Over the summer, before Tottenham Hotspur began its preseason tour through his native South Korea, star forward Son Heung-min briefly looked for a small welcome present to give to each of his teammates upon their arrival. But then, instead, he decided to go all out. For four straight days he feted them with designer sunglasses, custom T-shirts and other swag donated by his lineup of global sponsors, in addition to personally purchased items like ornately decorated sets of chopsticks and spoons.
“The expectations and pressure only got higher,” Son says. “I didn’t give anything after the fourth day, so the players were coming to me, asking, ‘Any more gifts?’”
Son, who turned 30 just before the tour kicked off, didn’t mind the razzing. Fourteen years ago, when he first left home in the city of Chuncheon to join Hamburg’s youth academy in Germany, Son felt like a total outsider in his new home.
“I think nobody in Europe really knew about South Korea,” he says. “People [were] not really interested.”
Showing fellow Spurs players around Seoul and elsewhere this summer, however, he was pleasantly surprised by their eagerness to consume his culture—and not just in the literal sense when he treated the whole roster to Korean barbecue.
“They are always asking so many questions,” he says. “This makes me really proud.”
Clearly the country’s screaming legions of Son lovers, hundreds of whom assembled near baggage claim at Incheon Airport in anticipation of Tottenham’s arrival, feel the same about their national team captain for the 2022 World Cup. According to one projection, more than 12 million people in South Korea, out of a total population of roughly 51 million, count themselves as Spurs supporters. And that is without mentioning the expats who trek to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium during the Premier League calendar.
“The lads,” Son says, as in his teammates, “even when we play home games, they see all the Korean flags, they joke, ‘Was it you buying all the tickets for the Korean fans?’”
Between his impeccable timing, effortless dribbling and breathtaking two-footed finishing—the ultrarare combination of which last season helped him make history as the first Asian winner of the Premier League Golden Boot, netting 23 goals to share the award with Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah—Son is more than worth the price of admission based on skill set alone. (Not for nothing, tickets to Tottenham’s exhibition match against players from the local K League were reportedly being scalped for as much as $3,000.) To watch him is to delight in the expectation that his brilliance might burst forth at any moment, such as the hat trick he hung on Leicester City in just 13 minutes earlier this season, and the staggering solo effort that later earned 2020 Premier League goal of the year honors in which he outraced Burnley’s whole team from penalty box to penalty box as though powered up by a Mario star.
Beyond all that, the man nicknamed Sonny has become one of soccer’s hottest draws because of his contagiously cloudless disposition. This attitude is best seen in his signature goal celebration of shaping of his thumbs and forefingers into a camera frame, squinting one eye and snapping a mental picture of another moment to be savored. But there are plenty of other examples: In summer 2021, Tottenham’s official Facebook account posted a 34-second video titled, “The best of Heung-Min Son laughing.” It now has nearly 750,000 views.
Speaking over Zoom from the London area in early September, fresh off a pre–World Cup shoot with one of his sponsors, Son summarizes the importance of happiness in his game like this: “I want to win with joy. This is really important for me. If I’m really stressed, I don’t feel great, then I’m not playing really well. I need to enjoy this moment.”
Asked where he believes this urge comes from in the first place, Son goes back to the beginning.
“I need to laugh, I need to be happy, because without love you don’t get anything,” he says. “I start[ed] to play football because I had love. I had a dream. That’s why I’m standing here today.”
