Son Heung-min's career in Tottenham ended in Seoul, but his 10-year journey with the club was completed in Bilbao. It was where he raised the Europa League trophy in May, the only moment that made everything else suddenly make sense.
All efforts, all loyalty, all goals, all the tears, all are proven by the magical night in northern Spain.
And it was in Bilbao that the incarnation of Son Thanh Tottenham and Tottenham into Son became complete.
No one understood this before the final better than their head coach at that time, Ange Postecoglou. And he used it as a lever. “I took him as a great focus on our Europa journey because I think he is a symbol for where people see the club,” postecoglou told The Athletic. “It is clear that he is an excellent player but lacks that important success.”
Postecoglou told the players that the victory over MU would change the awareness of both lipstick and Tottenham immediately. The players played and fought for Son, just like they did for Spurs. There is no difference between the two sides.
Rarely see such solidarity between players and clubs. But that's what lipstick has achieved for a decade in North London. It was a profound achievement, an unexpected love, more than anything just won on the pitch. His position in history, the memory of the club and the fan community permanently cannot be moved.
“Sonny is Tottenham,” an emotional James Maddison said before preparing to play with the captain and close friend for the last time. “And Tottenham is Sonny. It's strange to think about Tottenham Hotspur without lipstick.”
To start the story of Son and Tottenham, you have to go back not 10 years but 12 years. Returning to the 2012/13 season, when he was a 20 -year -old player in Hamburg, began to make an impression at the Bundesliga. It is very difficult for an Asian player to assert themselves in German football but people began to pay attention to a agile, assertive “squirrel”, who began to penetrate the defense.
Tottenham sent former coach David Pleat to see the Korean player playing, but he was not convinced at first. He thought that Hamburg looked so bad and lipstick, who was recovering from injury at that time, so lack of vitality. However, Spurs are curious enough to open a negotiation with Hamburg about a transfer. Remember, this is the time when they started thinking about life after Gareth Bale, who joined Real Madrid in the summer of 2013. Young and dynamic strikers are very interested by Spurs.
Although Tottenham is interested, another British club is the closest team to sign a contract with lipstick from Hamburg. Mauricio Pochettino has only been Southampton coach for a few months but knew that he needed more speed and goal in the attack for the next season. “Sonny represents exactly for the player that we like: Dynamic, very good in the conversion phase, can play in the middle, can play on both wings,” Paul Mitchell, then the recruiting head of Southampton, told The Athletic. “We want to play high -level pressing football, high speed when there is and no ball. He is very perfect.”
Therefore, it was Southampton itself, not Spurs in the summer of 2013, but Son decided that it was not the right time to try his luck in the Premier League. He stayed in Germany, moving to Bayer Leverkusen.
Of course, Pochettino left Southampton to Spurs in the summer of 2014. 6 months later, Mitchell followed him. Pochettino and Mitchell know that they have an interesting young squad at White Hart Lane, but need a bit more sharp. They remember Son, who was playing for a Leverkusen team with a style that fits Pochettino's Pressing style. “We never forget how he is suitable for the principles we want to build in our team,” Mitchell said.
The shining of a team in a team that puts many focus on running and pressing is important, but his tough physical strength is worth discussing. During two years in Leverkusen, he only was absent from 4 out of 94 matches, and all were international duty or suspended.
In February 2015, Tottenham sent a scout to Leverkusen to watch a match with Wolfsburg. In the first half, Kevin de Bruyne and Bas Dost ripped Leverkusen, building an advantage of 3-0. But the second half belongs to Son. He started by robbing the ball from Diego Benaglio and rolled into the net. For the second goal, he drove the water after a long pass, calmly controlled the ball, then shot the ball through Benaglio with his right foot. To complete the hat-trick, the lipstick cut from the right and throw a shot with the left foot through the cramped penalty area into the bottom corner.
Leverkusen lost 4-5 that day, Son's hat-trick was overshadowed by Dost scoring 4 goals. But Spurs saw enough. Reviewing the scout for the club is not only about those 3 goals, but also the invisible qualities of lipstick to be seen: how calm he is in front of the goal. The effectiveness of lipstick in an area one third at the end of the yard. The ability to use both legs, but especially his unique ability to surprise the opponent by launching unpredictable shots from both sides of the goal.
Tottenham at that time was also interested in West Brom's SAIDO BERAHINO striker, but later learned a problem between coach Roger Schmidt of Leverkusen and Son. “It gave us a little chance,” Mitchell recalled. “Because we have done all the background tests, all records, checking his suitability with style, we can sign a very fast, very fast contract.” So fast, in fact, some of Spurs staff crazy searching for their new player's name on Google on the day he signed a contract.
On August 28, 2015, Son joined Tottenham for £ 22 million. Mitchell is still proud of this deal: “That fee for such a quality player is probably one of the best investments that anyone of us ever made in our career.”
- This is an excerpt from the article “Son Heung-min: Immortal Asian aura”. Please read the full article here!
