Son Heung-min has been topped finest footballer in Asia for 2023, seeing off the challenges of fellow South Korean Kim Min-jae and Cristiano Ronaldo to say the prize for a seventh successive yr.
The award, which was launched in 2013, is open to gamers from Asia, and those that ply their commerce on the continent.
Ronaldo got here into the reckoning for the previous calendar yr after his transfer to Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia. The Portuguese ahead scored 38 objectives in 44 video games for the Saudi Professional League staff in 2023, however trailed Son and Kim in a vote by 63 Asian soccer consultants.
Son was excellent for membership staff Tottenham Hotspur within the closing months of final yr, scoring 12 objectives to plug the mammoth hole left by the exit of Harry Kane for Bayern Munich. He struck eight instances for his nation in 2023, and completed the yr with 27 objectives for Spurs and South Korea.
Centre-back Kim was voted finest defender in Serie A after an integral position in Napoli profitable the membership’s first Italian championship since a Diego Maradona-inspired staff claimed the 1989-90 title.
He’s now enjoying alongside Kane, after Bayern paid a reported US$55 million (HK$430m), a document sum for an Asian footballer, to take the 27-year-old from Napoli in the summertime.
The voting delivered a reminder of the mountainous problem Hong Kong will encounter after they face Iran within the AFC Asian Cup finals within the early hours of Saturday morning.
Iran striker Mehdi Taremi, final yr’s runner-up, completed fifth. His worldwide colleagues, Sardar Azmoun and Alireza Jahanbakhsh, had been twelfth and twenty third, respectively.
The duo of Kaoru Mitoma and Takefusa Kubo, members of the Japan staff who’re favourites to win a record-extending fifth Asian Cup for the nation, positioned fourth and sixth within the vote.
The 31-year-old has topped the very best footballer in Asia ballot 9 instances in all, profitable the prize in 2014 and 2015, earlier than launching his monopoly in 2017.
The primary version of the award, organised by Chinese language sports activities newspaper Titan Sports activities, was received by Japan’s former AC Milan midfielder Keisuke Honda.
Striker Shinji Okazaki is the one different participant to disclaim Son, strolling off with the trophy in 2016 following his outstanding position in Leicester Metropolis’s exceptional English Premier League profitable marketing campaign.
