South Korea national soccer team captain Son Heung-min (Tottenham) celebrated his 40th A-Match goal with two goals and an assist.
Son scored twice on his own and assisted Chung Seung-hyun’s wedge goal to lead South Korea to a 3-0 victory over China in the second Group C match of the 2026 FIFA North American Football Championship Asia Second Qualifying Round at the Shenzhen Universiade Sports Center in Guangdong, China, on Monday.
Son, who scored his 40th and 41st goals of the tournament, also helped Jürgen Klinsmann’s (GER) side to their fifth straight win in A matches.
Son opened his 40th goal celebration with a penalty kick in the 11th minute.
Earlier, Hwang Hee-chan (Wolverhampton) broke down the left flank and earned a penalty kick as he rushed for a second ball after Cho Kyu-sung (Mitwillan) shot.
Son stepped up to take the spot kick and steered it with his right foot into the bottom left corner of the net.
It was Son’s 40th goal and his third in three A-Match matches, following his goals against Vietnam last month and Singapore on Sept. 16.
Son partnered with Lee Kang-in (Paris Saint-Germain) in the midfield and distributed the ball to Cho Kyu-sung up front, but he was always looking for the Chinese goal himself.
In the 24th minute, he unleashed a left-footed shot from near the penalty spot in front of the goal, but was denied by the goalkeeper.
The eagerly anticipated 41st goal came from his head, not his feet.
In the 45th minute, Lee Kang-in curled a left-footed ball from the right corner that Son Heung-min jumped up early at the near post to redirect with his head, and the ball curled into the far corner of the net.
With his 40th and 41st goals in his 116th career A-match, Son Heung-min has moved into third place on the all-time scoring list for South Korean men’s soccer players.
Former coach Cha Bum-geun, with 58 goals, is first, and Olympic team coach Hwang Sun-hong, with 50, is second.
With his multi-goal performance, Son reduced the gap between him and Hwang to single digits (9 goals).
It’s also the first time in nearly eight months that Son has scored multiple goals in an A-match since a friendly against Colombia on March 24.
Son came close to a hat-trick in the 31st minute with a powerful left-footed shot from long range, but it sailed well over the crossbar.
Instead, he capped the scoring in the 42nd minute with an exquisite right-footed free-kick from midfield towards Munjeon, where he placed it precisely on the head of Jung Seung-hyun for South Korea’s third goal. 토토사이트