Son Heung-min has Faced Racism as Teen in Germany

Tottenham Hotspur star Son Heung-min has revealed he faced racism as a teenage footballer in Germany and was happy to get “revenge” when South Korea knocked Germany out of 2018 World Cup.

Son Heung-min, the Asian king who played for Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League, ushered in the peak season of his career last season. Son Heung-min, 29, was the Premier League’s top scorer last season with 23 goals and shared the Premier League Golden Boot with Liverpool’s Salah. This Golden Boot means he becomes the first Asian football player to win the Golden Boot. And it is worth mentioning that seven of Salah’s goals came from 12-yard penalties, while Son Heung-min did not score a single penalty.
Since the end of the season, Son Heung-min has returned to South Korea on vacation. When attending an event in Seoul a few days ago, he revealed for the first time his dark experience of being racially discriminated against by Germans as a teenager. . .

In 2009, only sixteen years old Son Heung-min left South Korea to train in the youth army of Hamburger SV. With his hard work and his outstanding performance, Son Heung-min was quickly promoted to the first team. In three seasons with the HSV first team, Son Heung-min played a total of 78 games and scored 20 goals. This excellent performance has impressed the German media and fans, and Son Heung-min has also attracted the attention of many bigger clubs. In the summer of 2013, Son Heung-min moved from Hamburg to Bayer Leverkusen. In 2015, Son Heung-min escaped from Germany and joined the Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur, where he made rapid progress and scored a steady stream of goals.
Recalling the racial discrimination he suffered in Germany, Son Heung-min said:
“I moved to Germany when I was young, and went through so many really difficult, unimaginable moments,” said Son, who left Hamburg in 2013 for Bayer Leverkusen.
“I faced a lot of racism. And while going through such a really difficult time, I had a lot of thoughts on my mind I should get my revenge one day.”

Facts have proved that Son Heung-min did it. Let’s turn the clock back to the 2018 World Cup in Russia. At that time, South Korea was drawn into the same group as defending champion Germany, and Son Heung-min seized this opportunity to take revenge. In the final round of the group stage, Son Heung-min scored the second goal in injury time of the game, breaking the opponent’s goal, making Germany unable to recover and eliminating Germany in person.
Recalling the scene after the game, Son Heung-min said that many German fans cried at the scene, but he did not feel any guilt.
“When people cry, I’d (usually) want to comfort them and give them a hug,” he said, “But watching German people cry, (I felt) I was able to take revenge by doing something I like.”

But don’t think that after Son Heung-min came to England, racial discrimination will not happen. In May last year, as many as a dozen fans made racist remarks against him, but all received incredibly light sentences.