Jhon Duran has joined Benfica on loan, making the Portuguese club the seventh of his career at just 22 years old. The Colombia international arrives having had recent spells with Fenerbahce and Zenit St Petersburg, where he scored three goals in nine appearances.
Benfica will pay a loan fee of £5.19m, with the option to sign Duran permanently for £25.5m at the end of the 2026-27 season. The striker was full of enthusiasm upon completing the move. “I am happy! I continue to say that it is the biggest club in Portugal. I am very grateful to be here,” he said. “I have very high expectations of being here. I want to play well, give my all and become champion.”
Duran’s career has been anything but straightforward. He started out with Colombian side Envigado in 2019 before moving to MLS club Chicago Fire in 2022. A £14m switch to Aston Villa followed in January 2023, where he became a fan favourite — most memorably scoring a Champions League winner against Bayern Munich. A proposed move to West Ham fell through in the summer of 2024, but that goal against Bayern helped convince Al-Nassr to pay £71m for him in January 2025.
His time in Saudi Arabia yielded eight goals in 13 games, yet he departed after just half a season to join Fenerbahce on loan. That spell unravelled quickly when manager Jose Mourinho was sacked less than a month after Duran’s debut, leading to the loan being cancelled in February 2026. He then moved to Zenit St Petersburg, where he scored three goals in nine games before this latest switch.
Benfica are now the seventh club Duran has represented across seven different countries before his 23rd birthday. Whether this move finally brings the stability his career has lacked remains to be seen, but the option to make the deal permanent suggests both parties are open to a longer-term future together.
Image credit: BBC Sport / BBC Sport
