How Aston Villa found their uncut gem in MLS - and how to do it again.
When David Beckham joined LA Galaxy in 2007, he became the first Designated Player in MLS history.
The Designated Player Rule allowed franchises to sign and nominate three players exempt from the salary cap, allowing MLS sides to compete for the signature of high-profile players and therefore attract more interest to the league. The ‘Beckham rule’ paved the way for the likes of Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Andrea Pirlo and Kaká to move to North America. Even now, franchises use their Designated Player slots for marquee names, including the greatest of them all:Olivier Giroud Lionel Messi.
But while enticing such veterans was once central to the league’s strategy for growth, now it lies somewhere on the periphery. What’s replaced it is forward-thinking, dynamic, and holistic. Where once MLS was defined by the glittering stars of a fading past, today it is a conduit for an electric future. And there’s little more electric in modern football than the thunderous left foot of Jhon Durán.
Though big-money incomingsare still frequent*,* today MLS reaches European headlines equally as often for their exports - who were once smart purchases themselves. Aston Villa plucked Durán from Chicago Fire in January 2023, just a year after the MLS club pulled him from Colombia. He has since run his hammer of a foot through some of the best teams in the world. He’s still just 20 years old.
The question is whether Durán’s story - which netted the Fire an easy €14.9m profit - is prescriptive of a wider, repeatable strategy. To find out, we’ll have to dig into the weeds. Where did Durán come from? How did Aston Villa know he’d tear up the Premier League? Can MLS do this again, and again, in their bid to help define football’s future? And how might clubs go looking for the next big thing developing in the States?
This is Operation Jhon Durán: how a Premier League-breaking forward was built in America.
In this analytical epic…
Explained: Major League Soccer’s recruitment phenomenon
Case Study: Chicago Fire and the fiery Colombian
In Practice: Finding the next record-breaking MLS export
Why do MLS clubs sign young South American players?
Chicago Fire discovered Jhon Durán in Colombia, as a teenager at his hometown club, Envigado FC. Fire joined the throng of MLS outfits scouring South America when they signed the 17-year-old for a meaty $2m, but they were far from the first. Durán’s discovery owes to a long line of South-America-to-MLS-imports - a trend that has recently caught fire.
The spark was Atlanta United.
Ahead of their first-ever MLS campaign in 2017, Atlanta signed a 22-year-old Miguel Almirón from Lanús for $7.5m. In 2018, the club broke the MLS transfer record by signing a 19-year-old Esequiel Barco from Independiente for $15 million. The following year, they broke the record for incomingand outgoing transfers.
On January 24, 2019, they signed Gonzalo ‘Pity’ Martínez for $15.5m from River Plate. A week later, they sold Almirón for an MLS-record $27 million to Newcastle United. The meta had been set.
In the last two years, the Five Stripes have repeated the trick. They signed Thiago Almada from his boyhood club Vélez Sarsfield for a record fee in 2022. After winning 2022 MLS Newcomer of the Year and 2023 MLS Young Player of the Year, he was sold for a potentially league-record $30 million, if certain conditions are met, at the start of this year.
According to Transfermarkt, seven of the top 10 most profitable exports in MLS history are South American - six of those were signed directly from South American clubs. The only exception is Carlos Gruezo. The Ecuadorian was signed from VfB Stuttgart having joined the Bundesliga side from Guayaquil-based Serie A side Barcelona Sporting Club. He is just once removed from our path.
Atlanta United’s spreading formula is simple:sign South American players directly from South America. Not only can this benefit the team immediately - Atlanta won an MLS Cup and U.S. Open Cup in their first two years - but the potentially record-breaking resale value allows for more investment in the recruitment process: more signings and a larger scouting presence in South America, better on-pitch results, and greater financial prospects.
And so we return to Jhon Durán, third on our earlier list of most profitable MLS exports.
As the club’s former Sporting Director Georg Heitz alluded to in the press release announcing Durán’s move to Aston Villa, the MLS U22 Initiative has entrenched this recruitment meta.
“When we originally scouted Jhon as a 16-year-old, we knew that he had the potential to become one of the top young strikers in the world. Jhon’s rapid development is a testament to his hard work and the investment from our coaching staff and many individuals throughout the Club. Additionally, this transfer is another example of the benefits of theMLS U-22 Initiative, which was a key factor in our ability to sign Jhon two years ago.”
