In the absence of injured tribal striker Harry Kane, Heung-Min Son became the most dangerous player in Tottenham Hotspur. With his double pack against Manchester City, he played a decisive role in his team’s progress. He will miss the semi-final first leg against Ajax Amsterdam in the Champions League, however, suspended.
The fact that Heung-Min Son hadn’t quite realised what was actually happening there became clear in the Sky Interview after the game. Son grinned and said, “I can’t even remember how the game ended.”
He’d missed out on a lot! He and his Spurs were finally further, outside, further, outside and then further. The so-called emotional roller coaster was compressed in the third minute of injury time, when referee Cüneyt Cakir and his VAR withdrew their supposed 5-3 win after City’s jubilation. But they recognized Fernando Llorente’s hip and arm goal to 3:4 20 minutes earlier.
After the 1961/62 season, Tottenham are now in the semi-finals of the premier class for the second time in their club history. “My players are heroes,” said coach Mauricio Pochettino succinctly. And one of the main heroes is Son, who scored a double-pack and was responsible for three of the four Tottenham goals in the quarter-final duel with City after scoring 1-0 in the first leg.
But of course he didn’t know that Son was also a bit of a tragic hero. This epic battle probably shook not only his short-term memory, but also his long-term memory. He had forgotten that he had already seen two yellow cards in the course of the competition – which is why his third against City means a suspension in the semi-final first leg against Ajax Amsterdam. “I didn’t know that,” he said in the interview after the game. But if so, “very, very sad,” of course.
Very, very sad, especially for his club. Because in the absence of the injured Harry Kane, Son recently developed into the most dangerous Tottenham player. He even seems to enjoy the tribal striker’s absence. Whenever Kane is missing injured, Son is on top form. So it was with Kanes first Zwangspause shortly after the turn of the year and so it is now again. Son scored eight of his last nine goals when Kane wasn’t on the pitch.
Against City it was the two so important away goals after the early deficit, for which Son only needed 131 seconds. First he pushed in fast as he could think, then he flipped dreamily. “The timing of the gates was very important,” Son said. He had already scored in the first leg and the opening match of the new Tottenham Stadium against Crystal Palace the weekend before.
Son scored 20 competitive goals this season, only one of his personal best from the 2016/17 season. In the calendar year 2019 Son already met ten times and thus most often at Tottenham. In short, Son is in the form of his life.
But he is not only important because of his goals, but also because of his mentality. Against City, he fought the second most duels of all Tottenham players. “We fought again,” he said, “and showed incredible character and fighting spirit.” Especially him.
Son began as the second leader next to Lucas Moura, but after a tactical change from a 4-4-2 with a diamond to a 4-2-3-1, he moved into the left midfield in the middle of the first half. Although he was less likely to appear in the danger zone, Tottenham also benefited from his unstoppable determination to win the ball on the left. Son is the express train that the locomotive drivers Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli like best to send on their journey with their passports.
In the first leg of the semi-final against Ajax, however, a new plan is needed, then the two most dangerous players of the team are missing with the suspended Son and the still injured Kane. The 34-year-old hip and arm goalscorer Llorente must judge it right from the start.
“We’ll have fun,” Son is sure, despite the difficult personnel situation. He now has time to deal with this epic battle against City. When he was finally asked if it was even a game he would never forget, he said, “I think so.”
But there’s not much to forget for Son anyway, because he couldn’t even remember most of it right after the final whistle.
