Kim Min-jae has the world’s 2nd best aerial play statistics among center backs

Kim Min-jae of South Korea’s national football team has been named No. 2 in the world among center backs based on aerial play statistics.

The CIES Football Observatory under FIFA announced a list of 100 center backs with the best aerial play statistics on Thursday, with Kim in second place. The center backs who played over 900 minutes in this season’s professional matches were ranked based on the indices of their aerial duels, the number of wins, the proportion of wins, and the quality of games in the matches they played for their affiliated teams. Kim received a score of 92.2 points, following Virgil van Dijk, who earned the highest score of 93.0 points. Only two out of 100 players received a score exceeding 90 points.

Both Kim and van Dijk have the advantage of being over 190 centimeters tall and having a solid build. Kim, who led SSC Napoli’s win in Italy's Serie A for the first time in 33 years, has shown outstanding performance since he transferred to FC Bayern Munich in July last year. He was selected as the player of the year in 2023 by the Korea Football Association on January 2 and is playing a key role in the South Korean national football team’s defense line in the Asian Cup Qatar, which is currently taking place.

Van Dijk received the Player of the Year award from the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) in the 2018-2019 season for the first time as a defender. It garnered much attention back then as he was chosen as the award's winner over global football stars, such as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. In 2019, he was named in second place after Messi by Ballon d'Or, which is given to the best players in the world.

Danilo Pereira, Lee Kang-in’s teammate in Paris Saint-Germain, was ranked No. 3 on the list with 89.4 points. Harrison Delbridge of Incheon United is the only K-league player whose name appeared on the list. He was ranked 45th with 82.3 points.


Hong-Gu Kang windup@donga.com