Chelsea inadvertently ended up helping Napoli last summer with the timing of their move for defender Kalidou Koulibaly.
That’s according to Gazzetta dello Sport, who say the Blues decision to sign Koulibaly at the point that they did ended up helping Napoli to secure the signature of defender Kim Min-jae.
Kim has been one of the stars for Napoli this season, putting in a series of impressive performances in central defence as they’ve flown ahead at the top of Serie A.
He arrived at the club in an €18m deal from Fenerbahce at the end of July as a replacement for Koulibaly, who had brought an end to his eight-year association with the club by moving to Chelsea in a €38m deal in the middle of that month.
Gazzetta explain that Kim had actually been on Napoli’s radar since 2019, when he was suggested to the club and they began to scout him extensively.
They eventually became convinced he was the ideal replacement for Koulibaly but needed the latter to depart so they could finance the deal with Fenerbahce.
That is where ‘luck’ came to play its part as fortunately for Napoli, Chelsea ‘moved concretely’ for Koulibaly in mid-July.
That meant Napoli were ‘just in time’ to convince Kim to turn down a move to Rennes and sign for them instead. The newspaper explains that ‘had Chelsea moved a week later’, Kim would have moved to France.
Instead, they got their man and he’s since established himself as one of the rising stars in Europe, so much so that he is now being touted for a move to the Premier League himself in the summer.
Whether that happens remains to be seen but his current success story can be attributed to Chelsea in some small part, as their decision to move for Koulibaly when they did meant he was able to move to Naples in the first place.
