What we want from a game of football, and from our team, varies from one fan to another. For some, all that matters is that the team wins. For others, the game is merely the backdrop to spending time with friends and family, while for plenty more, they want to see moments that are spectacular, that will live in the memory for years to come, the thought of which will illuminate those more mundane moments that make up the supporting life.

Those Aberdeen fans who made the trek down to Tannadice a few weeks ago, they were able to enjoy a rare hat-trick, all three of those boxes ticked by a battling performance from the team, enjoyed amidst the 3,000 strong travelling family, all ignited by a moment of the sublime from Duk, a goal that will form a part of Aberdeen folklore for many years to come.

Like any club, we revere those players who can produce something out of the ordinary, who can turn a monochrome afternoon into a technicolour dream. So it is that we rightly reminisce regularly about the likes of Joe Harper, Eoin Jess, Gordon Strachan, Hicham Zerouali, Jimmy Smith, Peter Weir or Zoltan Varga. But their genius for producing the unlikely or turning the impossible into reality before your very eyes should not blind us to those modern day occasions when it happens.

It has been a tough couple of years on the road for the Red Army with very few wins to enjoy and more than one horror movie to endure along the way. But some of that was atoned for at Tannadice. Those of us who were fortunate enough to be there realised that we had witnessed something special when, on the run across a six-yard box which, like all the rest at this time of the year, is more suitable for cabbages than kings, Duk produced a nonchalant back heel to bemuse the United backline and send the Dons into the lead.

So, as they say on the telly, “Duk, talk us through your goal…”

“It was not a bad goal! What I remember of it, when the ball was played over, I believed that I could win the ball. I ran over to get it and when I won the ball, I thought, ‘Now I am going to score!’

‘The finish was just complete instinct. It was something that came to me in the moment. It is not something you practice doing but the important thing is that I put the ball in the goal. You see, when a player is happy, he can do things like that because he does not have pressure to stop him. I am very happy at the moment.

“I am not sure if that goal was my best finish this season though. There was also the goal against Ross County. That was a good goal. I will say that that one maybe was one of my best goals!”

That Duk can score that kind of goal speaks volumes for his confidence, something that was instilled in him right from the moment he signed for the Dons last summer.

“When I first arrived in Scotland, and spoke to the then manager Jim Goodwin, he said to me, ‘You will score 20 goals.’ I said to him, ‘Wow! That is not easy! But I can try. As I am now on 13, I do think I can get to the 20 goal mark before the end of this season, so I hope he was right!”

There are plenty of examples in football’s history of poachers turning gamekeeper, those players who started out as goalscorers moving back through the team and ending up in the business of keeping the goals out. Duk, as it turns out, has made the opposite journey through his career.

“At U9, U10, U11 and U12, I was a centre-back. Seriously! It was not because I was particularly tall at that age, but I was aggressive and I won a lot of balls in the air. So I went to Sporting Lisbon to play as a central defender.

“I do actually believe that having played as a defender, even at a young age, it does help me now because I know a little bit of what a defender is thinking. What a defender does not like. I try to do that to make it difficult for them.”

At the age of 17, Duk joined the Benfica Youth Academy, an operation that enjoys a stellar reputation, not merely in Portugal, but worldwide. There are 60 graduates of the academy playing in Europe’s top divisions at present, including Bernardo Silva, Ederson, Ruben Dias, Joao Cancelo and Victor Linelof.
A striker by the time he arrived at the Benfica Academy, they helped Duk hone his game into the rapier sharp instrument that it now is.

“I feel very fortunate that I was able to play there. From my experience there, you can see that it is a fantastic club with a fantastic youth academy. I think it is the best in the world. They have produced so many players over the years. The number of players is incredible, and they have produced players that have real quality.

“At Benfica you are encouraged to go out and express yourself and show your skills. They don’t put too much pressure on you to play in a certain way, or worry too much about the tactical side of the game. That can come later.

“It is like this at Aberdeen, I have been able to go out and play my game. I have not had to adapt too much to Scottish football. I have not had to change anything. I enjoy the physical side of the game, especially here in Scotland. I think I am quite strong, and although I am not tall, I like to fight with the centre-backs! It is part of my game.”

Another part of his game is scoring goals, as we mentioned 15 of them to date and as he explains, he is hungry to add plenty more to that tally before the season ends.

“I can’t explain the feeling of scoring a goal. It is as if you have never scored a goal before, and this is the very first one you have scored. The sensation is unbelievable. And for me it is the same feeling, whether it is a special goal or it is an easy one. As long as the ball goes in the net, this is all that matters.”

Strike partnerships are a crucial ingredient of any successful team and while they might not yet by Black and McGhee or Harper and Jarvie, the Duk and Miovski double act is an enjoyable watch for the red army and one of the best in Scotland at present.

“Bojan is a good guy, a fantastic player. I enjoy very much playing with him. I think we have a good partnership. As a striker, having that relationship with another striker is fantastic. It takes time to build an understanding, but the more minutes we have together, the better we can understand each other. It is not just spending time on the pitch and the training pitch, we spend time together away from the pitch as well, which is very important I think.

“But this is the same with all of the players here. We have a fantastic group. It is like a family. We need to be a family to win games. There is good morale in the dressing room because we all support each other and this is the most important thing in football. We need to be a family.

“We have a very young team so we can improve. We also have players who have experience like Shinnie, Jonny, Joe and Angus. They help us a lot. When you have a very young squad, that experience is important. We need to play more games together.”

As well as drawing on the experienced players around him, Duk is enjoying the relationship that he is building with the supporters, drawing on them to help produce his best form, week after week.

“It is always a pleasure to play here and play in front of the Aberdeen supporters. We have fantastic supporters at home and away from home. Taking 3,000 fans to an away game in unbelievable.

“As a player, when you get the backing that I do from the fans, it gives you a lot more confidence when you go onto the pitch. And confidence is a big thing for any player. When you have a good relationship with the fans it is very special. They help me do unbelievable things. I think it has happened to me every game. I go onto the pitch with the confidence, with the support behind me.

“When I am out and about in Aberdeen, I get a lot of fans coming up and speaking to me. I like that, it is an important part of my job to give something back and spend time with them.

“This is a really good city. I feel so much at home, sometimes it feels like I was born here! I really like living here and playing here. The supporters are fantastic.

“My family were over to visit me a couple of weeks ago. They saw the game against Livingston, they really liked the atmosphere. It was great to spend time with them. I should also say it was my mum who gave me my haircut!

“My family watch all the games on RedTV and they are all big Aberdeen fans now, so it was great they were able to come over for a game.

“It is hard leaving your family and moving to another country, but it is what you need to do when you are a professional footballer. It is just the way it needs to be. I am here to achieve my objectives in my career, so I need to do these things.”