Napoli triumph over Jose Mourinho's Roma in tight 2-1 win

SSC Napoli beat Jose Mourinho’s Roma 2-1 on Sunday to move 13 points clear at the top of the Serie A table.

Roma's Tammy Abraham, left, jumps to head the ball against Napoli's Kim Min-jae during a Serie A match in Naples on Sunday. [AFP/YONHAP]

SSC Napoli beat Jose Mourinho’s Roma 2-1 on Sunday to move 13 points clear at the top of the Serie A table.

Napoli’s goals came from Victor Osimhen and Giovanni Simeone, with the Argentinian substitute saving Napoli from a draw with a late effort in the 86th minute.

The Partenopei fielded their A team against Roma, with the consistently dominant lineup including Osimhen, Hirving Lozano and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia up front, Piotr Zieliński, Stanislav Lobotka and Andrea Zambo Anguissa in the middle and the unbreakable, or mostly unbreakable, Kim Min-jae, Amir Rrahmani, Giovanni Di Lorenzo and Mário Rui in the back.

Korean center-back Kim put in a strong performance at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, but one slip up with a poorly placed back header almost ended up as own goal, luckily ricocheting off the post at the last minute.

In the buildup to the Napoli-Roma match, Roma manager Mourinho had praised Kim, who he had attempted to sign while managing Tottenham Hotspur.

“I wanted to sign Kim Min-jae when I was at Tottenham,” Mourinho said Saturday in a press conference ahead of the Sunday game. “I had some FaceTime calls with him.

"Our bid was 5 million euros, [Beijing Guoan] wanted 10 million euros ($11 million) for Kim and for Tottenham, that wasn’t possible at that point. Now look at Kim and his level, he’s a top player."

Napoli star Kim was a Tottenham target for years, under Mourinho, Nuno Espírito Santo and Antonio Conte. The club tried to buy him during the Mourinho years when Kim played for Beijing Guoan in China, then again under Conte when he moved to Fenerbahce in the Turkish Super Lig.

On neither occasion was Tottenham able to pull the trigger and the 26-year-old ended up going to Napoli for a reported fee of around 18.05 million euros. Six months later, elite European teams are lining up to try and trigger his release clause, reportedly around 45 million euros, this summer.

Kim is now a key part of a fiery Napoli lineup that have lost just one league game since April and only three games across all tournaments since the 2022-23 season began.

Napoli will be back in action on Sunday as they take on Spezia in a Serie A clash. Unusually for Kim fans in Korea, that game will actually be watchable here as the kick-off is at 8:30 p.m., Korea time.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]