Son. Heung. Min. Our Sonny.
When the match ended, I just sat there staring at the screen,
remote in my hand, not pressing anything.
One team was running around hugging each other,
the other side stood frozen,
and right in the middle of that scene was Son.
When it went 2â0 in the first half,
I honestly thought,
âYeah⌠today might be one of those daysâŚâ
Then second half Son mode: ON.
- He pulls one back,
- Then bangs in that 95th-minute free-kick to make it 2â2,
- Drags the whole game into extra time and penalties almost by himself.
At that point it really felt like he was
carrying an entire team on his back.
And then that one penalty made all our hearts drop
First penalty taker.
Camera zooms in on his face:
half sweat, half focus, with just a hint of nerves.
He shoots.
And⌠the ball smashes the right post.
In that moment, I almost dropped with him and just muttered,
âOh noâŚâ
LAFC end up losing the shoot-out 4â3,
and the Whitecaps go through to the next round.
Later I read that Son said in an interview
that it was âall his faultâ.
Sitting in front of my TV,
I kept quietly answering back:
âHow is that all your fault?
Youâre the one who scored twice and dragged your team this far.â
And still, thatâs exactly what world-class looks like
If you just look at the result,
today Son might look like a âhero who failedâ.
But take one step back and the picture flips completely.
- When nothing was working in the first half,
- When they were two goals down in the second,
- When everyone couldâve just given up in the 95th minute,
the one player still charging at goal with the ball at his feet
was always Son.
I think thatâs what âworld-classâ really is.
Not âsomeone who never fails,â
but someone whoâs willing to risk failing while taking responsibility.
Watching Sonny, I suddenly thought of⌠myself
The reason this match lingered with me so long
wasnât only because of Son.
Itâs because something about it felt⌠familiar.
It reminded me of my own moments:
- That day I stayed up all night finishing a presentation,
only to go blank in front of everyone. - The time a whole project crashed and burned,
and I rode the subway home thinking,
âYeah⌠this oneâs on me.â - And yet, somehow, the next morning
I still showed up to work telling myself,
âOkay, one more try.â
When I saw Son after the miss,
head down for a moment,
then lifting it again to clap and thank the fans,
it felt like my past selfâand my current self tooâ
were standing there with him in the middle of that pitch.
Weâre all in our own playoffs
Son lost this MLS playoff match today,
but no one is saying,
âSon Heung-minâs era is over.â
If anything, people will remember it like this:
âThe insane free-kick that turned 2â0 into 2â2,
and the face of a player who took responsibility even after hitting the post.â
Come to think of it,
our lives arenât that different.
- Just because a project tanked,
- or a presentation went badly,
- or an exam didnât go our way,
that doesnât mean our career is âoverâ.
Itâs just one playoff game in a very long season.
Final whistle thought:
A note to myself, yelling at the TV with a remote in hand
After shouting at the TV all game,
I ended up whispering this to myself:
âYeah⌠I used to give everything like that too.
Actually, if Iâm honest,
Iâm still running pretty hard right now.â
Watching Son run himself to the ground on that pitch,
I kind of want to wake up tomorrow and say:
âI donât know what the result will be,
but at least for today,
Iâm going to live a little bit world-class too.â
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