Korea at the 2014 and 2018 FIFA World Cups and is his country’s highest scorer in the World Cup jointly with Park Ji-sung and Ahn Jung-hwan with three goals. He is also the first Asian player to score more than 50 goals in the Premier League.
About Son Heung-min in brief
Son Heung-min is a South Korean professional footballer who plays as a winger or striker for Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur. Born in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, Son joined Hamburger SV at the age of 16 and debuted in the German Bundesliga in 2010. In 2013, he moved to Bayer Leverkusen for a club record €10 million before signing for Tottenham for £22 million two years later, becoming the most expensive Asian player in history. Son has represented South Korea at the 2014 and 2018 FIFA World Cups and is his country’s highest scorer in the World Cup jointly with Park Ji-sung and Ahn Jung-hwan with three goals. He also captains the South Korea national team. Son is often considered an icon in his home country and in Asia, and was nominated for the Ballon d’Or in 2019, the highest-ever rank so far by an Asian player. While at Tottenham, Son became the top Asian goalscorer in both Premier League and Champions League history, and surpassed Cha Bum-kun’s record for most goals scored by a Korean player in European competition. In 2019, he became the second Asian in history to reach and start a UEFA Champions League final after fellow countryman Park Ji,sung. Son was a ball boy in an FC Seoul home match in 2008 when he was a FC Seoul youth player. At that time, his role model was midfielder Lee Chung-yong, who played for Crystal Palace and Bolton Wanderers. His agent Thies Bliemeister said Son was so determined to make himself a success in Europe that he learned German by watching episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants.
Son’s father, Son Woong-jung is a retired football player turned manager who once played for the South Korean national football B team. In August 2008, Son dropped out of Dongbuk High School and joined Hamburg SV’s youth academy at age 16 through Korean FA Youth Project. He signed his first professional contract on his 18th birthday. Son signed a new deal with Hamburg through 2014. During the 2011–12 pre-season, Son was explosive, scoring 18 times in only nine matches. Over the course of the 2011, he made 30 appearances for Hamburg and five goals, including crucial goals against Hannover 96 and FC Nürnberg at the end of the season. The 2012–13 season was a breakthrough for Son as he scored two goals in an away fixture against Borussia Dortmund on February 9, 2013, helping his team to a 4–1 victory. In the offseason, manager Thorsten Fink chose to name Son a starter for Fulham against Corinthians, which saw the transfers of the team’s strikers Mladen Petrić and Paolo Guerrero move to Fulham and Corinthians respectively, respectively. Son scored three goals in 14 matches in all competition during the 2010–11 season. He is also the first Asian player to score more than 50 goals in the Premier League. He has also represented South Korean at the 2018 Asian Games, where the team won gold, as well as the2011, 2015 and 2019 editions of the AFC Asian Cup.
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This page is based on the article Son Heung-min published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 29, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
