Sorry Son Heung-min but South Korea’s got a new soccer star. After scoring twice in South Korea's World Cup match against Ghana, Cho Gue-sung is experiencing a meteoric rise in popularity. This is due to his performancein the match.

In addition to praising Cho for his accomplishments, the media in South Korea also lauded his good looks, referring to him as a "face genius" and "a man who came out of an illustration."

The Previous Lost

Following South Korea's recent '2022 World Cup' loss to Ghana, South Korean athlete Song Heung Min began to receive hate comments on his personal Instagram.

After the game, South Korean national team captain Song Heung Min stated,

Son Heung Min wore a face mask throughout the game to protect his injury following orbital fracture surgery earlier this month. Despite an injury that had not fully healed, Son Heung Min did not hesitate to attempt a header shot, touching the hearts of many fans.

However, not all South Korean netizens were pleased with the results, and they flocked to Son Heung Min's personal Instagram account to leave derogatory comments.

The New Soccer Star

Cho Gue-sung, a handsome forward for South Korea, is experiencing a meteoric rise in popularity, as evidenced by the skyrocketing number of followers he has on Instagram.

This is despite the fact that his team was defeated by Ghana in a group stage match at this year's World Cup by a score of 3-2 on Monday.

The Instagram account of the 24-year-old only had five posts when December 1 rolled around, but it already had more than 1.6 million followers. Before the World Cup, he only had 20,000 in his account.

Cho's number of followers skyrocketed to approximately 700,000 after South Korea's first World Cup match against Uruguay on November 24. In that match, Cho played only 23 minutes during the second half.

His number of followers skyrocketed to nearly 1.5 million after he scored both of his team's goals in their match against Ghana. This marked the first time that a South Korean player had scored two goals in a single World Cup game.

That is the second highest number of followers for a Korean footballer on Instagram, behind only Son Heung-min, who is the captain of the South Korean national team and a star for the English Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur. Tottenham has 9 million followers.

While praising Cho's two goals, South Korean media also complimented his handsome looks, calling him a "face genius" in headlines - a term frequently used in South Korea to refer to good-looking people - as well as "a man who came out of an illustration" and "the next Ahn Jung-hwan," a retired legendary South Korea striker famous for his model-like looks.

Cho said after the match against Ghana, according to media reports.

Already, footballclubs in Europe are keeping a close eye on him. Lee Young-pyo, a former soccerstar who is now the vice president of the Korea FootballAssociation, revealed on a local radio program that he had received a phone call about Cho from the technical director of a well-known European team.

Cho Facts

Cho, who was born on January 25, 1998, was thought to be too skinny to be an attacker only two years ago; at 1.88 meters tall and 77kg (170lb), he was nicknamed "anchovy," a common nickname for skinny people in South Korea. He gained weight after joining the army and now weighs 82kg.

In 2020, he will join Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, which plays in South Korea's top soccerleague, K League 1. He was the joint top scorer in K League 1 in the 2022 season, which ended on October 29, with 17 goals, sharing the title with Jeju United's Min Kyu-joo. He is well-known for his pre-game routine of listening to piano collections by Japanese pianist Joe Hisaishi.

Final Words

According to reports, the Turkish club Fenerbahce SK and the French club Stade Rennais have also reached out to Lee about Cho.

Cho is being hailed as the newest "man god" to emerge from South Korea by the media in Hong Kong, so it is inevitable that major commercial brands will be vying for his endorsement in the near future if they haven't already.