Son Heung-Min has been one of Tottenham best players this season, having already scored 20 goals in all competitions. The South Korean is currently one of the front runners for the club’s player of the season award.
Son’s goals have been instrumental in Tottenham’s Champions League campaign as his efforts have ensured that Spurs progressed past Borussia Dortmund and Manchester City in the round of 16 and quarter-final stages of the competition respectively.
Former Hamburg youth-team coach Markus von Ahlen, who worked with Son when he arrived in Germany aged just 16, has said that he is not surprised by Son’s rise having worked with him at a young age.
Discussing Son’s goals against Machester City, Von Ahlen talked about how the South Korean was always a natural finisher from his younger days.
Speaking to the BBC, he said: “The game at Manchester City – two shots, two goals. You don’t get many chances and you have to have the security to know if you have one chance you are going to make it.”
Talking about what the Tottenham forward was like in his younger days, Von Ahlen said, “He was very quick, he scored a lot and he was very open in working with the team and very interested to learn things.
“His father was there also, and every minute he was free his father trained with him additionally – small, easy technical things. He worked every day.”
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“We played 4-4-2 with two strikers in the centre and he played there, but at this age you saw it is possible for him to play on the wings. Now he is a very flexible player.
“What is special about him is the quickness and speed he has and then the character to want to make the goal, he absolutely wants to go to the goal and make the goal. You could see that at a young age.”
The Former Hamburg youth-team coach also revealed that the 26-year-old was always single-minded about his ambition to make it in the Premier League.
He added, “Every time I saw him in the morning he would laugh and he is very open. When I talked with him he thinks upwards. Every time, he doesn’t say ‘OK, I am happy to be in Hamburg’ – at a young age, it was his dream to go to the Premier League.
“That is for me the special thing with Son. He talked about the Premier League and so his dream becomes truth – it is a thing of first having the talent, making the work and having the support, also a little bit of luck with injuries, but he had this vision and knew what he had to do and now he gets his dream.”
Spurs Web Opinion
Son Heung-Min has improved every single season since moving to Tottenham back in the summer of 2015, and there is no reason to think that he has hit his ceiling.
The 26-year-old has become one of Tottenham’s most important players, possibly the most important one other than Harry Kane.
We believe that Tottenham’s chances of progressing into the Champions League final rests on the South Korean’s shoulders.
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