THE GREATEST ASIAN player of all time. Whenever such GOAT conversations arise, there is bound to be debate and disagreement.
It’s purely subjective and differs depending on an individual’s primary criteria: be it team success or individual accolades.
Even so, Son Heung-min does indeed have an excellent case in being labelled Asian football’s greatest player of all time.
At the very least, he is one of the leading candidates.
And his legend, both in Asia as well as among the Tottenham Hotspur faithful, is now headed to America.
Following an emotional Spurs farewell, the next chapter of Son’s career was confirmed on Wednesday when he completed a move to LAFC for what sources told ESPN was an MLS-record transfer fee of $26 million.
Even by global standards, the South Korea captain is a bona fide A-lister.
For the past decade, he has starred for one of England’s, and Europe’s, most prominent clubs — even if it took him until this past spring to finally land a first piece of club silverware in the form of the Europa League.
If the Premier League is to be acknowledged as the most competitive domestic competition in the world, then Son’s Golden Boot-winning 2021-22 season (which he shared with Mohamed Salah on 23 goals) surely saw him attain world-class status.
Only in his first and final seasons with Spurs did he not hit double digits in league goals and, it has to be remembered, that many of those campaigns saw him play out wide and not as the focal point in attack, which he only became following the departure of Harry Kane to Bayern Munich.
Yet, if consistency is one of his strongest attributes, his penchant for the spectacular is perhaps what has made him an icon in the eyes of his many supporters.
Goal-of-the-season awards litter Son’s trophy cabinet. Plenty of long-range screamers and solo efforts that would leave fans still marveling till this day when watching a replay.
One, however, was good enough to even win the FIFA Puskás Award as the best goal across the globe in 2020 — a stunning 70-yard charge starting from just outside his own penalty area that saw him leave the entire Burnley team in his wake before he calmly finished past the goalkeeper.
Such iconic moments are what LAFC, and MLS, hope Son will bring with him stateside.
SON’S TALENT IS indisputable.
But perhaps what really elevated him to the player he has become is what goes on behind the scenes that few are privy to.
He has recounted how his father, a former player himself, made him juggle the ball for four hours straight in his youth. While probably not the most orthodox of training methods, it certainly honed Son’s now-renowned technique and ball control, and also instilled in him a certain level of commitment to his craft.
Tolgay Arslan, a close friend who came through the ranks with Son at Hamburg, has no doubt in his mind that the South Korea captain would not have gotten this far based on natural ability alone.
“You could see ‘Sonny’ had a really special gift. He was very talented [but] you can see many talented players in Europe,” Arslan told ESPN in an interview last October.
“His father did a lot for him. The hard work, even with his dad, brought him — in my opinion — to another level. That’s why, maybe, he’s the best Asian player who’s ever played football.
“It’s talent but also hard, hard work.”
The belief that Son had what it took to succeed professionally would have been a key factor behind his parents allowing him to drop out of high school in Seoul to join Hamburg’s academy at the age of 16.
By the time he was 18, Son had impressed enough to earn his professional debut.
Comparisons were immediately drawn to compatriot Cha Bum-kun, a trailblazer who won two UEFA Cups (as the Europa League was previously known) in the 1980s with fellow German clubs Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayer Leverkusen.
Son would eventually follow Cha’s footsteps in joining Leverkusen in 2013. Two years later, Tottenham would come a calling and the rest, as they often say, is history.
THE PREMIER LEAGUE isn’t always kind to new foreign signings. It can be harsh and unforgiving.
Three summers before Son’s move to north London, another prodigiously talented Asian prospect had also impressed enough in the Bundesliga to earn a big move to the Premier League.
Shinji Kagawa’s transfer to Manchester United, fresh from him playing a pivotal role in Borussia Dortmund’s back-to-back Bundesliga titles under Jürgen Klopp, arguably came with greater hype. While he did win the Premier League in his first year, which coincided with Sir Alex Ferguson’s final season at the helm, he was never able to fully establish himself and was gone even before Son’s arrival.
Many, such as Dong Fangzhuo and Junichi Inamoto, were deemed pure marketing moves. Others toiled away admirably but at less-illustrious clubs like Shinji Okazaki, who admittedly did win the Premier League in that fairy tale season with Leicester City.
Hidetoshi Nakata, the one player that came before Son who probably had a similar global profile as an Asian player, only moved to Bolton Wanderers at a time when his powers — and interest in the professional game — were waning.
Son endured similar hurdles in adapting to the Premier League. He netted just four times in his debut campaign.
With the determination and commitment to the craft that now embodies what he brings to the pitch, he persevered.
His second season would see him net 14 goals in the league and 21 in all competition. He’s never looked back since.
SO WHO TRULY is the greatest Asian footballer of all time? Is he the one that has just moved to MLS?
Purely from a team success viewpoint, Park Ji-sung would be a popular alternative answer — and he is one that Son has referred to in the past as a role model.
Park’s trophy-laden spell with United saw him claim four Premier League titles, three League Cups and a UEFA Champions League crown. It might even have been two continental titles given Ferguson’s suspicion that the 2011 final against Barcelona was lost because he did not switch his South Korean nullifier to play on Lionel Messi at halftime — when the tie was still evenly poised at 1-1.
Nakata did not enjoy much longevity in his career but, at his peak, he boasted irrefutable quality. With six rounds to play in the 2000-01 Serie A season, his superb cameo — where he came off the bench and played a hand in both goals as Roma came from behind to draw 2-2 with Juventus — effectively secured the Scudetto for the capital club, as it meant they passed their final real test in the run home with a six-point advantage still in their grasp.
Although less familiar to many, Iran’s Ali Daei also has a case. The one-time Bayern striker’s tally of 108 international goals was a men’s record until it was eclipsed by Cristiano Ronaldo in 2021.
There are also the pioneers like Cha, whose 308 appearances in the Bundesliga was a record as an Asian import that would stand for 30 years.
None of them, however, can lay claim to being among the world’s best players at a given point in time. Son possibly could.
Yet, perhaps the debate surrounding the greatest Asian footballer of all time is not one that needs to be answered in this conversation.
Among some very esteemed peers, it can simply be agreed that Son is a legend in his own right.
And that is the shining legacy he will be bringing with him to LAFC, and MLS.
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