I don’t think there’s a more perfect debut season than this. Kim Min-jae (26, Naples) was once again nominated for Italian Serie A Player of the Month.
Kim Min-jae was named among the five candidates for the ‘Player of the Month’ announced on the Serie A official website on the 22nd (local time). Kim Min-jae played in all three regular league games of the team played this month, and played full-time in two games, excluding the match against Atalanta on the 12th, when he was replaced in the second half due to a calf injury. Napoli, currently leading Serie A (71 points, 23 wins, 2 draws, 2 losses), recorded 2 wins and 1 loss in 3 games. Kim Min-jae contributed to the team’s two scoreless victories.
The Serie A Player of the 메이저사이트Month award sponsored by EA Sports, a sports game company, analyzes the data recorded by the Hawkeye system by sports data analysis company Stats Perform to determine five candidates, and Kim Min-jae is nominated for the second time this season. In September of last year, he was nominated for the first time and was the first Asian national player to be selected as the Serie A Player of the Month.
Kim Min-jae challenges a new history. Since the 2019-2020 season, when Serie A started awarding the player of the month, the only player who has been awarded the player of the month twice in one season is teammate Hvica Kvarachhelia this season. Kvarachhelia won the Player of the Month award in August and February last year. Kvarachhelia was also nominated this time. Kim Min-jae competes with Kvarachhelia, Armand Loriente (Sassuolo), Adrien Rabiot (Juventus), and Destiny Udozi (Udinese) for the Player of the Month award. Among the five candidates, the defenders are Kim Min-jae and left-back Do-ji Woo, who has confirmed a transfer to Tottenham next season. The Serie A Player of the Month is chosen through fan voting.
Kim Min-jae’s stock price is rising steeply. After the 1st and 2nd leg of the last 16 Champions League of the last European Football Federation (UEFA), all were listed in the Best 11. And Napoli coach Luciano Spalletti said to Kim Min-jae, “I do at least 20 amazing things in every game. He was the best defender in the world to me.”
Even in the post-season transfer market, he is a player that big clubs pay attention to. Britain’s ‘Daily Mail’ reminded that Kim Min-jae could leave the team with a valid buyout clause for overseas clubs this summer, and said, “Kim Min-jae has earned the nickname ‘monster’ for his overwhelming performance in Serie A. He runs and fights like an ancient Roman gladiator and is not afraid of a physical fight.” He also mentioned that he is not highly valued, saying, “If he was a European player, he would have been worth 176 million pounds (about 278 billion won).”