Manuel Sánchez Gómez
London, Oct 4 (EFE).- At fourteen years old, Colombian Jhon Jader Durán needed a permit from his school to be able to attend national tournaments. The director always told the same thing to Wilberth Perea, his coach: “If you go to class and he is there, he has permission.” And Wilberth, as he tells EFE, went and was not there: “He stayed at home listening to reggaeton, it made him want to throw it out the window.”
That fourteen-year-old boy, who at that time was playing in the youth ranks of Envigado, is now the best striker in minutes/goal ratio in Europe and the second in the history of the Premier League, only behind Erling Haaland. Durán, 20, plays for Aston Villa and is the ace up Unai Emery’s sleeve, to whom he has gifted five goals from the bench this season.
“You have the physical strength of Lukaku, but you can do the movements of Luis Suárez,” recalls Perea from Colombia, the man who accompanied him since his arrival at the age of fourteen at Envigado, a youth team that produced James Rodríguez, Juan Fernando Quintero, Mateus Uribe, Fredy Guarín and Yaser Asprilla, until his departure to Chicago Fire.
Envigado, according to a CIES study, is the second club in the world to give opportunities to its young people, only behind Athletic Club de Bilbao.
This is how Durán moved to that town near Medellín, arriving to play as a winger.
“He played as a winger, eh? But I spoke with the managers so that we could look at the possibility of converting him to a 9 in the area. I was going to be in charge of giving him all the concepts, the information, the formation of that new position and the managers They agreed. A comprehensive development plan was designed where the player was given many tools in that new position. He had an impressive campaign in the Envigado under-15 category, being the top scorer, I also took him to the Antioquia team and there he had it. his first call to the Colombian Minor team,” said Perea.
To make Durán a guaranteed ‘9’, Perea showed him videos of forwards like Juan Pablo Ángel, when he played for River Plate, Luis Suárez, Radamel Falcao and David Villa.
“Forwards who make spectacular movements. I told him, you have more or less the physical strength of a player like Lukaku, but you can improve the movements like Luis Suárez does, like Falcao does or like Juan Pablo Ángel did. And those These are the models that we are going to use to begin providing information and training in this new position,” he said.
Perea says that he met Durán half an hour before training to show him the videos and that after the exercises he stayed with him a little longer to head the ball.
“You have to be one of the best headers because you are strong, you are a dark-haired man with quick fiber, you are powerful, but you have to learn to head. And he sometimes got upset because I finished training, but he had to stay with me for 20 or 30 more minutes. Then together with teacher James Rodríguez, James’ father, who was my assistant at the time, we dedicated ourselves to throwing balls at him,” he told EFE.
“Sometimes he finished training with a headache,” he said, “but I called that formula, that formula: twenty balls for two dollars. I always told him ‘bring two dollars to training’ and right there he told me: ‘Professor, Are you going to throw me 20 balls?’,” and me; ‘Yes, sir, you have to be the best.’
Included in “The Guardian” list of the sixty best prospects in the world in 2020, the Colombian made the jump to Chicago Fire in January 2022, to go a year later to Aston Villa, where his participation in the first season was scarce. Twelve games, zero goals.
He improved in the second, with eight goals in 36 games, including two against Liverpool in added time and three in European competition. However, aware that the presence of Ollie Watkins was closing the door for him and that Unai Emery’s scheme does not favor having two strikers, Durán looked for a way out in the summer and found it at West Ham United.
The forward even appeared in a video on his social networks making the gesture crossing his arms typical of the ‘Hammers’ and everything seemed sealed. Until Emery appeared, grabbed him and told him to stay, that it was going to be important. A few weeks later he scored on the first day of the league at West Ham, but still wearing the Aston Villa shirt.
“He has always been an extroverted person, with a strong temperament. An impressive character and I think that is what helps him sustain himself in this environment,” recalled Perea, who does not hide the soccer player’s school difficulties.
“He had no shortage of problems, especially at school. It was crazy. It is essential in Envigado that the players prepare academically to be able to play and Jhon, at school, sometimes did not go to study, he did not meet the academic requirements, then the club because of that was not going to provide him with permission to play national tournament or League matches,” he added.
“Because for us,” he continued, “the priority was always the study, the integral growth of the person. He was very clueless with that academic subject. So I had to go to his school and talk to the teachers so that they could do it.” improvement plans and for them to help me with the permits. I promised to help them with the tasks and to give him the opportunity to compete.
The technician remembers that every time he came to process a permit, they told him the same thing: “Professor Perea, enter the classroom, if you find it we will give you permission.”
“And I went in and he was never there. I was at his house. I lived a few blocks from the school. Then he was there at his house, listening to music, that reggaeton thing they call. I came to his house furious and I felt like to grab him and throw him out the window,” he said.
Perea, who remains in constant communication with the Villa striker and whom he wrote to after he scored a spectacular goal over Manuel Neuer to defeat Bayern Munich, does not hesitate to praise the player’s way of being.
“John is a spectacular human being, sometimes he is impulsive. He has the body of a giant, but he still has the soul of a child, so you have to know how to direct him, you have to talk to him a lot, and that was the task I did. You have to knowing how to guide him and he always needs that paternal support from someone who is talking to him. Unai is helping him and believe me, that is how he gets the best out of him,” he said. EFE
