"Son Heung-min is unusual."' With just one PK goal in five official matches, expectations are high for the 'MLS bombing' that has become overshadowed

*This content was translated by AI.

South Korean national soccer team captain Son Heung-min (34, Los Angeles FC) is showing off his early momentum in the new season. Only one goal in five official games and even a penalty (PK) score is all. Although he is creating opportunities for his teammates through assists, the trend is far from the prospect of bombing the U.S. Major League Soccer (MLS) from the beginning of the season.

Son Heung-min played as the starting full season in the 2026 MLS third round home game against FC Dallas at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles, California on the 8th (Korea time), but he swallowed his regret without scoring an offensive point. There was only one shot and two key passes. The Potmob rating, a soccer statistical media outlet, was 6.7 points, the lowest among LAFC players who started the day.

Due to the silence on the day, Son Heung-min ended up with "no goal" in four consecutive games he played recently. Son Heung-min showed as much as one goal and three assists in the first round of the 2026 North American Caribbean Football Confederation (CONCACAF) Champions Cup, the first game of the season, against Real España (Honduras), but after that, one assist against Inter Miami, one assist against Real España, one assist against Houston Dynamo (two assists based on MLS), and the silence against Dallas on the day continued. The season record is one goal and five assists in five games. Only when the MLS standard that recognizes starting passes as assists is applied, one goal and six assists will the team increase the number of offensive points by one more.

Except for the Real Spain match (one goal and three assists), which had an objective power gap large enough to win a 6-1 victory, in fact, it has not shown a clear presence as a "superstar" in the last four games. In particular, the PK score against Real Spain is the only one, and the fact that there are no field goals in five games this season remains regrettable. As nine shots in five games and even five of them were concentrated in one game against Houston, questions remain about how to use Son Heung-min under LAFC's new coach Mark dos Santos.

Even considering that it is still early in the season, the regret is inevitably greater in that the league level is lower than that of the European big league and that there were not a few expectations before the season for Son Heung-min.

In fact, Son Heung-min played in as many as 13 MLS games immediately after moving to LAFC last season, scoring 12 goals and 3 assists. He showed his presence as a superstar who played 10 seasons in the English Premier League (EPL) alone without needing a period of adaptation to the new league.

Naturally, local expectations were also high this season ahead of the MLS' first full season season. It was expected that he would show destructive performance as he has adapted to MLS. It was in the same vein that local experts and foreign media predicted that they would compete with Lionel Messi (Inter Miami) for the MVP position as well as the MLS top scorer this season.

However, it seems that it has not been able to increase the momentum as quickly as expected, with only one goal in PK in five games since the opening of the season. Expectations were so high even before the opening of the season, and considering the level of MLS and Champions Cup, the longer Son Heung-min's silence on the goal, the greater the size of his disappointment.

Meanwhile, Son Heung-min will hunt for his second and first field goal of the season through the first leg of the CONCACAF Champions Cup round of 16 against LD Alahuelense (Costarica) at noon on the 11th. The Champions Cup is a tournament in which Son Heung-min scored one goal and three assists against Real Spain earlier.

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*This content was translated by AI.