Son Heung-min has been crowned best footballer in Asia for 2023, seeing off the challenges of fellow South Korean Kim Min-jae and Cristiano Ronaldo to claim the prize for a seventh successive year.

The award, which was launched in 2013, is open to players from Asia, and those who ply their trade on the continent.

Ronaldo came into the reckoning for the past calendar year after his move to Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia. The Portuguese forward scored 38 goals in 44 games for the Saudi Pro League team in 2023, but trailed Son and Kim in a vote by 63 Asian football experts.

Son was outstanding for club team Tottenham Hotspur in the closing months of last year, scoring 12 goals to plug the mammoth gap left by the exit of Harry Kane for Bayern Munich. He struck eight times for his country in 2023, and finished the year with 27 goals for Spurs and South Korea.

Kim Min-jae ran international colleague Son a close second after starring for Napoli and Bayern Munich. Photo: AFP

Centre-back Kim was voted best defender in Serie A after an integral role in Napoli winning the club’s first Italian championship since a Diego Maradona-inspired team claimed the 1989-90 title.

He is now playing alongside Kane, after Bayern paid a reported US$55 million (HK$430m), a record sum for an Asian footballer, to take the 27-year-old from Napoli in the summer.

The voting delivered a reminder of the mountainous challenge Hong Kong will encounter when they face Iran in the AFC Asian Cup finals in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Iran striker Mehdi Taremi, last year’s runner-up, finished fifth. His international colleagues, Sardar Azmoun and Alireza Jahanbakhsh, were 12th and 23rd, respectively.

The duo of Kaoru Mitoma and Takefusa Kubo, members of the Japan team who are favourites to win a record-extending fifth Asian Cup for the country, placed fourth and sixth in the vote.

Iran striker Mehdi Taremi placed fifth in the voting and will be in action against Hong Kong in Qatar. Photo: AFP
Son was uncharacteristically quiet when South Korea beat Bahrain 3-1 in their opening game in Qatar on Monday, but was, perhaps, keeping his powder dry for the business end of a tournament he hopes will bring a first major team honour of a career bursting with individual gongs.

The 31-year-old has topped the best footballer in Asia poll nine times in all, winning the prize in 2014 and 2015, before launching his monopoly in 2017.

The first edition of the award, organised by Chinese sports newspaper Titan Sports, was won by Japan’s former AC Milan midfielder Keisuke Honda.

Striker Shinji Okazaki is the only other player to deny Son, walking off with the trophy in 2016 following his prominent role in Leicester City’s remarkable English Premier League winning campaign.