No player ever wants to hear the letters ‘ACL,’ but Lewis Ferguson had more reason than most to rue the anterior cruciate ligament injury that sidelined him in April. “My first thought was about missing the Euros,” said the midfielder, recalling the moment he was told that he’d play no part for Scotland at Euro 2024. “The timing was difficult to take.”
Ferguson had played the entire 2023/24 season with Euro 2024 “in the back of [his] head.” And what a season it had been. Bologna were flying high and club captain Ferguson had been one of their best players. With Champions League qualification in sight, and the Euros on the horizon, he was preparing for a career crescendo. Then injury struck.
Bologna got over the line and qualified for the Champions League for the first time since 1964, when it was called the European Cup. Ferguson celebrated this achievement knowing he’d played an integral part. The experience of watching Scotland from the sidelines in Germany, however, was altogether different.
“I know they put everything into preparing for every game, but when I’m watching the games, in my head I’m thinking ‘I could be out there helping the guys’” Ferguson recounted of Scotland’s underwhelming Euros showing. “It’s hard when you’re watching your team and they’re in a difficult moment and you’re not there not to play your part. That was definitely difficult.”
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Scotland certainly could have used the quality of a player named the best midfielder in Serie A last season. Barring any setbacks, Steve Clarke will be able to call on Ferguson again in the new year with the 25-year-old now back in first team action for Bologna. Ferguson is expected to be an important part of the national team moving forward.
“I think the performances have been good since the Euros,” said Ferguson. “I think there was always going to be a lot of change after the summer. There were some players that retired and some great young players coming through, so it’s refreshing to see new faces coming into the squad. That’s just natural for a national team. You’re not going to keep the same team for 10 years.”
It’s somewhat unfortunate for Ferguson that he plays in the strongest area of the Scotland squad.
He surely would have more than 12 caps to his name if it weren’t for the likes of John McGinn, Scott McTominay and Billy Gilmour being ahead of him in the pecking order. The standard is high in Scotland’s central midfield.
Ferguson’s return from injury, however, coincides with a growing desire for Scotland to be more attack-minded. Only Serbia scored fewer goals at Euro 2024 than Scotland who also exited the tournament with the lowest Expected Goals (xG) of any participant. If Ben Doak and Ryan Gauld have evolved Scotland as an attacking outfit since the summer, Ferguson and his goalscoring instincts from midfield could offer something too.
A record of six goals and three assists in 31 league appearances was reflective of the role Thiago Motta asked Ferguson to play for Bologna. While goals have always been part of the former Aberdeen and Hamilton midfielder’s game, Motta pushed Ferguson higher up the pitch and out of his comfort zone. He was expected to make runs into the box in a hybrid position, not as a No.8, but not as a 10 either.
“I just felt that he believed in me from the start,” said Ferguson when asked about Motta’s role in his development. “He played me for 90 minutes in almost every single game and that showed the trust and belief he had in me. I learned a lot about football playing under him. Football’s about learning all the time and in those two years I felt I really grew up as a player.”
Tactically, Motta instilled a lot in Ferguson. “You could see the detail he put into every game,” said the Scot, detailing the tactical groundwork by a coach who played under Carlo Ancelotti and Jose Mourinho. According to Ferguson, Motta could even “see things before they happened,” regularly predicting how opponents would play. A tactical Nostradamus.
This quality could come back to bite Ferguson and Bologna when Motta faces his former side as Juventus manager this weekend. Hired by The Old Lady in the summer, the former Barcelona and Inter midfielder is widely considered one of the game’s best young coaches. Juve are relying on Motta to bring back the glory days. “I might wait until after the game to say hello, depending on how the game goes,” laughed Ferguson.
It could be a cagey encounter, particularly considering Juve’s record of eight draws in 14 Serie A games so far this season. “They look strong this year,” said Ferguson. “They don’t concede many chances, they don’t concede many goals, so that shows how defensively strong they are. If we’re going to go there and win, we’ll need to be at our best.”
Despite being club captain, there’s no guarantee Ferguson will start for Bologna in Turin. The 25-year-old has yet to start a league game since making his return from injury with new manager Vincenzo Italiano reluctant to rush him back. “I’m still not back to my best,” said Ferguson. “I’m still still trying to find that, but that comes with a little bit of time.”
Ferguson, who last month signed a new contract with Bologna until 2028, still feels like he’s catching up. “I’m still quite new with the new manager because I’ve only played four games,” he said. “I’m still getting used to his ideas and what he wants from me. I’m in a different moment to the other players who have been working with the new manager for the last four or five months.”
The early signs are that Italiano sees Ferguson in a slightly deeper role. While Motta wanted the Scot to be an extra body in the attack, Italiano has asked him to be more of a pace-setter. Only Juventus and Inter are averaging a higher share of possession per match in Serie A this season than Bologna and Ferguson is having to adapt.
This season has so far been a transitional one for Bologna. It took Italiano five matches to register his first league win as the club’s new manager with Champions League fixtures clogging the schedule. Lining up for the iconic anthem before last month’s match against Lille was “what you dream of as a kid,” said Ferguson, but there has been a knock-on effect. The loss of star players Riccardo Calafiori and Joshua Zirkzee since last season hasn’t helped either.
Gradually, though, Bologna are finding consistency. They have won four of their last five matches in Serie A and made the Coppa Italia quarter-finals on Tuesday night by comprehensively beating Monza 4-0. Ferguson played 61 minutes in an advanced role that was a throwback to how he was used by Motta.
Victory over Juventus on Saturday would be Bologna’s biggest result of the season to date and push the Rossoblu closer to the top four. “Hopefully qualifying for the Champions League can be something that happens every year,” said Ferguson. The top end of Serie A is wide open and Bologna could still match last season’s fifth-place finish.
Ferguson certainly isn’t the only Scot currently competing at the peak of Italy’s top division. Scott McTominay has made an instant impact since joining Napoli from Manchester United in the summer. Billy Gilmour also made the move to the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona with Che Adams now at Torino.
There’s no Scottish Serie A group chat, but one tartan transfer to Italy has led to another. McTominay, Gilmour, Adams, Liam Henderson and Ferguson all currently play for Serie A clubs with Josh Doig in Serie B. Ferguson, having fielded calls from Adams and Gilmour in particular this summer, is willing to make a strong sales pitch to any Scot considering a switch. “Everything I told them was positive,” he said. “It must have been if they made the decision to come here and it looks like they’re enjoying themselves.”
In a social media video marking Ferguson’s recent return to first team action, the midfielder spoke about “The Scottish Mentality.” This is the attitude that, according to Ferguson, has endeared Scottish players to Italian fans. “It plays a big part because the attitude and the desire and the will to work every day is just natural for a Scottish player,” he said.
First and foremost, though, talent has been the key element for Ferguson and co. in making a success of things in Serie A. “We have quality,” said the 25-year-old. “I think people around the world have this perception that Scottish players don’t have technical ability, but we do. We just need a platform to go and show how good we are.” Now back on the pitch after six months out, Ferguson has that platform again.
