Sorry Son Heung-min, South Korea’s got a new soccer star - and he’s grabbing the headlines for more than just his goals
- Cho Gue-sung is enjoying a meteoric rise in popularity after scoring twice in South Korea’s match against Ghana at the World Cup
- While praising Cho’s goals, South Korean media also complimented his handsome looks, calling him a ‘face genius’ and ‘a man who came out of an illustration’
His team may have lost 3-2 to Ghana in Monday’s group stage match at this year’s World Cup, but South Korea’s handsome forward Cho Gue-sung is enjoying a meteoric rise in popularity, highlighted by his skyrocketing number of Instagram followers.
As of December 1, the 24-year-old’s Instagram account with only five posts had more than 1.6 million followers. Before the World Cup, he had only 20,000.
After South Korea’s first World Cup game against Uruguay on November 24, in which Cho played only 23 minutes during the second half, his number of followers soared to about 700,000.
After scoring his team’s two goals against Ghana - the first time a South Korean player had scored two goals in a single World Cup game - his number of followers spiked to nearly 1.5 million.
That’s the second largest number of Instagram followers for a Korean footballer after Son Heung-min, captain of the South Korean national team and a star at English Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur, who 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 often 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.
