Bayern Munich’s Kim Min-jae staying positive despite recent benching
Playing time has been hard to come by for Kim Min-jae.
Bayern Munich dispatched SV Darmstadt 98 by a score of 5-2 on Saturday, but there was one player still attempting to sort our a role that he is quite unfamiliar with — a spot on the bench.
Center-back Kim Min-jae has — at least temporarily — lost his role as a starter given the emergence of Matthijs de Ligt and Eric Dier as a steady and dependable combination in the middle of the defense.
For Min-jae, it is not something that he is accustomed to.
“I’ve never experienced this before, but I think I can learn something from it. Just because I’m not playing doesn’t mean I’m completely thrown off track. I always have confidence in my abilities when I go on the pitch. Of course, I’m thinking a lot at the moment. So far, I’ve played a lot of games, but because there are so many good players here at Bayern, it can happen that I don’t play,” Min-jae told t-online’s Julian Buhl (as captured by @iMiaSanMia). ”I used to often always be on the pitch even though I thought I wasn’t good enough. But now I think that whether I play well or not depends on the team’s performance and my teammates. I’m not particularly unhappy and I’m continuing to train hard as always.”
Min-jae appears to be handling the situation in the best way possible and using this as fuel for his motivation. However, this statement is at least a little interesting: “But now I think that whether I play well or not depends on the team’s performance.”
While we do not know the full context of what he meant, Min-jae could be either saying he relates his performances to the team’s win/loss record — or that some of the way he has played is tied to how others immediately surrounding him play.
Whatever the meaning, the South Korean probably did need some downtime to recharge himself after a rugged schedule for club and country anyway. With a clear head and fresh legs, he is poised to be very impactful when he eventually returns to a more prominent role.
