Soccer-South Korea coach Bento heralds Son's Golden Boot success

By Michael Church

(Reuters) - South Korea coach Paulo Bento hailed Son Heung-min's Golden Boot-winning performance as a landmark moment for football in the country after the Tottenham Hotspur forward ended the season as the Premier League's joint top scorer with Mohamed Salah.

Son, the first Asian player to top the English Premier League's scoring charts, netted twice on Sunday to join Liverpool's Salah on 23 goals for the season as Spurs defeated Norwich City 5-0 to secure a berth in the Champions League.

"I think that is a good achievement for him, all of us would like to congratulate him," said Bento.

"It's important for himself, but also important for the team as well as for Korean football.

"It was an achievement that helped the team to reach an important goal, that is to play next season in the Champions League, and this is the most important.

"All of us are happy for him."

Son has been in blistering form throughout the season and also helped his homeland qualify for the World Cup, scoring four times during the final round of Asia's preliminaries as Bento's side booked their berth in Qatar.

The 29-year-old has been included in Bento's 28-man squad for a series of friendly matches in early June as the South Koreans begin their preparations for the finals with games against Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and an as yet unnamed opponent.

"This training camp will be the most difficult training camp we will have until now, but it is what we need to face," said Bento.

"It's not important to talk too much about the schedule and about our opponents, the most important is that I try to fix it to arrange the best solutions to face the three strong opponents in a short period of time with a difficult context."

South Korea have