South Korea catches 'Spursmania' for Son Heung-min and Tottenham's preseason tour
By Gawon Bae, CNN
Updated 2347 GMT (0747 HKT) July 15, 2022
Son Heung-min waves to fans after a friendly between Tottenham Hotspur and Team K League at the Seoul World Cup Stadium on July 13.Seoul, South Korea (CNN)A few minutes before Tottenham Hotspur's squad touched down in Seoul on July 10, hundreds of fans gathered at Incheon Airport started screaming out of surprise.
Tottenham's South Korean star Son Heung-min made an unannounced appearance from his vacation to welcome his teammates visiting his home country for a preseason tour.Local fans reacted to everything Son did — even an innocuous hand wave. «Welcome to Seoul,» the South Korean forward cheerily said to his teammates as they made their way out of the arrivals terminal to begin their summer tour.Son signs autographs during Spurs' training session at Goyang Stadium on July 10 in South Korea.What Tottenham described as a «special» greeting may not be that novel of an experience for its 30-year-old forward.Read MoreWhen Son came home holding his historic Golden Boot in late May, fans greeting him at the airport screamed, «Heung-min, we love you!» as cameras flashed and captured the country's most adored athlete.From Chuncheon to North LondonSon started playing football as a child in Chuncheon, located about 46 miles northeast of Seoul, under his father's supervision.He was picked as one of six members of the Korea Football Association's (KFA) FA Youth Project in 2009 to join German side Hamburg's youth academy, where he eventually advanced to the first team and made his professional debut at the age of 18.Son made a name for himself in the Bundesliga, first at Hamburg then at Bayer Leverkusen, where he became the first Korean to score a hat-trick in a major
