Son Heung-min expressed his feelings about completing the last A match of this year.
Son Heung-min said on his SNS on the 21st (Korea Standard Time), “Thank you for making the national team happy this year. Although it is more regrettable than anyone else that we could not win the last game, I believe this regret will make us hungry and grow! We were able to play fun and happy thanks to many fans in the two away games.”
He added, “I look forward to seeing you again with good performances from my team, and the Korean team will be able to see you in good health and smiling face in March. Thank you very much everyone. You are the best in Korea ❤.”
Son Heung-min played the third Asian qualifying round for the 2026 FIFA North-China World Cup during the A-match in November. The South Korean national soccer team, led by head coach Hong Myung-bo, left for the Middle East and faced Kuwait in the fifth round of Group B, and faced Palestine in Jordan, a neutral area in the sixth round.
South Korea, which has established itself as the sole leader in Group B, won a comfortable victory over Kuwait, ranked 135th in FIFA, on the 14th. South Korea, which returned “captain” Son Heung-min after a long time since the injury, easily solved the game with Oh Se-hoon’s first goal in the 10th minute of the first half and Son Heung-min’s penalty score in the 19th minute of the first half. It was Son Heung-min’s 50th A-match goal. It could have been shaken by the loss in the second half, but South Korea won 3-1 as Bae Joon-ho, who came in as a substitute instead of Son Heung-min, scored a net goal.
After turning the halfway point of the third qualifying round, they met again with the Palestinians. They vowed to avenge their 0-0 draw at home in Seoul during the first leg, but South Korea’s defense error led to the first Palestinian goal in the 12th minute of the first half. It was Son Heung-min who saved South Korea from crisis. He tied the equalizer with Lee Myung-jae and Lee Jae-sung in the 16th minute of the first half.
South Korea, however, failed to score any more points as it struggled with Palestinian physicality and deep defense, and the result ended in a disappointing draw. This capped the third qualifying round with four wins and two draws, and failed to widen the gap as runner-up Iraq trailed by three points. If the Palestinians had also won, South Korea could have moved closer to clinching the finals early on, but it needed to secure points again. 스포츠토토
Aside from the result, Son has set a new record to achieve his 51st A-match goal overall through the match against Palestine. Son has surpassed Hwang Sun-hong, the current coach of the Hana Citizen in Daejeon, as the lone A-match scorer in history, and is set to rank second overall in A-match history, and Cha Bum-keun’s record of 58 goals each year. He also scored 10 goals in the A-match in 2024, becoming the star of this year’s national team’s most goals scored.
After the match, Son said in an interview with a broadcaster, “The players worked hard for the past year, and I am grateful as a captain. The game was not easy. I want to applaud the Palestinians. Our team should learn from their hard work in a difficult situation. I am sad that I did not win, but I need to prepare well and have a good game next year.”
“We made the game difficult on our own. We made the game difficult by mistake. We tried to rebound by scoring the equalizer, and showed good performance, but if we had all our chances, we could have won. It’s too bad,” he said.
Now Son is looking ahead to 2025. “We were busy this year and we had a lot of competitions. A lot of things happened starting with the Asian Cup. We lacked 2-3 percent, or as much as 10 percent. Next year, we will work together to make it a special year for our fans,” Son said.
