“I'm not sure we will see a second Sonny in Tottenham,” said Kevin Wimmer, a close friend and his former teammate in Son Heung-min's Spurs, shared with the BBC Sport. “The attachment to a club – especially a big club like Spurs – in 10 years in this era is a very special achievement.”
After 454 appearances and 173 goals, Son moved to a new 10 -year stop after Mauricio Pochettino took him to North London from Bayer Leverkusen. “We love the players who have devoted a lot to this club,” Micky Hazard, who won the FA Cup (1982) and UEFA Cup (1984) with Spurs. “Sonny will always be worshiped in this place.”
On the pitch, Son will be remembered by Spurs fans with horrific speed and ecstatic moments like his great solo goal in 2019, when Tottenham's No. 7 is too fast compared to the Burnley defender.
But the stature of this guy is also portrayed through great qualities. For example, Son paid when he took the whole team to eat Korean barbecue during the previous trip to Tottenham to Korea in 2022 before giving personal gifts to the entire team to mark his visit to his homeland. “When Sonny just arrived, I didn't know much about him,” Hazard told the BBC Sport. “Ten years later, he left as a legend of Spurs.”
'Welcome to Seoul'
Son had difficulties in the early days in London and asked to leave, less than a year (in a 5 -year contract) before deciding to stay and fight for his position.
A decade later, Son left with the Europa League championship – as well as a series of personal awards, including the 2021/22 Premier League Golden Shoes, which he shared with Liverpool's Mohamed Salah after both scoring 23 goals, and the FIFA Puskas award for super products against Burnley in 2019.
There are also great disappointments, such as defeat against Liverpool in the 2019 Champions League final, and lost to Man City in the 2021 League Cup final. In 2019, Son apologized for the ball with Andrre Gomes, causing Everton midfielder to suffer horrible ankle injury.
However, individual awards continue to come. The 4 Best Premier League players, 2 times won the goal of the month, 3 times the best player of the year of Tottenham …
As a player who always plays hard on the pitch, but Spurs fans love the image of lipstick 'good boy' on the pitch. After Tottenham defeated West Ham at the League Cup in 2021, a young fan sought to enter the pitch and ran towards Son before being surrounded by security guards. The boy was led away when Son caught up, took off his shirt, and gave it to the boy.
A few minutes before the Tottenham squad landed in the Korean capital Seoul of Korea to travel 3 years ago, hundreds of fans gathered at Incheon Airport started screaming when Son suddenly appeared to welcome his teammates to visit his homeland. Son, who went to Korea first to take a vacation, raised a sign of 'welcome to Seoul' with the Spurs logo on it and waved to the teammates.
“I was really at Incheon airport that day,” said Sungmo Lee, Korean journalist, telling the BBC Sport. “When Son appears, the reaction is similar to the way fans welcome Oasis and Coldplay when they step on stage.”
'The lipstick fever – like going with a rock star'
Son is a big news in Korea. Actually, that is not entirely true. Son is a huge news.
“There has been a study of people with the best brand value among all Koreans, and Son is almost always in the top 3 with leading K-pop stars like BTS and Blackpink,” Sungmo Lee added. “One of the reasons for that is that the Korean people consider him a national treasure and the pride of the country.”
In Korea, there are regular television programs that simply summarize the best goals and assists of Son. Not stopping there, there is a symbol of the lipstick individual appearing above the score table to show that he is playing in Tottenham's live broadcasting programs in the country.
The radiant lipstick face from the huge billboards of all kinds of products, and the image of Son also appears on the buses of the capital to promote tourism. In Son's hometown Chuncheon, about 70km from Seoul and where a football academy was founded by his family, there was a huge mural to honor the “national treasure”.
Defender Kyle Walker, who played for Tottenham from 2009-2017, recalled a promotional visit to Seoul and Son shortly after Spurs came in second in the Premier League at the end of the 2016/17 season. “I have never seen anything like that,” Walker, who spent 8 years in North London before joining Man City in 2017, said on the Podcast 'You'll Never Beat Kyle Walker'. “We will appear and then we have to use bait vehicles to escape because fans surround the four sides. They all want to see Sonny. They will return to the hotel where we stay and sit out all night. It is unbelievable. I have seen it at a certain extent with Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard and David Beckham. But it is nothing compared to Sonny.”
Wimmer, who has kept contact with Son since leaving Spurs in 2017, has likened that popularity as “a rock star”. “I was always joking with him about this,” Wimmer said. “I said: 'You are the most famous in Korea', but Sonny just smiled: 'No, no, it's not very special'”.
The Austrian defender came to Tottenham from Cologne in the summer of 2015, 3 months ago Son. “I know about him because, like me, he used to play in the Bundesliga,” Wimmer added. The two became friends immediately in London.
In the early days in Tottenham, they often speak German to each other while trying to improve English. After a victory at Southampton in 2016, Son and Wimmer interviewed each other – in English – for Spurs TV. “Kev, why are you my best friend?”, Son asked. Wimmer replied, “Because you are a wonderful guy, a honest guy. Always happy with friends and I hope we will be together for more years.”
Within a year, Wimmer was sold to Stoke for £ 18 million. Son stays to become a legend of Spurs.
'Now I'm a legend'
Within two years, Spurs lost Harry Kane and now lipstick. After the departure of Kane to Bayern Munich in August 2023, Son rose by scoring 17 goals and 10 assists in 35 appearances in the Premier League when Spurs ended in the fifth position in the 2023/24 season.
However, lipstick only scored 7 goals and had 9 assists in 30 appearances in the Premier League 2024/25. He also suffered a injury at the end of the season and was just a reserve player in the Europa League final.
4 days after defeating MU in a European final, the great names from the past of Tottenham created an honorary fence for the team of Ange Postecoglou before the home match against Brighton on the last day of the season.
Ossie Ardiles, Pat Jennings, Keith Burkinshaw and Martin Chivers are among those who queue on the field – along with Hazard. “Sonny has come to each of us, shaking us hands, and saying: 'Now I am a legend,'” Hazard recalled.
“Despite everything he achieved for 10 years in Spurs, he still doesn't believe he is a legend until he won a title. I think this quality is really special, something beautiful. It says a lot about his personality.”
Wimmer, who is currently playing for Slovan Bratislava in Slovakia, texted his friend right after the final in Bilbao to congratulate him for helping Spurs have won the first major European title since 1984. “I am very happy that Sonny was finally able to get a title.”
- This is an excerpt from the article “Son Heung-min: Immortal Asian aura”. Please read the full article here!
