Who is the best Asian footballer of all time?

sullydnl

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Simple question prompted by a discussion in one of the Son threads. Who is/was the best?
 
I said in the other thread it’s Son based purely on ability. I understand his lack of silverware will go against many agreeing with me. But I’m not just looking at trophies won
 
Hidetoshi Nakata in his prime for me. A genuine old school No.10 who hacked it when Serie A was physical and dominant. Shame his peak was about 4 seasons though. Son is close call, has talent but lacks consistency for me.

Obvious shout out to our very own Park Ji Sung - not the best but certainly the most hard working, obedient and disciplined of them all. Shinsuke Nakamura is the best left footed Asian of all time - those free kicks against us in the CL!
 
Cha Bum-kun is a well-known name in German football history and was recognized as an elite level player during the 80s.

Edit: Has been mentioned, sort of
 
Paulino Alcántara's legacy is pretty timeless, probably the first genuine “star” of Asian extraction and a cornerstone of the earliest Barcelona dynasty with Samitier, Liñán and Zamora...
Gamper himself signed Alcántara up for the academy. Not much was known about this tiny player who’d moved in from afar, but Barcelona took him on. Sound familiar? Still shorter than most of the kids in the age groups below him, talent alone earned Alcántara his first-team debut in 1912. His net-finding pedigree was in plain sight in his first performance when a hat-trick helped Barça to a 9-0 win over Català. At the age of 15, Alcántara became the youngest player to score for the team founded 13 years earlier. Over a century later, he still is. With Alcántara’s fearsome shot as part of Barcelona’s armoury once more, the Blaugrana dominated domestically. During his nine-year second spell at the club, they won eight Campionat de Catalunya and four Copa del Rey. Alcántara netted in the 1920, 1922 and 1926 finals as well as finishing his playing days at Barça with a total of 369 goals.
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From a vastly different footballing landscape though, preceding even the foundation of the Primera División — so maybe there should be separate nominations for the prewar years (Paulino Alcántara stands head and shoulders above the rest for this category), the middle years (probably Cha Bum-kun) and the post-'80s period (Son Heung-min had done enough to overcome stiff competition from the likes of Nakata, Park and Myung-Bo).
 
Cha for actually doing it in the 80s.

Nakata for the one breaking the barrier in the 90s.

Son is just a great footballer but he's having a much easier and less barrier compared to Nakata. Back then it is really something for an east Asian to feature in european football let alone the serie A. His success is the catalyst for teams started to scout the far east
 
Son for me. Between him and Nakata at least.
 
Yasuhito Endo is probably the best Japanese player, just larger unknown as he never played in Europe.

He had/has a similar game to Scholes.
 
Mehdi Mahdavikia was a lot of fun to watch but of the players I’ve seen play, it’s probably Son.
 
Omar Abdulrahman.

I'm not serious, but the guy is an exceptional talent.
 
Park is the most decorated Asian footballer thus far, on ability it’s probably Nakata or Son. Cha Bum-kun was before my time so can’t form an opinion really.
 
Shinji Kagawa. IMO he had a bigger influence on his team than Son, and I'd rate both of their squads (2010 Dortmund and current Spurs) similarly, as being European dark horses. Probably rate Dortmund higher since they won a league beating the then emerging Bayern cycle which has dominating BL for the entirety of the last decade.
 
RedDevil@84 said:
Feck that. Bloody Aussies trying to sneak their way into FIFA WC.
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Funnily, AFC is harder for them to qualify since previously they were competing against the like of New Zealand and Papua New Guinea for qualification.
 
