The pearl of Girona who labeled t-shirts in the shop and worked as a gardener

GironaIn Girona, the name Minsu Kim (Gwangju, 2006) is on everyone's lips these days. The great performances of the pearl of the white-and-red academy during preseason, including a brace in Olot, are advocating for him to secure a place in the first team squad managed by Quique Álvarez, who already coached him in the reserves before he went on loan to Andorra last season, where he exploded in the Second Division, with 6 goals and 4 assists in 40 games. The Korean, however, is out of contract next year and has the interest of several teams on the table. If Girona, which has already started talks, doesn't act quickly, they will lose him.

Girona is not just another team in Minsu's life, who in 2016 left his country and landed in Catalonia with his mother to try his luck in the world of football, leaving his father with his two sisters in South Korea. Minsu, at Girona, has not only debuted in the Champions League – he played 11 minutes in the 4-0 defeat against PSV on November 5, 2024 – but has also tagged shirts in the store and cut the grass of the stadium. “It was through the Projecte singular program, designed for those students with difficulties in completing Compulsory Secondary Education. It adapts the course, covering a part of minimum studies, and brings them closer to real work environments, in companies that train them,” explains the former deputy director of the Maristes school, Francesc Coll, now retired, who was responsible on a pedagogical level for the Girona footballers of educational age who attended the center from 2019 until last year.

“He was only there for a year and only lived a daytime life, because he lived with his mother in an apartment in the city, but he left a great memory,” confesses Coll, who recalls that, “when he signed for Girona in 2022, he was supposed to be in his fourth year of ESO. But with the potential and sporting aspirations he had, it was impossible for him to go through a normal and ordinary procedure. Managing more than ten subjects, morning and afternoon classes, training… It was unfeasible, but he had the conditions to be included in the program, and that’s what we did.” The project was coordinated together with the Girona City Council and the Generalitat.

Two days a week, Minsu studied Catalan, Spanish, English, mathematics, and social studies; and the other three days he worked at Girona, which was also his football team, it was the chosen company. “I’ve seen many come and go, this is like a factory. Every year a good number came and left. But I can assure you that he has been one of the best: he is very polite and responsible. Although his main priority was football, and there was a tremendous demand there, he knew he had to study and get his degree. His mother made that clear to him. And he did. Minsu has the degree, and not everyone passes”.

“Attitude and good will”

The Korean, while sacrificing himself in the afternoons with the aim of standing out in Girona's reserve team, spent his mornings at the club's facilities, on the other side of the pitch. “They had him go through the maintenance area or the shop, with the kit managers and the office staff. When we got feedback from the club, everyone agreed on the same thing, he tried and made an effort even though he didn't like doing it,” adds Coll, who summarizes it perfectly: “It's common sense that selling t-shirts or working as a gardener isn't the specialty of someone who wants to be a footballer. But even if he wasn't interested, he made it seem like he was. If they put him in front of the shop window to attend to customers, even if it was noticeable that he didn't master that space, he put on a good face and tried to be liked. He always showed attitude and good will.” His tutor, Montse, could attest to that.

Now, Minsu's destiny in Girona's first team is up in the air. Not even the footballer himself is clear about it, as he warned a few days ago, in statements where his inexperience with the media played a trick on him, and he left the door open for an exit: “I want to help out here, but if I have better opportunities, I'm willing to do anything.” Coll cannot give an answer. “The kid has skill, but so far he's lacked that little touch of luck that is needed to have stability in the first team. We'll see what happens,” he concludes.