Spurs career on line as Son targets Games gold
Son Heung-min has lit up the World Cup and the Premier League but it is the Asian Games in Indonesia that could make or break the career of the prolific South Korean forward.
Anything less than gold and Son, 26, faces a compulsory stint of nearly two years’ military service – a blow to the player, his national team and his club, Tottenham Hotspur.
Son bade farewell to his Spurs teammates after Saturday’s season-opening win at Newcastle and flew some 12,000 kilometres to Jakarta for Asia’s regional Olympics, under a deal brokered with the club.
As Asia’s all-time Premier League top-scorer, he will undoubtedly be the biggest football star at the Asian Games. But more than national glory is at stake as nearly every able-bodied South Korean male – regardless of wealth or fame – is required to enrol by age 28 in the military, for a minimum of 21 months.
Son is banking on the defending champions earning him a rare reprieve only permitted for elite sportsmen such as Olympic or World Cup medallists.
At the Asian Games, only gold will do to avoid the call-up.
While South Korea enter the Asian Games as favourites, the tournament features fellow 2018 World Cup contestants Japan, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
But unlike those rivals, South Korea have used its three wildcards, players permitted aged over 23, to bring in the stars.
Son’s club side Tottenham have shown willingness to compromise, despite knowing the prolific forward could miss Premier League clashes against Fulham, Manchester United and Watford if his team reach the final.
Son, who signed a new, fiveyear deal with Spurs in July, has been released in return for missing South Korea’s first two games at January’s senior-level Asian Cup, along with an international friendly in November.
The Asian Games is not a Fifa tournament, so clubs are not obliged to make players available. Son missed the last edition, when South Korea beat North Korea in a tense final, after Bayer Leverkusen refused to release him.
But both club and player know Son is approaching his peak playing age, and the toll two years away from any football could take on his career.
In Son’s last appearance for the Taeguk Warriors, he scored in injury time as South Korea knocked defending champions Germany out of the World Cup in Russia.
If they fail at the Asian Games, Son will swap Tottenham’s state-of-the-art new White Hart Lane stadium for life in military barracks, where up to 30 soldiers sleep in each room.
On meagre pay of 310,000 won (a little more than Dh1,000) per month, soldiers are assigned to a range of duties, from riding tanks to standing patrol at the fortified border with North Korea – with whom the South remains technically at war.
South Korea kick off their tournament against Bahrain today, before further group matches against Malaysia and Kyrgyzstan. The final will take place on September 1.