As of July 18 2024, the rules and regulations for MLS Roster Composition are around 8,000 words long. If you want to try to digest them all, here is the**link**. For the sake of this article, I have picked out the key points from the U22 Initiative announcement in April 2021.
The U22 Initiative allows MLS clubs to sign up to three young players, age 22 and younger, to lucrative contracts at a reduced budget charge, decreasing the risk associated with acquiring or retaining players who are still approaching their prime.
International players are eligible when they sign their first MLS contract.
Players can occupy the U22 initiative slot through the season they turn 25 years old.
This means that MLS clubs can sign eligible players for unrestricted fees. But the most important part is that even if they agree to pay the player the maximum Salary Budget charge of $683,750, only a maximum of $200,000 will be deducted from their Salary Budget - for players aged 20 or younger, like Durán, the cost is capped at $150,000.
In 2024, clubs can also elect to follow the U22 Initiative Player Model for their Roster Construction, which grants a bonus U22 Initiative Player slot at the expense of a Designated Player slot: one more Durán for one less Christian Benteke.
This model also grants up to $2m in addition General Allocation Money, which must be used in the same season. This kitty can be used to decrease Salary Budget Charges of Designated Players to from $683,750 to $150,000.
The U22 Initiative therefore adds a third potential benefit to this recruitment approach. In a dream scenario, not only will the player provide immediate improvement on the pitch and deliver potentially record-breaking profit from a future sale, but they also provide financial flexibility for squad building during their time at the club.
In Durán’s case, two out of three boxes were ticked.
Although he finished as the club’s top scorer in 2022, the Fire finished 12th out of 14 in the Eastern Conference and 24th out of 28 teams overall. Team improvement box: not ticked.
However, we can suggest he ticked the squad building box.
Despite not being able to play for the club until his 18th birthday the following January, the Fire signed Durán at the beginning of 2021 as a 17-year-old, making him the youngest international signing in MLS history. By acquiring Durán a year earlier with a maximum Salary Budget Cost of $150,000, the Fire would have had more Salary Budget available to secure a marquee signing ahead of the 2022 campaign. Enter Xherdan Shaqiri, for a club-record fee of $7.5 million.
Although I have made a few jumps, the signing of Shaqiri demonstrates how signing young playerscould enable a club to sanction ambitious and expensive acquisitions - but it will never guarantee their success.
Despite the lack of on-field success, we know that Durán became the third-most profitable sale in MLS history when he signed for Aston Villa. This, combined with the initial $10 million sale of Gabriel Slonina to Chelsea, allowed Chicago Fire to break their club record transfer fee again this year, signing Belgian striker Hugo Cuypers for $12m from Gent - they don’t make Designated Players like they used to! Profit box: ticked. Two out of three is not bad.
Now we know why Chicago Fire spent $2m on a 17-year-old, let’s find out why Aston Villa paid 1000% more two years later.
Operation Jhon Durán
It sounds obvious, but the first thing to highlight is Jhon Durán’s age. When pulling SkillCorner coverage of the 2022 MLS campaign, only six centre-forwards that matched the minimum threshold of eight 60-minute matches were born in the year 2000 or later; five were born in the year 2000 while Durán was born in 2003.
This context is important. Durán is at least three years younger than any other player that will appear in our search. Even if he does not appear as a freakish anomaly for every metric, a teenager operating in the top 15% of players would deserve extra attention.
Fortunately, Jhon Duránwas a freak.
Editor’s note: from here on out, SkillCorner metrics will be capitalised to distinguish them from generic concepts - so ‘Runs’ here means those quantified in the data.
Durán is a very quick boy capable of making defence-stretching Runs. I have used the per 60 minutes of ball-in-play (P60 BIP) indicator to get a broader sense of physical output. It would not have taken long to notice this elite physical capacity.
But we need more.
When trying to uncover what Aston Villa might have seen in Durán, I first investigated the Volume and Threat of his Runs. Take a look at the scatter plots below.
When looking at the number of Runs made, the number of Dangerous Runs and even the percentage of Runs that were Threatening, Durán is below average for all three metrics.
Even when bearing in mind his age and focussing purely on Runs in Behind, the Colombian does not stand out.
Below is a full breakdown of Durán’s off-ball running output, including the**three most common off-ball Run types** for centre-forwards: Runs in Behind, Runs Ahead of the Ball and Cross Receiver Runs.
So whatdid Aston Villa find?
