NEW YORK (Thursday, July 14, 2022) – Chicago Fire FC forward Jhon Durán was voted the Major League Soccer Player of the Week presented by Continental Tire for the 20th week of the 2022 MLS season.
Durán scored his first career brace in the club’s 2-0 win at Soldier Field against Toronto FC (Watch Highlights from His Performance Here). He is the second-youngest player (18 years, 212 days) in club history to produce a multi-goal game, behind only DaMarcus Beasley (18 years, 98 days), who did so on August 30, 2000 against FC Dallas. Since the start of 2020, Durán is the second-youngest player to score multiple goals in a match, with only Ricardo Pepi accomplishing the feat at a younger age (18 years, 169 days) when he produced a brace versus the New England Revolution on June 27, 2021. Among all current teenagers in MLS, Durán is tied for the most goals (three), assists (three) and goal contributions (six) this season.
Durán opened the scoring in the fourth minute after forcing a turnover in his own half, sprinting with the ball from the halfway line, and finishing it off with a perfect near-post effort that wrong-footed the Toronto goalkeeper (Watch Here). In the 16th minute, the Colombian completed his brace after Brian Gutierrez provided a spectacular backheel flick to Durán, who sprinted past a defender and curled his shot around the goalkeeper for a 2-0 Fire lead (Watch Here).
With three goals in 2022, Durán is tied with Kacper Przybylko and Xherdan Shaqiri for the most goals by a Fire player. Additionally, his three assists on the season rank as the third most by a Chicago player, behind Shaqiri (seven) and Gutierrez (five). Durán is the youngest player in MLS to lead his team in scoring and is the first Chicago teenager to score at least three goals in a season since Justin Mapp (three) in 2004.
Durán is the youngest player in Fire history to win MLS Player of the Week presented by Continental Tire and the first to do so since Luka Stojanović in Week 18 of 2021. He also becomes the youngest player to win MLS Player of the Week presented by Continental Tire honors since Ricardo Pepi in Week 15 of 2021.
Chicago will look to win consecutive games at home when they host Seattle Sounders FC at Soldier Field on Saturday, July 16 (8 p.m. ET, MLS LIVE on ESPN+).
The MLS Player of the Week presented by Continental Tire is selected each week of the regular season through both media and fan voting in a process conducted by MLS Communications. A panel of journalists from the North American Soccer Reporters (NASR) comprises 75 percent of the vote, while a Twitter fan vote represents the remaining 25 percent of voting. NASR consists of members of print, television, radio and online media.
