Son Heung-min and his South Korea teammates faced an agonising wait to discover their World Cup destiny after their dramatic win over Portugal. Needing to beat their opponents to stand any chance of progressing through to the final 16 of the competition, they did just that in the most incredible of endings.
Trailing 1-0 after five minutes until Kim Young-gwon restored parity in the 27th minute, Wolves forward Hwang Hee-chan turned the game on its head in stoppage time to spark wild scenes. Son was at the heart of the winning goal as he picked up the ball outside his own box, progressed forward to the edge of the Portuguese area and then calmly played in his teammate despite having very little space to operate.
Leapfrogging Uruguay in the standings and taking second place behind group winners Portugal, Son and the South Korea team had a nervous wait on the pitch with still another six minutes to go in the contest between Uruguay and Ghana. In a huddle in the centre circle as some of the team watched the action unfold on a phone, South Korea knew that another Uruguay goal would knock them out of the competition.
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Once the final whistle went at the Al Janoub Stadium, the party could really begin as they celebrated a place in the Round of 16 which looked very unlikely about ten minutes earlier. At a time when they were grouped in a huddle and waiting for the full-time score in the other match, Son had a message for the rest of the team.
"It was the longest six minutes of my life," he told reporters, via the Mirror. "In the circle we were really positive.
"The guys were saying, we deserve this. Then I said: 'Look, whatever happens, even if Uruguay score one more goal, I'm [expletive] proud of this team and very happy we gave everything, we'll see what going to happen'."
Lauded for his run and assist for Hwang's winner, Son quite clearly knew that the striker was going to have an impact on proceedings against Portugal after speaking to him before kick-off.
"Before the match, Son told me I was going to create something today,” said Hwang (via the Mirror). "He said 'we trust you'. When I went on as a substitute, a lot of my team-mates also said they trusted me.
"When Son got the ball, I was convinced he would pass to me and it was an excellent pass - it made my job easy."
South Korea take on Brazil in their Round of 16 clash, thus seeing Son come up against Tottenham teammate Richarlison at Stadium 974. The match takes place at 7pm on Monday evening.
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