Benfica Nears Deal for Duran as Al-Nassr Gamble Resets

Benfica are closing in on a deal for Colombian forward Duran, a move that could offer the 22-year-old a badly needed reset and hand Marco Silva another weapon for a long, demanding season.

According to Portuguese outlet A Bola, the Lisbon club are finalising a loan agreement with Al-Nassr for the striker, who is expected to arrive at Estadio da Luz in the coming days. The Saudi Pro League side will co-fund the move, reportedly taking on the bulk of his sizeable wages to make the deal viable for Benfica.

It is a remarkable turn in a career that, not long ago, looked set on a very different trajectory. Al-Nassr paid €77 million to prise Duran away from Villa in January 2025, handing him a contract worth around €20 million per year and tying him down until 2030. He arrived in Riyadh as a statement signing. He leaves, for now, as a project.

The numbers in Saudi Arabia tell the story. Just 18 appearances across domestic and continental competitions, no sustained run in the side, and no sense that he ever truly settled. This week, Al-Nassr CEO Jose Semedo gave the green light for the player to find a new club and relaunch a career that has stalled at worrying speed.

The search has led him to Lisbon, but only after a pair of detours that did little to rebuild his reputation. Loan spells at Fenerbahce and Zenit St Petersburg never caught fire. In Russia, disciplinary issues compounded the footballing frustrations, ending with Duran frozen out of the first team and watching from the sidelines as his momentum drained away.

The consequences were brutal at international level. Once a regular feature for Colombia, with 17 caps to his name, he saw his lack of club minutes punished. When the 2026 World Cup squad was announced, his name was missing.

Benfica are betting that this is the moment the narrative changes.

Duran is scheduled to undergo his medical on arrival in Lisbon before officially joining up with Silva’s squad. The plan is to throw him straight into pre-season work, to fast-track his understanding of Benfica’s tactical demands and his relationships with new teammates. There will be no gentle easing-in; the calendar does not allow for it.

Silva’s side face a season loaded with expectation and fixtures. Domestically, Benfica are under constant pressure to contest every trophy. On top of that sits the expanded Champions League league phase, a format that will test the depth and resilience of every squad at Europe’s top clubs.

In that context, Duran’s arrival is not a luxury. It is reinforcement.

Benfica’s frontline will be asked to carry the team through intense runs of games, and the Colombian’s profile — a powerful, international-level forward still young enough to be moulded — fits the club’s model. For Duran, it is something even more valuable: a clear stage, in a football-mad city, at a club that knows how to polish rough edges and sell stars back to the elite.

The stakes are obvious. If this loan works, Benfica gain a dynamic option for their attack and potentially a major asset for the future. If it doesn’t, Duran risks becoming another cautionary tale of a big-money move that never quite recovered.

For now, the next step is simple: pass the medical, pull on the red shirt, and convince a demanding crowd that this is not the end of a story, but the restart of one.