Son Heung-min
Left Winger / Second Striker · Tottenham Hotspur · South Korea
About Son Heung-min
Son Heung-min is South Korea's captain and record goalscorer, the first Asian player to win the Premier League Golden Boot, and the man who lifted the 2025 Europa League as Tottenham Hotspur captain before an MLS-record move to Los Angeles FC. Fifth on Spurs' all-time scoring list with 173 goals, he is as admired for his warmth as for his finishing.
Son Heung-min's story
Chuncheon And A Father's Rules
Born in Chuncheon on 8 July 1992, Son was coached from childhood by his father Son Woong-jung, a forward for South Korea's B team whose own career ended through injury at 28. The regime was ball mastery first: three laps of keepie-uppies every session, left foot, right foot, both, and back to the start if the ball dropped. At ten, after a fight with his brother, the two boys were given four hours of keepie-uppies. Son never dropped the ball once. 'It was about focus.'
A Scared Teenager In Hamburg
A Korean FA project sent him to Germany at 16 in 2008. Trials at Blackburn and Portsmouth came first, and a homesick teenager with no English did not enjoy them. Three goals at the 2009 Under-17 World Cup earned a Hamburg contract. Zé Roberto remembered him staying behind to shoot against Ruud van Nistelrooy, with a bet on who scored more: the loser served the winner at the next meal.
Leverkusen And The £22m Record
He chose Bayer Leverkusen over Dortmund in 2013, 'I felt Dortmund would rotate me more', and scored 29 goals in 87 games. Tottenham paid £22m in August 2015, then a record fee for an Asian player. A slow first season had him close to leaving; instead he became Premier League Player of the Month in September 2016 and never looked back.
Kane, The Golden Boot And The Puskás
His run from his own half to score against Burnley on 7 December 2019 won the 2020 FIFA Puskás Award. In 2021-22 he shared the Premier League Golden Boot with Mohamed Salah on 23 goals, the first Asian player to win it. He played in the 2019 Champions League final and was named Best Footballer in Asia ten times between 2014 and 2025.
Captain, Then Bilbao
Named Tottenham captain on 12 August 2023 after Hugo Lloris, he lifted the Europa League in Bilbao on 21 May 2025, a 1-0 win over Manchester United and the club's first trophy in 17 years. He left that August after 454 games and 173 goals, fifth on the club's all-time list behind Kane, Greaves, Smith and Chivers, and seventh for appearances.
Los Angeles
LAFC signed him on 6 August 2025 for a reported $26.5m, an MLS record. He scored 12 goals in his first 13 games in the number 7 shirt. In 2026 he led MLS with 15 assists, equalling Carlos Vela's club single-season record, through a season in which head coach Marc dos Santos was sacked on 27 September and Xavi Tamarit took over as interim.
Korea's Record Scorer
Asian Games gold in 2018 earned him exemption from full military service, though he still completed three weeks of Marine basic training on Jeju in 2020. He has captained South Korea since September 2018, and in October 2026 became the country's record scorer, passing a mark Cha Bum-kun had held since 1986.
Giving Back
He gave around £100,000 to victims of the April 2019 Goseong wildfire and £65,000 to South Korea's Covid-19 relief in 2020. On 13 July 2022 the UN World Food Programme named him a Global Goodwill Ambassador at a ceremony in Seoul before Tottenham's pre-season friendly against a K League XI. In 2018 he opened the Son Football Academy in Chuncheon with his father and brother.
Did you know?
- 📸 The camera celebration is his own invention. 'If I score a goal, it's a good memory. It's like I take a picture so I have good memories in my mind.'
- 🧽 He learned German as a teenager at Hamburg partly by watching SpongeBob SquarePants dubbed into German.
- 👨👩👦 He is godfather to the children of former Spurs team-mate Ben Davies, and says family is where he takes his worries: 'You can always share the feelings; you can always go with the family.'
- 🎖️ In his 2020 Marine basic training he finished top of 157 recruits, hit 10 of 10 on the rifle range and received the 'Pilsung' (certain victory) award.
- 💯 His 100th Premier League goal, against Brighton on 8 April 2023, was his first since his grandfather died. He knelt and pointed to the sky instead of making the camera: 'I want to send that goal to him.'
- 🏅 In 2019 he was named Premier League Player of the Year at the London Football Awards.
- 🤝 He and Harry Kane combined for 47 Premier League goals, the most by any pair in the competition's history.
- 🏅 In June 2022 South Korea awarded him the Cheongnyong Medal, the highest class of the Order of Sport Merit.
- 😴 He keeps strictly to eight hours' sleep, the same bedtime and wake-up every day, and starts with a light workout 'breathing the dawn air'.
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