"It's more understandable from Koreans' viewpoint." "It's a very usual practice and, especially in his case, it's done by parents," Park explains to BBC Sport. I know Europeans don't understand this though," Woong-jung told Korean journalist Minhye Park external-link when she met him at the SON Football Academy in his home city of Chuncheon. "I hit my sons a lot because sometimes it's necessary. The boys would have to master one attribute before moving on to the next, while Son recalls his father punishing him with hours of keepy-uppies. When his boys were not studying - which included trips to a summer school in New Zealand to learn English - Woong-jung would put them through a strict footballing education of relentlessly practising basic skills.
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Son Woong-jung was himself a professional footballer in South Korea, until injury curtailed his career in 1990 - two years before the younger of his sons was born. Son has spoken openly about his father's impact on his career - from the strict training regimes he implemented on Son and his older brother as children, to still sharing a flat with his parents in London and being told he should not marry until his playing career is over. He worked every day." Son Heung-min celebrates after scoring for Hamburg's youth team
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"His father was there also, and every minute he was free his father trained with him additionally - small, easy technical things. "He was very quick, he scored a lot and he was very open in working with the team and very interested to learn things," Von Ahlen, who now works at Bayer Leverkusen, tells BBC Sport. Von Ahlen worked with Son when he first arrived in Germany as a 16-year-old, having been scouted alongside two other players as part of a link between Hamburg and the South Korean Football Association.
Von Ahlen is well aware of the back story to Son's rise to prominence - it is one of persistent hard work, following the unconventional training methods of his disciplinarian father and having the bravery to move to another continent as a teenager in order to pursue his dream. "You don't get many chances and you have to have the security to know if you have one chance you are going to make it."
"The game at Manchester City - two shots, two goals," says former Hamburg youth-team coach Markus von Ahlen about Son's performance during Spurs' 4-3 loss in a dramatic quarter-final at Etihad Stadium that saw the visitors progress on away goals. Son has scored half of Tottenham's goals in the Champions League knockout stages this season and his importance to Mauricio Pochettino's side was underlined by the fact Spurs only managed one shot on target in the first leg without him. Tottenham's hopes in Amsterdam, it seems, appear to be pinned on the return of their talismanic South Korean, who was suspended for the first leg in north London last week and in the absence of top-scorer and England captain Harry Kane has become his side's go-to threat. Back in 1962, with the competition in its former guise as the European Cup, Spurs were knocked out by a Benfica side boasting Portugal great Eusebio, and the Premier League outfit will need to overturn a 1-0 deficit against a talented young Ajax team to avoid falling at the same hurdle this time around.