Shinji Kagawa - Was amazing at Dortmund, hence us actually buying him

Keisuke Honda - Face of Japanese football for many years, although almost felt very Lukas Podolski to me, okay at club level, only really excelled on the International stage

Park Ji-sung - Need I say any more, most decorated, maybe not the most naturally talented, even though he had talent, but whatever he lacked he made up for in grit and determination, infact i’m a big believer it was players like him that allowed players like Ronaldo to do what they do best

Shinsuke Nakamura - Lethal dead ball specialist and a Celtic hero, spent alot of his career flourishing in Europe to

Hideotoshi Nakata -This guy was a star back in the 90s and a great technical player with flair, retired early though, would be interested to see if he carried on, would he have done more and made this choice much easier

Son is talented and lightning quick, clearly, not sure what he’s going to accomplish in his career compared to these guys though

I feel like we might be coming back to this conversation in say 10 years and Takefusa Kubo has come out as the clear winner, kid is insanely talented, i just hope Real doesn’t waste that talent
 
It's probably Song, but Nakata was a very polished player, loved watching him play.

Iranian folk might make a case for Ali Karimi, albeit he didn't do it in Europe for very long.

kthanksbye said:
Omar Abdulrahman.

I'm not serious, but the guy is an exceptional talent.
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Absolutely breathtaking footballer, to be fair.
 
Park:

4 X PL Titles
1 X Champions League
3 X League Cup
1 X Fifa Club World Cup
2 X Eredivisie
1 X KNVB
Fourth place with Korea World Cup 2002

Son:
 
Munkehboi said:
Hidetoshi Nakata in his prime for me. A genuine old school No.10 who hacked it when Serie A was physical and dominant. Shame his peak was about 4 seasons though. Son is close call, has talent but lacks consistency for me.

Obvious shout out to our very own Park Ji Sung - not the best but certainly the most hard working, obedient and disciplined of them all. Shinsuke Nakamura is the best left footed Asian of all time - those free kicks against us in the CL!
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From what I've seen it's a toss up between Nakata or Son. Nakata oozed class in what was the best league in the world at the time, likewise with Son right now. Park and Kagawa are probably half a tier below them. Nakamura a full tier.
 
Nakata - definitely the biggest football star ever produced from Asia. He was also a star in Serie A too, when it was still best league in the world. He was such a classy player, and back then his celebrity status in Asia was probably only second to Beckham.

Son - top footballer in PL, he is probably the best performer among all of the Asian footballer at the highest level, in European top league.

Park - he got 3 lungs, and had won far more trophies at top level than any other Asian players. No one else could top his career achievements.

Kagawa - top footballer in Germany, unfortunately he flopped here in PL.

King Kazu - first real football star coming from Asia. In fact a famous Japanese manga “Captain Tsubasa” was inspired by him, and he was considered as national treasure at that time. Currently he is still playing professional football at the age of 54 with the likes of Iniesta. Now try to beat this longevity.

Ali Daei - top international goalscorer with 108 goals, although majority of his goals are scored against minors from Asia (ie some games end up with 17-0 score line). In comparison, his goals record in BL was rather meh (19 goals in 107 games), but he was still considered good enough to play in BL.
 
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nuanced said:
Funnily, AFC is harder for them to qualify since previously they were competing against the like of New Zealand and Papua New Guinea for qualification.
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But AFC has more spots up for grabs. Oceania had 0.5 spots or something I believe. So even though they won against New Zealand and all, they still needed to win the playoffs which was getting tougher. So they took the easy route out of Oceania and made an agreement with "spotless" AFC.
They called it a good thing for AFC to increase competition and quality in AFC.

But then a few countries already used to play in other federations.
 
Nakamura at Celtic Park, away from home he was guff most of the time, scored big goals I know ( Rugby Park and Love St) scored a hat trick at Tannadice but was terrible that day, could hit free kick for du but couldn’t take a corner.
 
I think Son and JSP had it much easier later on due to the globalization. But Nakata did broke lots of barriers. Beast of a no.10 with a wicked shot about him. He was even bigger than JSP at least in my country.
 
As much as I hate Son, he's played for average teams in his career. Was he supposed to win league titles and CLs like that ? JSP has had and will have a better career but purely from an individual aspect, Son is clearly better for me.
 
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