British popular newspaper ‘The Sun‘ reported on the 14th (Korean time), “Tottenham star Son Heung-min suffered a dislocated finger during an argument with teammates at a dinner table the day before the Korean national team’s Asian Cup semifinal.”
According to the Sun report and Yonhap News coverage, the incident occurred during dinner time on the 5th local time, the day before the Jordan match.
In the national team, a banquet held together the day before a game is an opportunity for everyone to unite before the final game and confirm that they are one team. However, on this day, several young players, including Lee Kang-in, Seol Young-woo, and Jung Woo-young, finished dinner early and went to play table tennis.
Son Heung-min, who thought ‘this is not right’, tried to stop them, but they did not listen and Son Heung-min became enraged and grabbed Lee Kang-in by the collar. Lee Kang-in responded with a punch, which Son Heung-min avoided.
Son Heung-min’s finger was dislocated while other players were trying to separate the two.
Afterwards, senior players visited Coach Klinsmann and asked him to exclude Lee Kang-in from the match against Jordan, but Coach Klinsmann did not exclude Lee Kang-in.
In the end, Son Heung-min, who injured his finger, played in the semifinal match against Jordan with white tape on his right middle and index fingers, and the national team was eliminated in the semifinals due to a lethargic performance that failed to record a single effective shot.
Since the second half of last year, the conflict between senior players such as Lee Kang-in and Son Heung-min has been widening.
However, Coach Klinsmann appears to have failed to ‘organize’ anything either last year or at this year’s Asian Cup. While being criticized for ‘lack of tactics’, the mistake of failing to properly manage the players was clearly revealed. Take a look at the video.
Produced by: Hae-yeon Kim, Seong-han Han
Video: Yonhap News TV, Reuters, YouTube KAFTV, Tottenham Hotspur, Instagram @j_klinsmann, kanginleeoficial 섯다
