Captain Son Heung-min faced a rare absurd situation. When he failed to organize traffic inside the stadium, he shouted to the bench and asked for help.
Son Heung-min had to shout at Postecoglou and demand a decision on the away trip to Newcastle.
Tottenham lost 1-2 to Newcastle United in the third round of the 2024-2025 Premier League at St. James' Park in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England on the 1st.
Tottenham scored an own goal by Dan Burn in the 11th minute of the second half after Harvey Barnes lost the first goal in the 37th minute of the first half. However, the score collapsed when Alexander Isak scored the final goal in the 33rd minute of the second half.
Son also failed to display good performance. Son, who seemed to announce his revival by scoring multiple goals at home against Everton in the second round, started the game on the day and busily moved between left and center for 90 minutes, but showed poor performance again, posting shocking statistics of one shot and zero effective shots.
Football London's Alesdare Gold gave him a six-point rating, saying, "I made three key passes, but when I became a central striker in the second half, I had difficulty getting into the position to score."
The British Evening Standard gave a more harsh evaluation. "He launched a menacing attack from the left side in the first half and made several menacing passes into the box. However, he had difficulty in performing his role as a center forward after halftime," the British media said, rating him five points. It was the lowest score among the starting strikers along with Dejan Kulusevski.
On top of that, Son Heung-min asked the bench for help in the face of a chaotic situation during the game.
The media explained, "In the second half, Tottenham had a strange scene when Tottenham got a dangerous free kick opportunity outside the Newcastle box. Neither James Maddison nor Pedro Porro seemed to have decided who would kick the free kick."
"At that point, Tottenham's attack set-piece was clever and successful. There were many scenes where Son was given a short pass as he ran into the box to quickly convert the ball to the player on the other side," he said. "As the prisoners and Madison failed to make a decision, Son shouted for the bench coach Postecoglou to make a decision under an unexpected situation. It was a situation where the players or the captain had to make a decision in the stadium. Radu Dragusin delivered the message."
Son Heung-min was out of control as a captain in a situation where Postecoglou did not have to decide. It was confusing as even Yves Bissouma participated in the situation. Son Heung-min handed over the decision to the bench on behalf of his colleagues who could not decide even though he mediated the situation.
"Coach Postecoglou stretched out two fingers in one hand and three fingers in the other hand, instructing Porro to handle the free kick," the media said. "However, Porro's kick went over the crossbar."
For Tottenham, Harry Kane himself has been handling free kicks. As Kane moved to Bayern Munich (Germany) last summer, Tottenham had to decide on a new free kicker. Madison was usually kicked by the team last season, but the prisoner often participated in free kicks from a long distance. Rather than being determined by the center or the side, it was decided as Madison or the prisoner according to the distance.
It was an embarrassing situation caused by the lack of a dedicated kicker. Again this season, either Madison or one of the captives handled the kick. However, as there was no dedicated kicker clearly defined, this situation occurred from the beginning of the season, and from the outside, it seems that there is a problem.
Son Heung-min is a dedicated free kicker for the Korean national soccer team. In the quarterfinals against Australia at the 2024 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Qatar Asian Cup or the 12 matches just before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, he scored three goals with free kicks, enhancing his reputation as the best free kicker.
In particular, in June two years ago, he scored a free kick in two consecutive games against Chile and Paraguay, setting the first record in the Korean national team's soccer history.
The Korea Football Association said at the time, "Son Heung-min is virtually the first player to score a goal directly with a free kick in the history of the Korean national team's A-match." The Korea Football Association added, "It is hard to say 100% because there are cases where the scoring process is not specified in some games before the 1960s, but I am sure Son Heung-min will be the first to score a goal directly with a free kick until then."
Son scored five free-kick goals out of 48 A matches by scoring a free-kick goal against Australia at the Asian Cup. This has become the highest number of goals scored by Ha Seok-joo, who has scored the most A-match free-kick in Korea, exceeding four goals. Starting with the 1996 Korea-China regular match against China, Ha scored with a left-footed free-kick in the 1997 friendly match against Australia, the World Cup qualifier against Thailand, and the 1998 World Cup against Mexico in France, ranking first in the category with a total of four goals.
Son Heung-min added a free kick score in the warm-up match against Costa Rica and a score against Australia in September 2022, making him the best free kicker in Korean men's soccer with five goals. 토토사이트 추천
At the time of scoring a free kick against Costa Rica, Football London Aresdier Gold claimed on his social networking service (SNS) X, "It's just an idea, but Son Heung-min has to kick a free kick himself for a while at Tottenham."
The atmosphere of Tottenham, which has been restless, has led to three consecutive away matches in Newcastle. Tottenham suffered a crushing defeat of 1-6 in April 2023 in an away match in Newcastle, giving up five goals in the 21st minute of the first half. At this time, Christian Stellini, who was the head coach of Antonio Conte and was the interim coach of Tottenham, was replaced, and coach Ryan Mason, the acting head coach, was humiliated to sit on the bench from the next game.
He then suffered a crushing defeat of 0-4 in April. Tottenham's overall performance was very low, with Son Heung-min losing the ball and providing an excuse for a run. At that time, he lost the UEFA Champions League ticket due to a crushing defeat. In this away match in Newcastle, key defender Mickey van der Pen was suddenly absent due to injury, but he had to deal with the defeat. And controversy over the selection of such a kicker arose.
Of course, it is up to the coach or the captain to decide the kicker. If players with good kick power such as Madison and Porro handle kicks, but scenes that are not organized like this against Newcastle are repeated, Postecoglou and Son Heung-min need to make sure to clean up traffic to reduce confusion and increase concentration in set-piece situations.
