Tottenham’s Son Heung-min receives 5th straight major individual honour
By Gary Pearson
Tottenham’s Son Heung-min has been named the Best Footballer in Asia 2021, claiming the illustrious individual honour for the fifth successive season.
Asia’s Ballon d’Or equivalent has been handed out to the best Asian footballer since 2013, its inaugural year. Sonny has won the award seven of nine times, cementing his place as Asia’s undisputed best, and placing him in the same rarified air as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Sure, the competition isn’t nearly as stiff, but Son nonetheless deserves lofty praise for his almost uninterrupted reign as king of Asia.
Son has won the award in six of the last seven seasons, his dominant reign atop Asia’s footballing world interrupted only once, in 2016, when Shinji Okazaki took home the prize after his role in Leicester’s miraculous Premier League title winning season.
Son’s talismanic role at Tottenham has grown in stature over they years. In the 2020-2021 season, he scored 22 goals and added 18 helpers in 51 appearances across all competitions. Sonny bagged 17 goals and set up 11 in 37 Premier League appearances.
With 31 first-place votes and a total of 242 points, Son was the clear winner in 2021 ahead of Iran’s Sardar Azmoun (111 points) and Mehdi Taremi (90 points) of Zenit and Porto respectively.
He leads the team in goals (8) midway through the current campaign and rarely endures an extended rough patch. Since joining Tottenham in 2015, Son has scored 78 goals and added 42 assists in 215 Premier League appearances.
He scores a goal every three matches and is gradually improving upon that return with each passing season. Not to mention the fact that Son is a consummate professional lionized by colleagues and supporters alike.
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If you need a distraction from work, click here to see all of Son’s goals in 2021.
Here are the top ranked footballers in Asia from the past year: