Fred, a Brazilian player, unveiled some of the carious conversations he had when he was a teammate of Jhon Durán, who was loaned by Al Nassr to Fenerbahçe, before being now given to Benfica.
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05/10/2026
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Jhon Durán arrived this season at Benfica, hired by Al Nassr's loan until the end of the season, and the eagles have an optional purchase clause to close the 30 million euros, which would be added to the 6.1 million euros already paid by temporary compromise.
At the beginning of October, Brazilian average Fred, a former colleague of his at Fenerbahçe, told some stories about the Colombian spearhead in a conversation in Charla Podcast.
The first was about money and how it affected Jhon Durán's work ethic – which may interest Rui Costa and Benfica's management, if you are thinking of investing this amount in the athlete.
“He doesn’t care about anything. He's a good person, but we used to play games with him and we said, "Let's train, let's run," and he said, 'I'm already rich, I don't need to run.' When he went to Zenit, he told him ‘you will make even more money’ and he ‘the more, the better’. But you can see that you have a good heart”, started by saying the Brazilian international.
The truth is that the contract he managed to reach in the Saudis of Al Nassr was, according to Fred, “surreal”, having the centercamper revealed that Durán has “buyed the entire Colombia.”.
“Al Nassr made a surreal contract with him and already bought the entire Colombia. I'd be pissed at him, but it was a great fun. It's an excellent advance. I think he's gonna have a daughter now and he's calmed down. I hope so”, completed.
It should be recalled that, in the event that the optional purchasing clause is not exercised, Benfica will have “a right of preference in a loan scenario for the period 2027/28”, as indicated in the statement of the eagles to the CMVM.
The South American’s Lifelong Path
Hired by Al Nassr to Aston Villa in January last year, for an incredible 77 million euros, Jhon Durán formed a double attack with Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo on Riyadh's team, for which he scored 12 goals in 18 games.
Set aside by Jorge Jesus, then in the technical command of Al Nassr, Durán was, a few months later, given to Fenerbahçe, who was trained by José Mourinho, having even participated in the two games that the Turks fought with Benfica, in the playoff of access to the single league phase of the Champions League.
However, and after 21 matches and five goals in the Turkish jersey, Durán left Istanbul to head to Russia and represent Zenit in the second half of last season, again on loan from Al Nassr, but the record in St Petersburg was limited to a goal in six meetings.
Graduated in Envigado, from Colombia, Durán also went through football from the United States of America, serving the Chicago Fire – at the time he was appointed to Benfica before the move to the Major League Soccer (MLS), arousing the interest of Aston Villa, which disbursed 29.5 million euros to hire the advance in 2023. In the two years in Birmingham, the international cafetero played 78 games and scored 20 goals.
Despite having participated in most of Colombia's qualifying games for the recent 2026 World Cup, Durán ended up out of the election for the final round, in which fellow countryman Richard Ríos, who will now be reunited in the eagles, was.