Thursday marked the first day of games in this final international break of 2024, and with it, plenty of Spurs players were in action for their countries.
Heung Min-Son was back in action for the South Korea national team, as they faced Kuwait on the road in World Cup qualifying. The skipper had missed last month’s qualifiers with the injury that had kept him out of Spurs’ games against Manchester United, Ferencvaros, and Brighton & Hove Albion.
Just ten minutes into the game, and South Korea had the lead courtesy of Se-hun Oh. Only nine minutes later, their lead was doubled – with Son converting from the spot, finishing low to the goalkeepers right hand side.
Heung Min-Son scores landmark goal for his South Korea side
Those two early goals would be enough to give South Korea a comfortable 2-0 lead heading into half-time. However, on the hour mark, their hosts would pull one back thanks to a goal from Mohammad Daham.
Despite this goal giving the idea that it would ruin any chance of Son getting some rest, that exact thing happened just four minutes later, with the 32-year old being replaced by Jun-Ho Bae after 64 minutes of action.
Outside of his goal, it was a rusty performance from Son, who is still trying to get back to his best after a disrupted start to the season. The captain completed 0/6 dribbles, and won just 3/11 duels contested. Still, 64 minutes will have done him good, and it’s good that he could get a goal to go with it.
That goal made it a half century for the national team, with 50 goals in 130 appearances, a very impressive record, particularly with the bulk of those games coming from the wing.
The all time goal record for South Korea is 58, whilst the all time appearance record is 136 – two things that Son is beginning to close in on. There is a fair possibility that the Spurs and South Korea skipper, breaks, or at least equals, both records next year.
South Korea would go onto score again, and secure a win, which leaves them comfortably in first place, with 13 points from their five games so far.
Next up for Son and South Korea is another qualifier away to Palestine, for their final game of 2024. Palestine pulled off a shock 0-0 draw in the reverse fixture back in September. The game is on Tuesday, and will kick off at 14:00 GMT. A win for South Korea could guarantee a minimum of at least a play-off spot for the fourth round of World Cup qualifying.