Seoul: South Korean superstar Son Heung-min has been named the top Asian footballer performing outside the continent for a record fourth time. Son was announced as the winner of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian International Player of the Year honor during the AFC Annual Awards ceremony at Kyung Hee University in Seoul.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the award recognizes Asian players’ performances outside the continent from the latter part of 2023 and the first half of 2024. Son, who is the captain for both Tottenham Hotspur and the South Korean national team, previously received this award in 2015, 2017, and 2019, making him the only player to win the prize more than once.
During the 2023-24 Premier League season, Son became the sixth player to score 150 goals for Spurs in September last year and reached his 200th European goal the following month. By December, Son had become Spurs’ all-time Premier League assists leader, with 17 goals and 10 assists in 36 matches that season.
For the natio
nal team, Son played a crucial role in leading South Korea to the semifinals of the AFC Asian Cup in Qatar in February and scored in five of South Korea’s six matches during the second round of the Asian World Cup qualification tournament between November 2023 and June 2024.
The only other South Korean winner at the ceremony was Park Youn-jeong, who was named the AFC Women’s Coach of the Year. At 35 years old, Park became the second South Korean winner of the prize. In November 2023, she made history by becoming the youngest head coach of any South Korean national team when she took over the women’s under-20 squad, leading the team to victories in her first two matches.
Park began her coaching career at the national level with the U-17 women’s team in 2019 and moved up to the U-20s in 2022. She was part of the backroom staff at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup that year and returned as head coach for the 2024 tournament.
Despite strong nominations, other South Korean players did not secure top individual aw
ards. Veteran defender Kim Hye-ri lost out to Kiko Seike of Japan for the AFC Women’s Player of the Year award, while fullback Seol Young-woo was bested by Akram Afif of Qatar for the AFC Men’s Player of the Year prize.