Vincent Kompany is full of praise: a rejected transfer turns into a stroke of luck for Bayern Munich

Bayern Munich eventually sweep VfB Stuttgart aside and once again celebrate a home gala to start the Bundesliga season. In the shadow of the attacking artists, a supposed candidate for sale also finally becomes the summer’s secret winner.

Even a few weeks ago, Vincent Kompany was still keen to present Min-Jae Kim in the best possible light in public. After all, the South Korean was still seen as a candidate to be sold. He had carried that status since Jonathan Tah's arrival last summer, and it became even more firmly entrenched after last season, when Kim spent most of the big games on the bench.

According to countless reports at the time, Kim would have been allowed to leave Bayern Munich if a suitable offer had arrived. There were said to have been genuinely concrete enquiries, sometimes more advanced and sometimes less so, for both the club and the centre-back himself. But Kim in particular allegedly turned down one interested club after another, such as Manchester United, Aston Villa and Arsenal.

Bayern are now benefiting enormously from that decision. In the first two competitive matches of the season, the South Korean was surprisingly named in the starting line-up once in place of Dayot Upamecano and once in place of Tah, and impressed both in the Supercup against Borussia Dortmund and in the 5-1 gala at the start of the Bundesliga season against Stuttgart.

Vincent Kompany raves about Kim at Bayern Munich: "He reacted correctly in every situation"

For Kompany, that naturally came as no surprise. Even a few weeks ago, when he made a clear case for Bayern's nominal number three centre-back, it was obvious how highly the record champions' coach rates Kim, and that he does not see the hierarchy in Munich's central defence anywhere near as clearly as the press do.

When Bayern stopped in Kim's home country at the start of August as part of their Asia tour, Kompany practically waxed lyrical about the player many saw as second choice. "Don't say everything so absolutely," Kompany admonished the travelling reporters when asked about Kim's supposedly looming role as a long-term reserve once again: "We are talking here about competition that I like. The most important thing is to prove yourself on the pitch. In that respect, I have to compliment Min-Jae. No matter what happens, he stays focused and lets his actions do the talking on the pitch."

Kompany said he had often wanted to speak to the 29-year-old last season, when Kim was only able to play a bigger role in the final weeks of the already decided Bundesliga campaign, but repeatedly thought better of it. "I had many situations in which I thought: Maybe now is the right moment to speak with Min-Jae," Kompany said. "Sometimes I spoke with him, sometimes I left him alone. In every situation, he reacted correctly and gave everything in training and on the pitch."

Min-Jae Kim enjoys a high standing at Bayern Munich: "Great character"

Bayern are now reaping the rewards of Kompany's squad management and Kim's calm, highly professional handling of the situation. As planned, the forthcoming season is famously not supposed to end until 5 June 2027 in Madrid. A long stretch of strain lies ahead for Bayern's professionals on the way there, and that comes after an extremely short summer break because of the World Cup, which is likely to still be in Upamecano's legs in particular. Kompany was not wrong to rest the World Cup semi-finalist against Borussia Dortmund in the Supercup.

That makes it all the more timely that Bayern did not let a currently absolutely reliable alternative in Kim leave this summer. Look at it the other way round and it was a stroke of luck for Bayern that the former "monster" from Napoli chose against leaving and in favour of the battle for places in Munich. His departure would certainly have brought the club another hefty fee, but it would also have cost them an important squad player who is already allowing them to manage the workload at the start of the season without concern.

Especially given Kim enjoys an extremely high standing within the squad, contrary to certain assumptions based on his rather shy nature. "A great character, everyone in the team likes him," Serge Gnabry said a few months ago, for example, about Kim, who very rarely appears in public.

Kompany also only recently stressed that the South Korean is in fact a real life and soul of the party. "People don't even know that he also has an incredible sense of humour," the Belgian said: "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."

