Last season, Bayern Munich was collectively not good enough under Thomas Tuchel even though they came very close to reaching the Champions League final at Wembley. While there were certainly a handful of players that still had decent individual seasons, on the other end of the spectrum, there were far too many players that did not live up to their expectations, contributing to what was the club’s first season without silverware in over a decade.
After starting off the 2023/24 season positively, Kim Min-jae was one of the player’s in Bayern’s squad that started to struggle for consistency and he began to fall out of favor under Tuchel. He never really looked as strong as he did in the beginning glimpses of the season after he returned from international duty with South Korea at the Asian Cup in the winter. Tuchel’s preference at center back became Eric Dier and Matthijs de Ligt, but even De Ligt had his injury struggles towards the end of the season. In total, Kim made 36 appearances across all competitions for Bayern last season, with most of the starts coming in the Hinrunde before he had international duty with South Korea.
With the €50 million price tag last summer when Kim joined from SSC Napoli just after helping them secure their first Scudetto in 30 years, the expectations of Kim were very high, but he now has a fresh chance to rectify himself under Vincent Kompany. As things are looking now in preseason, he is reportedly already well working towards that. Per information from Tz’s Philipp Kessler (via @iMiaSanMia), Kim is already impressing Bayern’s bosses in preseason preparations thus far and they feel “the hungry defensive monster is back.” He was dubbed “the monster” last season for Bayern after some positive performance towards the beginning of the season.
After last season, Kim is determined and committed to having a strong season under Kompany and is ready to fight for his starting spot. It is still not 100% whether or not Matthijs De Ligt will leave Bayern this summer or if Jonathan Tah will be joining from Bayer Leverkusen, but as things stand, Kim will be competing for a starting spot against De Ligt, Dier, Dayot Upamecano at center-back, though new signing Hiroki Ito can also be center-back as well as Josip Stanišić.
It has also been noted that Kim’s overall mood and aura has been much more positive since returning from summer holiday than it was during the ending phases of last season when he was not getting starting minutes. He is spending a lot of time with the fans after training sessions and signing autographs as well was helping Ito acclimate into the squad.
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