Son awaits world famous players in Seoul next month

South Korea’s football team captain Son Heung-min, the winner of the English Premier League’s Golden Boot of this season, is ready to play against global football stars including Neymar (Paris Saint Germain) from Brazil and Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) from Egypt.

South Korea will have a friendly against FIFA’s top-ranked Brazil in Seoul World Cup Stadium at 8 p.m. next Thursday. Later it will face Chile, No. 28, in Daejeon World Cup Stadium at 8 p.m. on June 6 and Paraguay, No. 32, in Suwon World Cup Stadium at 8 p.m. on June 10. Then, Egypt with Mohamed Salah on the team will come to fight against South Korea in Seoul on June 14. The Egyptian Football Association agreed to open a friendly with South Korea according to Egypt’s state-owned news agency Al-Ahram on Thursday.

The South Korean football squad belongs to Group H for the 2022 Qatar World Cup with Uruguay, No. 13, Portugal, No. 8, and Ghana, No. 60. The upcoming matches with Brazil, Chile and Paraguay will better prepare it to compete against Uruguay and Portugal while Egypt will provide it with a mockup test for a qualifier with Ghana in the World Cup.

Brazil and Egypt are gaining more attention than the rest upcoming games in June. Brazil will have not only Neymar but also other world famous stars such as Vinícius Júnior and Gabriel Jesus in the lineup.

Son and Neymar, both of whom were born in 1992, have already been at the center of attention. A ticket selling website for the game with Brazil was shut down on Wednesday with around 740,000 visitors rushing in to grab tickets. All 63,000 available tickets sold out in the blink of an eye and a ticket sells at more than 300,000 won online.

Salah and Son, the joint winners of this season’s Golden Boot Award, are highly expected to unfold an exciting match. In fierce competition until their last games of this EPL season were over, both scored 23 goals to climb on top together. They will face each other for the first time as part of their home country’s national team. They met twice in the EPL. Son netted a goal in each of the two matches with Salah, who did not gain any point at all. South Korea’s record against Egypt is five wins, five losses and seven ties. Their last match was held in February 2005. Egypt was not qualified for Qatar.


Dong-Wook Kim creating@donga.com