Son Heung-min (32, Tottenham), the “captain” who scored his 50th A-match against Kuwait, will break the record of most A-match goals in a year if he scores in the last national match against Palestine this year.
Son Heung-min played 63 minutes in the fifth Group B match of the third Asian qualifying round for the 2026 North-China World Cup against Kuwait on the 14th (Korea time) and scored the winning goal with a penalty to lead South Korea’s 3-1 victory. He missed the third and fourth games against Jordan and Iraq last month due to a thigh injury, but he scored again in two months with the national flag.
The match against Kuwait was Son’s 130th A-match, and he even scored his 50th goal. He has taken the second place in the A-match scoring category with current Daejeon coach Hwang Sun-hong (50 goals) in total. Cha Bum-keun is the former coach of Suwon with 58 goals. In terms of A-match performances, he is ranked fourth after Cha Bum-keun and Hong Myung-bo (136 matches) and Lee Woon-jae (133 matches).
Son has scored nine A-match goals this year alone. He has the most A-match goals (nine) and ties in 2015. He will play in the sixth match against Palestine, which will take place at 11 p.m. on Wednesday at Amman International Stadium in Amman, Jordan. If you look at the goals in this match, he will set the record of the most A-match goals scored in a career year, as well as ranking second overall in the A-match scoring category.
FIFA highlighted Son’s 50 A-match goals and introduced the trajectory of Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), who has been considered a “role model” since he was young. Ronaldo, who was born in 1985 and is 39 years old, scored his 133rd A-match goal (215 matches) in a European Nations League match (Portugal 5-1 win) against Poland on the 13th. He showed his robustness with a fantastic bicycle kick.
Son Heung-min, like Ronaldo, has been reborn as the top striker in the big league, with wing forward also serving as the main position or striker. 안전놀이터
FIFA explained that Son and Ronaldo both experienced their first career World Cup and became “scary scoring machine.” Ronaldo had only 12 goals until his 40 A matches, but became a scorer starting from the 2006 World Cup in Germany. As of 2014, when Son was playing at his first World Cup match in Brazil, he also had seven goals in 34 A matches. Then, he scored nine goals in the following year’s A match. Since then, he has scored a whopping amount of goals in historical events including the 2018 World Cup in Russia (winning 2-0).
Of the 50 goals, 33 were made in the latter half or in overtime. As such, he often played the role of a hero at the end of the game. Those were 31 goals with his right foot, 15 goals with his left foot, and 4 goals with his header. Will Son be able to break the record of scoring goals in the A-match game against Palestine.