If Durán did not set off alarm bells when pouring over the most Threatening runners, what might have stood out to Villa? Why did they decide to pay $22m for a 19-year-old centre-forward after one MLS season?
As we know, the Colombian did not make a huge number of Runs. He made even fewer Dangerous Runs and the overall xT was in the red.
But, if we look at what happenedafter he received the ball, everything becomes clear.
Despite the lower volume of Runs and even lower xT, Durán ranked well for Runs Leading to Shots and even better for Runs Leading to Goals.
This teenager was the only centre-forward whose Runs led to at least one goal per 30 minutes of team possession. This metric almost works as a scale for the famous football chant ‘give the ball to [insert your favourite player’s name] and he will score’. Changing the ‘he’ to ‘we’ and it would be perfect.
To explore this outlying efficiency further, I looked at thepercentage of Runs leading to a Shot or Goal. Also, because onlyreceived Runs can lead to a Shot - see the below definitions - we can drill down further and look at the percentage ofreceived runs leading to a Shot or Goal.
Count runs in behind leading to shot: Number of Runs in Behind performed by the player where he received the ball and it led to a Shotfrom the team in the 10 seconds following the pass from the passer.
Count runs in behind leading to goal: Number of Runs in Behind performed by the player where he received the ball and it led to a Goalfrom the team in the 10 seconds following the pass from the passer.
During the 2022 MLS campaign, 32.8% of Durán’s received runs led to a shot, the third-highest percentage. 13.1% were converted into a goal - 0.2% off Willy Agada in first place, but no more than 8.3% of any other player’s received runs lead to a goal.
If you consider all Runs made, the team converted Durán’s runs into Goals at a better rate than any other player’s.
When Jhon Durán receives the ball, there is an above-average chance that Chicago Fire will score a goal. Whether it’s Duran himself or teammate.
Now he stands out.
My point is that careful consideration is required before ruling out a player based purely on the Threat of their Runs. What if that player consistently outperforms the expectation of an average player?
This is where analysis of player quality and athleticism become important.
If a player is in the top 10% for Dangerous and Threatening Runs but the team is failing to generate a Shot after they receive the ball, it could suggest a skill issue or physical limitation. They may not have the technical quality to manipulate a shot or find a teammate. They may not have the speed and strength to hold off a defender to create further separation and execute their next action. Depending on their age and numerous other factors, these are issues the player may not be able to solve.
However, if a shot is generated from a third of a player’s received passes, like Durán, the coaches can devise tactics and patterns of play designed to present more opportunities for that player to make more runs, while encouraging and facilitating their teammates to increase their attempts to find said player.
InOperation Jhon Durán, Unai Emery now takes centre stage.
A manager like Unai Emery may be confident in his ability to provide an environment that maximises the threat and increases the efficiency of a player’s runs.
So, the club’s priority would be to find Emery a player with the physical capacity to make those runs and the technical ability to convert them into chances. Or rather, a player that ranks well for the second half of metrics from this holistic table of Durán’s off-ball running profile.
The theory is that, regardless of whether a player has the necessary tools to consistently out-perform the average player, Emery’s coaching will boost the top half.
Although Ollie Watkins’ data would not have been available when signing Durán, I am going to use it to demonstrate how a manager can dictate a player’s output. First, let’s start with a Watkins quote from April 2023.
“Before, maybe I was running into the channels and into the corners and doing a lot of work for the team. Now, I’m staying within the width of the box and timing my runs.”
Not a single lie was told. This data from aSkillCorner case study proves it.
In 2021/22, 55.5% of Watkins’ runs were made in the central channel. This increased to 62.4% in 2022/23 and 64.8% in 2023/24.
In 2021/22, 12.9% of Watkins’ runs were made in the widest channels. This decreased to 8% in 2022/23 and 6.8% in 2023/24.
This snapshot further illustrates how Emery’s coaching has transformed Watkins into a more disciplined and threatening off-ball runner.
Despite the number of total Runs decreasing as the time the pair spent together has increased, the number of Dangerous Runs, the percentage of his Runs that are Dangerousand the average xT have all improved. Then you notice that in spite of that overall drop, the quantityand quality of Runs in Behind have also increased.
This is evidence that Emery can add threat to a player’s runs through coaching and tactical instructions. Therefore, any recruitment brief should focus on discovering a striker that has thecapacity to make those runs and help turn them into goals, or at the very least, shots for his team.
