One of my two soccer-playing sons says I shouldn’t begin with the story of how we went to a K League game in Inchon, back in summer 2022. It’s irrelevant because Son Heung-min, whom we all love, never played in the South Korean league, though he’s the captain of the country’s national team. “But maybe it tells us something about Sonny,” I say.
“Like what?,” my sixteen-year-old says.
“FC Inchon. We were rooting for the home team versus Seoul.”
We call up his older brother. We put him on speakerphone and bring him up to speed.
“Garbage,” he says.
“Huh?”
“I remember there were no garbage cans in the stadium. Just like how it was hard to find them in Seoul—you were supposed to bring your trash home with you.”
“Fine in theory,” I say, “but we didn’t want to carry our used cups and napkins and paper plates on that hourlong train ride.”
“So we just put them under our seats.”
“There was like zero trash anywhere,” his brother says. “Not like at the end of an American sporting event, popcorn everywhere.”
“Do you see how this relates to Sonny? He looks so clean.”
“True.”
“The skin, the hair,” his brother says. “He must use a lot of K-beauty products.”
My other son adds, “Also, no tattoos. Think about Richarlison’s massive back tat.”
“Rather not,” I quip. “Don’t either of you get tattoos, understand?”
Together: “We won’t.”
“It was illegal until recently to get a tattoo in Korea.” While they factcheck on their phones, I continue, “There’s a brightness that suits his nickname, Sonny. He is sunny. That idea of nomen est omen: your name is your destiny. For instance, I’m ‘Ed,’ and I’ve spent most of my professional career as an ‘editor.’”
“Good lord.”
“Also, Son Heung-min is a model son, in Confucian terms. I mean, a big part of the Sonny lore is how his father made him practice relentlessly. As a kid, before he could even sign up to play team soccer, his dad would make him juggle for two hours a day.”
“I’ve never seen the dad smile.”
“Whereas with Sonny, you can’t picture him sans that megawatt grin,” I continue. “That reminds me: I asked your harabaji to translate some of Son’s autobiography for me. It was published in Korea a couple years ago. Here’s Sonny speaking: ‘I might look very glorious to others. But that is only an appearance…. There have been more days with difficulties than the other way around. There have been many days with tears.’”
“That’s sad.”
“Another part got to me: The family was poor and needed a car to drive to all his soccer things. They bought a cheap set of wheels. The neighbors made fun of them for having a ttong-cha, like literally a shit car, a piece of shit.”
Googling, one son says, “It’s more like a ‘sewage truck.’”
The other says, “Can we talk about something more pleasant?”
And so we do. “It’s dumb to compare Sonny with Korean hitmakers BTS,” I declare, “but I’m going to do it anyway. Check it out: BTS debuts on June 12, 2013, a day before Son transfers from Hamburg, where he got his start, to Bayer Leverkusen. Two years later, Son signs with Tottenham Hotspur, just as BTS cracks the Billboard 200 for the first time.”
“Goals and hits and worldwide fame,” my sons chant, part of a lullaby I used to sing to them, a celebration of soft power. “Goals and hits and worldwide fame…”
“Sonny gets the Golden Boot in 2022,” I continue. “All told, he stays with Tottenham through ten trophy-less years, leaving once they win the Europa League. He’s fun to watch with LAFC, though of course we don’t really watch the games like we did with Spurs. He scores less but still makes a mark, like that recent Orlando match where he got four assists. He’s thirty-three, a touch slower, but he contributes. LAFC’s near the top of the MLS, and meanwhile, Spurs haven’t won a game yet this year and are in danger of relegation.”
“You can’t really compare MLS and the Premier League, but … anyway. Mention the goal that got him the Puskás Award in 2020.”
“Right. This was versus Burnley, December 2019. A 5–0 blowout, but all anyone remembers is how the ball bounces out of the Tottenham box into Son’s possession, and how in a flash he’s bursting past defender after defender, not passing, just somehow keeping it on his foot. At one point, you can count six opponents clustered around him, but Son’s just so fast here that the Burnley-colored cloud keeps dispersing and reforming, weaker each time. He sends the ball low into the net. On the playback, at a closer angle, we see Son rush forth with videogame velocity, sliding past each defender like a white-water rafter, as the crowd’s roar sounds like rapids.”
“It never gets old!”
“Wait, you have to talk about that other famous Son play, from the last World Cup—one where he does pass.”
“Why don’t you two do the honors?”
“Korea and Portugal, 2022,” one son says. “Captains are Son and Ronaldo. Korea’s in red. Sonny wears a black mask to protect his eye socket, which he injured earlier in the season.”
“Also on the Korean side is Wolverhampton’s Hwang Hee-chan,” the other says, “and K Leaguer Cho Gue-sung, whose good looks went viral.”
“Neither’s as clean as Sonny,” I add. “Portugal opens the scoring five minutes in. A landslide in the offing. But Korea equalizes. Nothing for the rest of regulation. Ronaldo’s subbed off at minute sixty-five. Everyone’s gassed. Just after they announce six minutes of stoppage time, Portugal has set up shop around the Korean perimeter. Korea looks doomed.”
“But then—”
“A corner kick goes awry, and bang, it’s just Son flying downfield. Entering the Portuguese half, he’s confronted by two, then three defenders. He maintains speed, but a wall coalesces before him. Then Son stops time; pauses, even seems to backpedal. The momentum vanishes, yet something immense is about to happen. The masked marauder waits a split second until Hwang the Wanderer gets open ahead, onside by a hair. Son intuits the smallest gap in the wall of bodies, the forest of legs, and daintily ’megs it to Hwang, who doesn’t so much kick as usher the ball into the net. Hwang rips off his shirt, Cho and Sonny rush toward him, and the whole team pours onto the field. There are five minutes to kill, but Korea’s ticket is punched for the round of sixteen. Son’s on the ground, mask off, superpower spent. Bawling.”
“I just thought of something,” one son says. “Does nomen est omen work, if it’s coming out of a different language? Like he’s sunny in English, and he’s the model ‘son’: I get it. But doesn’t ‘son’ mean ‘hand’ in Korean?”
“Hmm. Maybe the nomen stuff gets reversed when it jumps languages. Like instead of it being about the hand, it’s about the foot. Remember, Sonny is great with both feet. He scored seventy-eight Prem League goals with his right—but also nearly fifty with his left…”
“OK. Just don’t call the piece something like ‘The Son Also Rises.’”
“I won’t. And I’ll make up all the lines that you guys say.”