Kim Min-jae, who was almost unknown just a year ago, has carved his name into history as the protagonist who led Napoli to its first championship in 33 years.
SSC Napoli drew 1-1 in the 33rd round of the ‘2022-2023 Italian Serie A’ against Udinese held in Udine Friuli, Italy on May 5 (Korean time).
Napoli, who took one point from the game that day, confirmed the Italian Serie A championship regardless of the results of the remaining matches. It was the first win in 33 years since 1990.
Few predicted Napoli’s victory ahead of this season. Rather, the dominant expectation was that the performance would be lower than last season, which finished in third place. This is because Napoli is in a state of ‘rebuilding’ due to financial difficulties.
Napoli said goodbye to the legends who led Napoli in the 2010s, such as Dries Mertens, Lorenzo Insigne, and Kalidou Koulibaly, in the transfer market in the summer of 2022. In addition, key midfielder Fabian Ruiz was also sold for a huge transfer fee.
In their place, players who were close to ‘nameless’ were recruited. Kim Min-jae’s European soccer career was only one year in the Turkish league, and Hvica Kvarachhelia was playing in the Georgia league, a periphery of soccer. A replacement for Fabian was not even recruited. It was absurd to expect a rise in grades. That’s how Napoli succeeded in winning the miraculous league.
In particular, Kim Min-jae’s performance was dazzling. Kim Min-jae was a key member who played as a starter in all 32 games out of 33 league games this season, except for one game he missed due to a disciplinary suspension for a cumulative 4 warnings.
It is all the more surprising because the player he had to replace was Koulibaly, who was named in the Italian Serie A Team of the Year four times and even had a career as the best defender in Serie A. It seemed impossible to fill such a player with an unknown defender from Asia who had only played for one year in the Turkish league. 먹튀검증
The performance that Kim Min-jae showed this season is being praised as being better than any other season of Koulibaly. He is regarded as one of the best defenders in all of Europe. At the end of this season, transfer rumors continue that a ‘big club’ bigger than Naples will take Kim Min-jae.
Kim Min-jae and Naples’ companionship may end in just one year. In that one year, Kim Min-jae engraved his name into the history of Naples.