Aston Villa returned to the Champions League after 41 years away, and have started well.
The team led by Unai Emery beat Young Boys and, more impressively, Bayern Munich in the first two matchday's of the tournament and has already done a good part of its work to not be eliminated in the league phase.
There are several key figures in the Villa side, but just as Emiliano Martínez stands out for his remarkable saves, so does Jhon Durán for his goals, as he scored the winner in the game against Bayern.
Neuer in no man’s land and Villa’s super sub strikes again 🤯
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The 20-year-old striker has been a great revelation in European football at the beginning of the 2024-2025 season.
This explosion of goal scoring form is a handy addition for a team that, after its victory against Bayern Munich, has something to look forward to in this edition of the Champions League; at the same time that it is only two points from the top of the Premier League table after of six games.
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Who is Jhon Durán? Aston Villa forward a revelation this season
He debuted in Envigado, Colombia at the age of 15 and scored a goal in the First Division before turning 16.
The Chicago Fire of the MLS bought him at the age of 17 and took him to the United States in January 2022, where he scored 8 goals in 28 games (15 as a starter).
Just one year later, he earned a transfer of 16.6 million Euros to the Premier League and Aston Villa, the third most expensive sale in the history of the MLS.
Durán did not score in the first 15 games of his first season in England, as he struggled for game time, but last season he began to show what he can do in a club that has a top centre forward in Ollie Watkins.
With 448 minutes in the Conference League (10 games, 4 as a starter) and 475 in the Premier (23 games, 3 as a starter), Durán scored 7 goals in 2023-2024.
This season he already has six goals in nine official matches in the Premier, the Champions and the Carabao Cup.
He is Aston Villa's top scorer, with Watkins only scoring 4 goals; Erling Haaland is the only striker among Premier League clubs with more goals than him.
Durán's effectiveness is the most striking thing about his form: he has accumulated 20 shots in these nine games, eight were on target and six of them ended in a goal.
No player in the main European leagues has more goals per 90 minutes than Durán: he scores 1.75 goals every 90 minutes, which is more than Haaland's 1.5 or Porto's Samu Omorodion's 1.57.
Aston Villa will hope he can continue the hot form domestically and on the continent; Villa's next match in the Champions League is against Bologna, and fans can watch it live and exclusive on Stan Sport.
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