The discipline of Heung-Min Son, the first Asian to become top scorer in the English league

"Europeans don't understand it," warns Heung-min Son (Chuncheon, South Korea, 29 years old) when asked about his formative period.

In the team of the undervalued he would be indisputable and would wear the golden boot that he was given last Sunday after scoring the last two goals of a 23-goal to close the Premier League in Norwich (the same figure as Salah, from Liverpool).

He put them in with his right, which in theory is his dominant leg.

With it he scored 11 goals, and with his left another 12. “Nobody, not even himself, knows if he is left-handed or right-handed,” point out several of his teammates at Tottenham.

And there you have to rewind to his childhood.

Indeed it is difficult, for the Western mentality, to understand the type of demand and discipline in which Son was forged, now the first Asian to be crowned top scorer in the Premier.

South Korea cultivates a sports culture that favors gestural repetition.

It happens in archery, a modality in which they tyrannize the Olympic medal table.

Western trainers who come to soak up the Korean school discover how many children spend months without shooting an arrow, barely shaping bodily processes and actions.

Heung-min Son began training at the age of five, but did not join any soccer team until he was 14. A few months later he was recruited by Hamburg and left for Germany, a destination where he had finished in the eighties. forge the pioneer Bum-kun Cha, the first Korean to play in Europe.

Son's goal against Norwich. AFP7 via Europa Press (Europa Press)

Woong-Jung Son was a striker with a certain track record at that time in Korea.

An injury withdrew him before he was thirty and he gave himself then to chiseling his two sons (the eldest did not make it past the lower German divisions) in an obsessive process varnished by hundreds of repetitions of technical gestures.

The training included the ability to dribble out of any profile thanks to the equal handling of both legs. And the shot.

Son's 23 goals in the last Premier tie in with that background.

He only needed 86 attempts to achieve them.

Mohamed Salah, with whom he tied for the top scorer ranking, specified 133. Another detail sets them apart: the Egyptian striker scored five penalties.

Son did not throw a single one because that facet in his team is assumed by Harry Kane.

His last goal came with a cross shot that he fired with his right foot, a luck that he rehearses from both profiles and that worked in hundreds of repetitions even when he had already joined Tottenham.

He did it after a disappointing first season.

The Spurs had already had their eye on him when he was in Hamburg, but they let him spend two seasons at Leverkusen before considering signing him.

They paid a premium for it.

In 2013 Son cost 9.5 million euros and two years later he went to London for almost 30 in a move that caused a certain stupor in England.

Ruud Van Nistelrooy, who had played with him in Hamburg after leaving Real Madrid, acted as guarantor.

“The first time I saw him train I knew he had something special.

Tottenham are not wrong”, explained the Dutch striker.

Heung-min Son was received with honors in Korea 🇰🇷 after winning the Golden Boot at the Premier.

The attacker scored 23 GOALS ⚽️ being #PL's top scorer with Salah.

(via @Reuters) pic.twitter.com/Y2GmfeduXw

– Total Football (@FT_Total) May 25, 2022

Son, who after confinement signed a contract that brings him 12 million euros a year, tiptoed in his first year in England and it was then, in 2016, when he received an offer from Wolfsburg that he was about to attend.

But Mauricio Pochettino had already wanted to sign him for Southampton and asked for patience and work.

Nothing Son couldn't offer.

That start of the season the player, whose father had moved to London to live with him, helped him refine his definition and, above all, the movements between lateral and central.

His explosion now reaps the fruits of the work in those areas of uncertainty for the defenders, also due to his ability to connect with Harry Kane, who increasingly goes further back to come into contact with the ball and now stands out as an assistant:

His father moves between London and Chuncheon, where he maintains an academy in which he applies a dictate towards his youngest son, which includes the advice not to marry and start a family while he dedicates himself professionally to football.

And indeed, Europeans do not understand it.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on

Exclusive content for subscribers

read without limits

subscribe

I'm already a subscriber