Min-Jae Kim's Fight for a Place at Bayern Munich
On Jeju Island, with the sea breeze rolling in and camera phones everywhere, the question put to Vincent Kompany was blunt: has the Bayern Munich centre-back hierarchy already been decided?
Last season suggested as much. Dayot Upamecano and Jonathan Tah were the nailed-on pairing, Min-Jae Kim the next man up. Nothing so far has hinted at a reshuffle.
Kompany bristled at the idea of anything being set in stone.
“Don’t say everything so absolutely,” he warned, sitting in front of the local and travelling media on the South Korean island, where Bayern are tuning up for the new campaign. This, he stressed, is exactly the kind of battle he wants.
“We are talking here about competition that I like and that I experienced myself at Manchester City,” he said. “The most important thing is to prove yourself on the pitch. In that regard, I pay Min-Jae a compliment. No matter what happens, he stays focused and lets his actions do the talking on the pitch.”
Kim’s long wait, steady response
Kim’s first season in Munich never really caught fire. Early on, he barely featured. The World Cup winner Upamecano and the imposing Tah formed the backbone of Bayern’s defence, and the South Korean often watched from the bench.
Kompany admitted there were moments when he wondered whether to intervene.
“I had many situations in which I thought: maybe now is the right moment to speak with Min-Jae,” he said. “Sometimes I spoke with him, sometimes I left him alone. In every situation, he reacted properly and gave everything in training and on the pitch.”
That attitude earned him minutes when the pressure eased. Once the Bundesliga title race had been wrapped up, Kim began to appear more regularly, banking valuable league time while Upamecano and Tah were preserved for the knockout stages of the cup competitions. It was not the starring role many expected after his move, but it was a clear show of trust: when there was room to rotate, Kim’s name was one of the first called.
Home soil, same fight
Now Bayern have brought the fight for places to Kim’s homeland. On Tuesday, they face Jeju SK FC in a friendly at 1pm local time, a soft launch for a season that will demand depth and resilience at the back.
Kim and Tah are both part of the travelling squad. Upamecano, fresh from France’s run to the World Cup semi-final, remains on special leave. His absence gives the South Korean a little more space, a little more spotlight, but not a free pass.
Kim’s tone, as ever, stays modest.
He hopes, he said, “that the coach gives me many chances” in the coming season. Then came the line that sums him up: “I am very happy to be able to measure myself against Jonathan Tah and Dayot Upamecano. At Bayern Munich, there is strong competition every season. But we also get on well together. And we talk to each other a lot, so I am very satisfied. I can learn a lot from them.”
There is no public frustration, no complaint about last year’s minutes. Just the picture of a defender who understands the size of the club and the scale of the internal battle.
The other side of Min-Jae
Before the session wrapped up, Kompany was asked about a side of Kim that rarely surfaces beyond the dressing room. The coach’s expression changed instantly.
“People don’t even know that he also has an incredible sense of humour,” Kompany said, breaking into a grin. “It’s really true. Whenever a player is standing next to Min-Jae, he starts laughing. That may be the side of him that people don’t know.”
For now, the public image of Kim is still that of the serious defender, the disciplined squad man fighting to climb a hierarchy that currently reads Upamecano, Tah, then him.
But on Jeju, with Bayern’s season beginning to take shape and the competition at centre-back as sharp as ever, the picture is a little richer: a respected teammate, a quiet rival, and, inside that dressing room, the man who makes others laugh.
If he can start making opponents as uncomfortable as he makes his teammates relaxed, that pecking order might not look so fixed for long.
