[골닷컴] Correspondent Kang Dong-hoon = Kim Min-jae (26, Naples) showed off his flawless ‘iron wall defense’ and performed brilliantly. In particular, he perfectly performed the given mission by blocking striker Krzychov Piatek (27), who was once called the “second Lewandowski.”
Kim Min-jae started in the 2022-2023 season Italian Serie A round 19 away match against Salernitana held at Stadio Arechi in Salerno, Italy at 2:00 am (Korean time) on the 22nd, Napoli’s 2-0 ‘zero score’ victory. contributed to
On this day, Kim Min-jae received a “special order” from coach Luciano Spalletti (63, Italy) to thoroughly block Salernitana’s “main gun” Krzychoff Piatek (27). As for the results, he performed the given role perfectly.
In fact, while playing full-time, Kim Min-jae kept catching up with Piatek with man-to-man defense and tied him tightly. He didn’t get pushed back even in an aerial contest, blocking all passes in advance and allowing few opportunities to even touch the ball.
Of course, there was one sad scene. Around the 44th minute of the first half, Kim Min-jae failed to properly handle a long pass that came over to the defensive camp, and in the process, he received a yellow card for raising his foot high toward Piatek’s face.
However, Kim Min-jae regained a sense of stability in the second half and took the lead in a ‘zero score’ victory. Piatek, who was blocked by his ‘iron wall defense’, was silent, not having much influence in the front line, such as only 2 shots on target out of 4 shots.
On this day, Kim Min-jae recorded 3 kicks, 2 tackles, and 2 wins in ball competition. The pass success rate was 93% (136 successful out of 146 attempts). In the process, he made one long pass and created one opportunity. Despite these performances, he received a rating of 7.04 from Whoscored.com, a soccer statistics media outlet, after the match. This was the sixth highest rating for both teams.
Meanwhile, with the win, Napoli continued its 9 match unbeaten run, including 4 consecutive victories in the Derby della Campania, also known as the ‘Campania Derby’. At the same time, they continued to win three consecutive victories in Serie A and kept their first place (16 wins, 2 draws, 1 loss, 50 points). While playing one more game than second place AC Milan (11 wins, 5 draws, 2 losses, 38 points), the gap widened to 12 points.
