(Football news) Napoli have signed South Korean centre back Kim Min-jae from Turkish Süper Lig club Fenerbahçe, the Serie A club made the signing official on Wednesday. The 25-year-old already agreed to his personal terms as Napoli paid €19.5m a to Fenerbahçe. He will now have the difficult task of replacing their former club captain Kalidou Koulibaly who left Napoli after eight years to join Chelsea earlier this month. The 31-year-old signed a four-year deal with the English Premier League club on July 16.
Kim moved to Fenerbahçe in August 2021 from Chinese club Beijing Guoan, since then he scored one goal in 39 appearances for the Istanbul-based side. He has also made 42 appearances for South Korea but was forced to sit out of the 2018 World Cup due to a serious injury. Kim is often regarded as a formidable defender when he makes his mark in the backline as his presence even makes the defence even stronger. The South Korean defender left everyone awed by his performance in the 2017 Asian qualifier for the 2018 Russia World Cup, that's when all the top clubs in Europe started taking notice of him
The centre-back is expected to be in the playing eleven as he needs to fill the void left by Koulibaly in the Napoli defence. Kim was subsequently snapped outside a medical centre in Rome on Tuesday which indicated that the Korean defender already underwent a medical before signing a long term contract with Napoli. Napoli previously were looking at Clement Lenglet but he joined Tottenham on a season-long deal from Barcelona. According to reports, Tottenham were in for the Korean defender as Antonio Conte looks to add one more defender to the squad. The Korean will now partner Amir Rrahmani in the defence as he will only become Napoli’s 3rd signing of this summer after they signed Khvicha Kvaratshelia and Mathias Olivera. Napoli have already lost three key players in the form of Lorenzo Insigne, Dries Mertens and Koulibaly as the side from Naples need to sign more players to fill up the void left by these players.
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