Son Heung-min (32), the “progressive legend” of Korean soccer, scored his 51st goal of the A-match.
The South Korean national soccer team, led by head coach Hong Myung-bo, drew 1-1 with Palestine in the 6th away match of Group B of the third Asian qualifying round for the ‘2026 FIFA North-China World Cup’ at Amman International Stadium in Amman, Jordan, at 11 p.m. on the 19th (Korea time).
Korea, which tied the Palestinians 0-0 in the first match in September, failed to avenge its loss again this time. Korea, which added one more point, maintained its lead in the group with four wins and two draws (14 points).
South Korea allowed the first goal early on due to Kim Min-jae’s back pass error. When Kim Min-jae made a back pass from the Korean side toward goalkeeper Cho Hyun-woo in the 12th minute of the first half, Kunbar rushed in and stole the ball with sliding. It was a vain loss.
However, Son Heung-min, who was the troubleshooter, equalized in the fourth minute. Lee Jae-sung put in a one-touch penetration pass towards Son Heung-min, who was rushing to the front. With no deep angle in the penalty area, Son swung his right foot to shake the net.
With his 51st A-match goal, Son has overtaken Hwang Sun-hong, coach of the Hana Citizen in Daejeon (50) to rank second with the largest number of goals in Korean men’s soccer history. The top-ranked team is Cha Bum-keun’s 58 goals. Son, who scored his A-match debut goal at an early age of 18 in the group match against India at the 2011 Asian Cup in Qatar, has risen to second place with the largest number of goals in 13 years.
He has also achieved another meaningful record. Son has also broken his own record of the most goals scored in a single A match this year by scoring 10 goals this year. The previous record in this category was nine goals in 2015.
On this day, Son Heung-min performed horizontally, including five shots and two key passes, including scoring, but he bowed his head to a disappointing draw.
After the match, Son said in a broadcast interview, “I am so grateful as a captain that the players played so well for the past year,” adding, “Today’s game was not easy. I want to applaud the Palestinians. We also had something to learn from this difficult situation.” 토토사이트
On the reason why he struggled, he said, “I think we made the game a little more difficult. However, he showed good performance by scoring an equalizer to rebound after losing a point. It is regrettable that he would have won if he had scored all the chances.”
Looking back on this year, Son Heung-min said, “I was busy and there were many matches. There have been many things since the Asian Cup, and I have shown a few percent disappointing performances every time,” vowing, “Next year, the players will come together and show good performances to the soccer fans.”