Min-Jae Kim at Bayern Munich: Error-prone instead of "monster"

On the pitch, though, what "people" had associated with Kim since his arrival in Munich in 2023 was at times, and eventually increasingly often, far less flattering.

In the 2023/24 season, he made two mistakes in the first leg of the semi-final against Real Madrid, which then-coach Thomas Tuchel even criticised publicly before dropping Kim in favour of Matthijs de Ligt and Eric Dier.

Critics pushed the line of error-prone instead of "monster" particularly after his weak displays against Inter Milan in the Champions League quarter-final ties, where he was at least involved in three of the four goals conceded. What many forgot was this: by that point, because of his long trips with the national team and the general scheduling, Kim was one of the players with the heaviest workload in the world. FIFPro even publicly sounded the alarm over him and warned of long-term health damage for the South Korean, who at the time was anyway struggling through the rest of the season from winter onwards with persistent Achilles tendon problems.

Min-Jae Kim is content with a backup role at Bayern Munich

Perhaps because of that history as well, Kim himself seemed anything but dissatisfied when Bayern signed Tah on a free transfer last summer and placed him ahead of him in the pecking order. Tah immediately became a regular starter and even part of the leadership group, while Kim was left on the bench from then on.

"I had never experienced a long period in which I wasn't playing, so it was a bit difficult at first. But over time I realised that it also has a positive side," he told the Korean outlet Footballist in mid-April: "I always thought that playing constantly was the solution, but now I'm satisfied with my situation as a challenger."

He said the same again in August after Kompany had praised him to the skies. "I'm very happy to be able to measure myself against Jonathan Tah and Dayot Upamecano," he said then: "At Bayern Munich there is strong competition every season. But we also get on well with one another. And we talk a lot, so I am very satisfied. I can learn a lot from them."

Dayot Upamecano could serve as a role model for Kim at Bayern Munich

Upamecano may even serve as a role model for him. After his move from RB Leipzig, the Frenchman also initially built up a dubious reputation as a blunder-prone lightweight, or even "Calamity Upa", as Bild dubbed him after his legendary horror show against Borussia Mönchengladbach in the DFB Cup in the historic 5-0 thrashing.

Time and again, sometimes hair-raising mistakes that led to goals crept into the game of the hugely talented centre-back. But he has now almost completely eradicated them. Upamecano is regarded as one of the best centre-backs in the world. That may not apply to Kim, but one thing has been very clear this summer: the South Korean again looks more like the "monster" from Italy, the player Bayern once considered worth a fee of 50 million euros.

Min-Jae Kim is Bayern Munich's secret winner of the summer

At least that is what the first two competitive matches of the season suggested, because in performance terms the South Korean has, for the time being, shaken off his dubious reputation for errors. Against Borussia Dortmund, Kim turned in a fundamentally solid display and was even better than Tah alongside him. Against Stuttgart in the Bundesliga opener, he also did not let an early misunderstanding with Joshua Kimmich unsettle him.

Both the South Korean and the over-motivated Germany captain went up for the header, Kimmich inadvertently flicked it into the path of Dzenan Pejcinovic, but Upamecano cleared. Kim then confirmed the positive impressions from pre-season, playing several intelligent flat passes in the build-up, looking extremely dynamic in running duels and resolute in challenges on the ground and in the air.

Fully fit is how Kim looks at the start of the season. He may indeed be benefiting from the fact that last season he was on the pitch for "only" 2,051 minutes rather than the 3593 of the previous year, and some of those came while he was badly hampered, while he often had to give way to Tah and Upamecano. It gives the impression that his time as the clear number three in central defence has done him good physically above all, but mentally too.

For Kompany and Bayern, that is a blessing. It still seems very unlikely at present, despite Kim's remarkable development, that a serious battle for places in central defence will emerge in the end and that the Belgian will break up the established Upamecano-Tah duo even in the most important games of the season. But you should "not say everything so absolutely".

Min-Jae Kim: Statistics and performance data at Bayern Munich