In Watkins’ case, the Emery Effect also boosted the conversion numbers that made Durán stand out.
Through his coaching and his tactics, Emery maximises the output and efficiency of his strikers. That is the environment Aston Villa provides.
Contemplating how a manager will value different metrics based on their philosophy and style of play, similar to the club models discussed in our***Striker Factories*** piece, is an interesting way to interrogate data. It also demonstrates why a uniform approach must run through the entire club. The recruitment team and the coaching staff must be completely in sync.
From the outside, it appears that Aston Villa’s recruitment team understood that. So, perhaps when scouting for centre-forwards, they would have prioritised searching for a skillset that would benefit the most from that coaching.
Consider this dynamic: if a manager is confident that chances will be created for a player that matches a specific physical criteria - which can be Benchmarked usingSkillCorner data - the recruitment could focus on first creating a shortlist that ensures these chances will land in safe hands - or rather, at safe feet.
Given his super-sub status, we have to reduce the minimum minutes per match threshold to 30 minutes for Durán to appear in aSkillCorner search of Premier League centre-forwards since 2023/24. It’s also worth highlighting that Durán still has more career MLS minutes than Premier League playing time. So, take this with a pinch of salt, but…
It looks like “throw the madman in and he’s scoring one or two” is one of football’s most accurate chant lyrics.
If Durán adds disciplined, dangerous off-ball-running to his game and improves at the same rate as Ollie Watkins, the £18 million transfer fee Villa paid for the Colombian will triple, if not increase four-fold.
The next Jhon Durán
I appreciate this has been a substantial barrage of information and I have veered off on a few tangents. So, let’s knit it all together.
How can MLS sides marry their league’s recruitment meta with the increased specialisation of scouting within European sides? Simple: sign players, developprofiles.
From an MLS franchise perspective, finding the next John Durán is about the discovery of young players with the core physical pre-requisites needed for specialised development in the future. In this scenario, we’re scouting South America for those raw materials.
In response to replacing Jarrel Quansah with Ibrahima Konaté at half-time during his first game in charge of Liverpool, Arne Slot**explained**:
“First thing I said was we don’t have to speak about tactics if we lose so many duels and that’s what we did.”
After Manchester City’s 0-4 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur, Pep Guardiola**alluded** to a similar concept:
“The moment they create the chances, the build-up, we couldn't handle the duels like normal. Now we're struggling a little bit.”
Rodri adds many things to City, brutal athleticism is chief among them.
Therefore, if MLS clubs want to develop players suitable for the richest leagues, they must aim to find physical profiles that can scale to the incredible demands of the Premier League.
Here is a quick comparison between MLS and the Premier League to highlight the physical level of England’s top-flight.
Using these metrics as benchmark figures, I searched Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru for a player born in 2004 with a physical profile that belies their age. I foundDiego Basilio León Blanco.
The 2008-born left-back made his senior debut for boyhood club Cerro Porteño this season and has locked down a starting spot. Of course, the Paraguayan Primera División is nowhere near the intensity of the Premier League. But León’s individual output is.
I have highlighted Antonee Robinson due to his reputation as one of the quickest players in the Premier League, let alone full-back. Milos Kerkez and Destiny Udogie act as reference points for U22 Premier League full-backs. Finally, Caleb Wiley is evidence that this is a profitable profile to develop - his move to Chelsea is the 10th-highest sale in MLS history - so his 2024 MLS output is another good marker.
For León to be operating at this level as a 17-year-old in his first season in senior football deserves attention. The apparent dearth of left-footed full-backs makes the Paraguayan an even more intriguing prospect.
Another player that caught my eye wasCatriel Cabellos. The 2004-born midfielder is on loan at Alianza Lima in the Peruvian top-flight from Racing Club in Argentina.
Dominik Szoboszlai, Conor Gallagher and Pape Matar Sarr have been highlighted as reference points for ground-gobbling midfielders across No.8 and No.10 roles. I have also added 2004-born Quinn Sullivan as a malleable homegrown MLS prospect to keep an eye on.
Among the 683 datapoints in this midfielder search, Cabellos ranks first for High Intensity Actions per 60 ball-in-play minutes.
Finding the next Jhon Durán from theAston Villa perspective, however, requires an added layer of refinement.
As we have discussed, Durán had three out of four core attributes for a meta centre-forward upon joining Villa: size, speed, and lots of shots. Arguably the only thing missing was disciplined, dangerous off-ball running. But that is provided by the coaching he receives from Unai Emery or augmented by his individual ability - or both.
