Napoli’s ‘monster defender’ Kim Min-jae, who leads Italian professional football Serie A, contributed to the team’s victory by tying up Mourinho’s AS Roma’s offensive line with ‘zero effective shots’.

AS Roma coach Jose Mourinho also praised his opponent Kim Min-jae.

Napoli defeated AS Roma 2-1 in a home game in the 20th round of Italian Serie A in the 2022-2023 season at Diego Armando Maradona Stadium in Naples, Italy.

According to Naples local media, etc., after the game, coach Mourinho said, “Kim Min-jae and Amir Rahmani are players with very strong interpersonal defense. Kim Min-jae is a fantastic player.”

AS Roma’s Dybala, who participated in 14 league games and scored 7 goals, played as the right striker among the three-tops, but only shot 1 shot without an effective shot.

Lorenzo Pellegrini, who started as a left striker, also had only one shot, but even that was not an effective shot.

Central striker Tammy Abraham didn’t shoot at all.

Kim Min-jae, who mainly faced them, played an impregnable defense, recording 9 kicks and 2 shooting jerseys, the most among both teams according to the soccer statistics site Who Score tally.

In particular, the number of kicks is close to twice that of Rachmani or opponent central defender Chris Smalling (more than 5 times).

Kim Min-jae, who climbed to the top of the half line and put pressure on the opponent’s three-top, slowed down Roma’s attack by stealing the ball or creating a foul, and blocked counterattacks by stopping all attackers running into the back space with quick feet.

Kim Min-jae, who entered the ‘big league’ for the first time, has been meeting with prestigious teams one after another and is doing well to block star strikers from all over the world.

Kim Min-jae, who made it difficult for Olivier Giroud (France) in the AC Milan match at the beginning of the season, Romelu Lucaru (Belgium) and Lautaro Martinez (Argentina) in the match against Inter Milan on the 5th, and Angel Di, the main player in winning the World Cup, against Juventus on the 14th Maria (Argentina) tied without scoring.

Napoli, which Kim Min-jae keeps in the rear, is not only at the top of the rankings, but also has the least points conceded (15 goals) this season.

In today’s game, there was also a scene of Kim Min-jae’s mistake, which led to an own goal crisis.

In the 12th minute of the first half, when a long pass flew into Napoli’s penalty box, Min-jae Kim overcame contention and hit a header.

Fortunately, the ball bounced on the ground a few times and then slightly missed the side of the goal, resulting in no goals.

At the pre-press conference held on the 28th, coach Mourinho suddenly mentioned Kim Min-jae, saying, “I will tell you a story about a Napoli player.” 안전놀이터

When asked how many players of Dybala’s level there are in Napoli, he said, “There are no players of that level,” but “There are great players. I will tell you a story about one of them.”

Mourinho, who said that this player was Kim Min-jae, wanted to recruit Kim Min-jae as Tottenham coach, and even made video calls with Kim Min-jae two or three times, but regretted that he had to give up on the club’s unsatisfactory response because he did not want to spend money.

Mourinho took over the helm of Tottenham in November 2019 as the successor to former coach Pochettino and coached Son Heung-min for about a year and a half.