Former teammate compares Heung-min Son to Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Tottenham Hotspur star Heung-min Son has been praised by his former Hamburg teammate Mladen Petric, who described what it was like to see a young Son come through the German side’s academy.

Son joined Tottenham in the summer of 2015 and hasn’t looked back since, becoming one of the most important players at the club. With 134 goals for Spurs (Transfermarkt), the South Korean will go down as a club legend.

After a stuttering start to this campaign, Son bagged a hat-trick against Leicester City before the international break. He will be hoping to add to his tally of three goals for the season (Transfermarkt) and look to be in the Golden Boot conversation once more.

Son made his first steps in European football way back in 2008, when he joined German side Hamburg’s academy. He rose through the ranks there, making 78 appearances and scoring 20 goals (Transfermarkt) before moving to Bayer Leverkusen.

Speaking to The Athletic, Croatian forward Mladen Petric shared his opinion on Son when he was first emerging at Hamburg, just as his own career was coming to an end.

He said: “What impressed me also was even in his first season he was full of self-confidence. He had so much self-confidence it was almost like Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

“He didn’t act like that — absolutely not, always a very kind person with both feet on the ground.

“But when he was talking to the other players his age, his friends, he would tell them, ‘I will become one of the best players in the world’, and would say, ‘I’m better than this guy’ — even people who had had good careers.”

Spurs Web Opinion

It’s hard to imagine Heung-min Son being anything other than the humble man we see on television week in week out, but it’s rather endearing to hear how confident and driven he was even back in his early playing days.

We know Son is a player who feeds on confidence, so hopefully, he can put together a good run of goalscoring form and carry Spurs forward this season.

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