Lisbon, July 21 (IANS) Former Aston Villa striker Jhon Duran has joined Benfica from Al-Nassr on loan from the Saudi club through the end of the 2026/27 season. This will be the seventh club of Duran’s career at the age of just 22, following recent stints with Fenerbahce and Zenit St Petersburg.
Benfica will pay a 6.1 million euros loan fee for the Colombia international. The agreement also includes a buyout option at the end of the season in the amount of 30 million euros.
Duran expressed his happiness at beginning this new chapter in his career. “I’m very grateful to God, just as I said when I arrived. I’m happy! I still say that it’s the biggest club in Portugal. I’m very grateful to be here,” he said.
He also expressed great ambition for the future, emphasising his determination to contribute to the team’s success. “I have very high expectations for my time here. I want to play well, give it my all, and become a champion,” Duran stressed.
The latest addition to Marco Silva’s squad also assured everyone of his full commitment to daily training, making a promise to Benfica fans, “I want to work hard and help my team.”
Duran began his professional career with Envigado, a club that has produced some of the big names in Colombian football, and where he completed his entire youth development. In 2021, he was signed by the MLS’s Chicago Fire FC, where he scored eight goals in 28 games.
January 2023, to English club Aston Villa, bringing him across the ocean to the Premier League. In his first few months in one of the world’s top leagues, the forward, who was already a Colombian international, played 12 games by the end of the 2022–23 season.
By the end of the 2024 calendar year, he had scored in four consecutive games and reached 12 goals already a career high. That’s when Saudi football stepped in, and Al-Nassr paid 77 million euros to secure a forward.
The following season (2025/26) he returned to Europe, to Turkey, where he arrived on loan from Al-Nassr to Fenerbahce. While playing for Fenerbahce, he won the Turkish Super Cup and scored 5 goals in 21 games before moving to St. Petersburg also on loan from the Saudis to play for Zenit, the club where he finished the 2025–26 season.
In Russia, he won the first national championship of his career, contributing one goal in six matches played, and added another in one of the three games he played in the Russian Cup.
An international since 2022, Duran has earned 17 caps for Colombia, scoring 3 goals. In 2024, he was part of the Cafeteros squad that reached the Copa América final. In extra time, Colombia lost 1-0 to Argentina.
–IANS
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