So, we are looking for a player that not only has further developed their standout physical attributes, but shows the value of that quality through efficient output in other areas.
If I had written this in the summer,Carlos Andrés Gomez would have been the perfect pick. But the 2002-born winger has already been snapped up by Stade Rennais, joining the Ligue 1 side this summer after a blistering start to the 2024 MLS campaign with Real Salt Lake.
Within 18 months, the Colombian went from a €3.5m club-record signing from Colombia’s Millonarios to a €10m club-record sale. And the outlying attributes that alerted the Rennes recruitment team?
An explosive speed and agility that creates chasms of separation and gives full-backs nightmares.
In MLS, this space allowed Gómez to become one of the most prolific and dangerous crossers in the league. What he does with it in France may change depending on the coach’s instructions. The key here is the physical profile that enables him to generate those opportunities.
During his brief stay, his 13 goals and 7 assists in 22 appearances during the 2024 MLS campaign provided the foundation for Real Salt Lake’s club-record single-season points haul.Operation Durán executed flawlessly.
So, who is thenextnextJhon Durán? Is there a South American gem that could generate record-breaking revenue for their franchise… or the entire league?
In Durán and Gómez, we have covered centre-forward and winger profiles. We also dipped our toes into the full-back pool via the discovery of Diego Léon and touched on box-to-box midfielders with Catriel Cabellos.
So, let’s search MLS for the press-resistant metronome every club wants to plonk in their pivot.
To apply the Durán school of thought to this profile, identifying a player able to deal with pressure is the main priority. The quality of a player’s ball retention (percentage) is more important than the quantity (volume). In this hypothetical situation, we expect the volume and even the xT of any passes to scale based on the new environment or alternative tactical instructions.
EnterFederico Redondo.
Although it is likely that Redondo would face more pressure were he to move to Europe, the fact he ranks in the top 10% of MLS midfielders for Ball Retention Under Pressure and Ball Retention Under Medium Pressure is a big tick. His 84.5% Ball Retention Under High Pressure is also very impressive.
In fact, when compared to all eligible U22 Initiative midfielders during the 2024 MLS season, Redondo ranks first for this metric.
Signed by Inter Miami for €7.5m from Argentinos Juniors as an U22 Initiative replacement for the injured Facundo Farías, it would not be a surprise if he became the first €20m MLS export. The Argentine is 1.88m tall and has displayed an ability to deal with pressure beyond his years. That profile will fit plenty of Winter Transfer Window briefs.
By staying in tune with tactical trends and beginning the crafting process with their scouting and development, MLS clubs can increase the number of exports to Europe. As we outlined in the first section, doing this can provide three benefits: improved on-pitch performance, greater financial flexibility, and potential record-breaking profits.
Clubs looking to polish talent from MLS and other untapped markets into Europe’s most wanted must consider two things:
does this player have a standout technical skill of physical capability that will allow them to consistently outperform the average player in a specific situation?
what environment does our club provide in terms of tactical style and coaching speciality, and how could this affect their output?
Finding the next Jhon Durán is about approaching a market with clarity on how to answer those two questions. Having confidence in your ability to scale output in certain areas allows for a more focussed search of others, while an awareness of which metrics begin quantify individual quality will help to interrogate the search further.
What I have tried to highlight is the room for developing leagues - like MLS - to take advantage of this. By analysing Europe’s most sought-after profiles and using them to inform the continued exploration of the South American market, MLS clubs can tick all three of those boxes more often.
The dream outcome is the following:
Signing and accommodating players with elite base attributes for specific player profiles will raise the level of MLS
Raising the level of MLS will result in the development of higher-quality players
Higher-quality players will lead to stronger performances from MLS teams in continental competitions
Stronger franchise performance will attract more interest from European clubs
Increased interest from European clubs will deliver consistently record-breaking revenue
Record-breaking revenue allows for improved scouting and more funds for transfers
The cycle continues.
If MLS franchises have been focussed purely on unearthing the South American gems, the smartest will now start to cut them into a rough shapebeforeEurope’s elite apply the polish.
End.
All data is correct as of 26 November 2025 unless otherwise stated.
This newsletter was produced under a commercial collaboration with SkillCorner, SCOUTED’s official data partners. Their tracking and performance data is used by more than 150 of the world’s biggest clubs, leagues and confederations.Learn more.