Thiago Motta would like Lewis Ferguson to stay a secret. Bologna’s manager has, tongue-in-cheek, asked local reporters if they’ll do him a favour and stop writing so much about their Scotland international.
“Let’s keep him hidden,” Motta recommended.
Doing so, however, is becoming harder and harder.
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Bologna are unbeaten since the opening day of the season — their best start in more than 20 years. Last week they were fifth, albeit for one night only, after Ferguson scored the only goal of the game against Lazio. It was the midfielder’s 10th goal since his move from Aberdeen a little over a year ago.
His next one will make him the most prolific Scot ever in Italy’s top flight, surpassing the great Denis Law, whose one season with Torino in 1961-62 is better remembered for a bust-up with a paparazzo in Venice and a written-off Alfa Romeo Giulietta, which his team-mate and countryman Joe Baker wrapped around a lamp post in Turin. It left Law with the reputation of ‘genio e sregolatezza’ — a genius for whom the rules did not seemingly apply.
Ferguson’s agent used to work with George Best, a curiosity seized upon by the Bolognese media. But the 24-year-old could not come across as more grounded. Rather than be caught out at four in the morning like Law, Ferguson can be seen pushing a pram under the city’s famous porticos, having become a dad a year ago. “He’s a fantastic lad,” Motta keeps saying.
His only indulgence, well-deserved on nights like the one against Lazio, is a plate of his favourite local dish. “Tortellini in panna,” Ferguson tells The Athletic. “The parmesan cream.” He all but makes the chef’s-kiss gesture.
Bologna came strongly recommended to him.
“We were on the bus with the national team and my agent called,” Ferguson recalled. “He said: ‘Bologna are interested. What do you think?’”
Ferguson, phone to his ear, turned and glanced at his team-mate, Aaron Hickey.
“I tapped him on the shoulder and said: ‘How did you like Bologna?’”
Hickey was in the process of leaving the club for Brentford of the Premier League after a couple of impressive seasons. He’d moved to Italy as a teenager. Motta’s predecessor, the late Sinisa Mihajlovic — a fearless coach when it came to giving youth a chance — had proven perfect for his development.
✍️ | 𝐔𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋𝐄#Ferguson è un nuovo giocatore del Bologna ❤️💙
𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐬 🏴🤗#ForzaBFC #WeAreOne pic.twitter.com/rMHTabWG5T
— Bologna Fc 1909 (@Bolognafc1909) July 12, 2022
“He told me the city was really nice and that it’s a great place to live,” Ferguson recalled. “It made me feel more relaxed about moving away, because you know you’re in good hands, playing for a good club with good people.”
Competition from Lecce pushed Ferguson’s price up to €2million. He was the apple of Pantaleo Corvino and Giovanni Sartori’s eye. Renowned for uncovering hidden gems, the pair of them had tracked his progress closely at Pittodrie. Sartori is nominally a sporting director, like Corvino. But he is really an author of fairytales, the Hans Christian Andersen of Italian football, making his name at Chievo and, more recently, Atalanta.
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Ferguson was one of his first signings for Bologna and he couldn’t be dispassionate about it.
Bologna “was my father’s team,” Sartori said. “Whenever they used to come to Milan to play, he’d take me to see the team of his heroes; Ezio Pascutti, Marino Perani and Giacomo Bulgarelli” — the player after whom the Curva before which Ferguson celebrates his home goals is named.
Integrating wasn’t difficult.
Bologna’s captain Lorenzo De Silvestri sees it as his responsibility, at age 35, to make the club’s new signings feel welcome. He is what in Italy is called a cicerone — a guide who is there to introduce you to a place.
“When a foreign player or anyone new joins,” De Silvestri says, “I help them get to know Bologna; the city centre, the vicoli (little streets), the main square, the right restaurants, coffee shops, some miscellany, the history. We organise to meet up, we walk and talk. It’s a way of making new team-mates feel like part of a family.”
𝐋𝐄𝐖𝐈𝐒 🏴
4️⃣º gol in stagione per Ferguson 🔥 #ForzaBFC #WeAreOne pic.twitter.com/CpnLfjanpE
— Bologna Fc 1909 (@Bolognafc1909) March 19, 2023
It also helps that Motta has raved about Ferguson since day one.
“He’s a really interesting player,” the 2009-10 treble-winning Inter Milan midfielder said. “He knows what positions to take up. He’s not selfish. He scores and gets into the box. He’s very disciplined in the defensive side of the game. He’s always looking at what his team-mates are doing and adapting. He’s exemplary.”
One of the secrets to Bologna’s success is how hard they work as a unit. SkillCorner data shows Ferguson is top for distance covered per 90 minutes and high-speed runs. “When we have the ball, our goalkeeper is the first attacker. When we don’t have it, our attacker is the first defender,” Ferguson says.
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StatsBomb’s numbers have the Scot down as the most effective player in his position at counterpressure regains in Serie A. No wonder Bologna, a team who like to defend on the front foot, have the third-best defensive record in the league, with eight goals conceded.
“I’ve always been like that. I’m a fit boy. I like to get around the park,” Ferguson says. “In modern football, if you don’t run, you don’t win.”
And yet Motta appreciates Ferguson’s brain as much as his brawn. He can play him anywhere — inside-left against Milan, inside-right against Juventus or, more and more commonly, as a hybrid with the legs and lungs to help out through the middle as a midfielder turned shadow striker.
With that in mind, the player Ferguson enjoys watching most in his spare time shouldn’t come as any surprise.
“One that is just rolling off the tongue is Jude Bellingham,” he says, “because he plays in midfield, he scores goals, he’s that sort of player that’s everywhere — he’s all over the pitch, he runs, he tackles. He’s a good passer, he scores. He’s got everything and is one of the best players in the world right now. He’s one of the guys in my position I’d look at and say that’s the top level.”
Motta’s style of play, which is avant-garde in asking players to perform roles rather than play a fixed position, has, in Ferguson’s words, “really helped me kick on and become a better player.” He explains: “We’re really fluid. Everyone’s always moving, trying to shift the opponents, make space for ourselves and get as high up the pitch as possible.”
GO DEEPERIs Thiago Motta the next great coach? From mocked ideas to transforming BolognaThe cadence of Bologna’s play is important.
“Once we’re in the opposition’s half, we’re patient, but when there’s a switch or a pass that breaks a line, everybody switches on,” Ferguson elaborates. “The manager always talks about this. It’s not just the player who receives the ball that changes the rhythm. The full XI has to change the rhythm and if everyone does that and attacks at speed, that’s when we can create chances.”
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Bologna are a possession-based side and it helps that Ferguson’s pass completion rate (86.4 per cent) lags only behind Napoli’s Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa and Tijjani Reijnders of Milan in his position as a midfielder operating in the final third. But they know how to vary their play too.
“It’s not often we play just one direct pass,” Ferguson says. “But if it’s on, sometimes we do it.” And it was on for Joshua Zirkzee’s beautiful goal away to Sassuolo at the end of last month.
Ferguson loves playing with the Dutch centre-forward. After all, they’re practically strike partners: “I play close to Joshua. Technically, he’s really, really good. He’s strong, fast, powerful. He’s got everything you’d want in an attacker. It’s enjoyable to play with him. We bounce off each other. If he makes one run, I make another.”
The winner Ferguson scored against Lazio was emblematic of their understanding and, specifically, what Motta demands of them both. Ferguson says, “He wants me to hit the box and score. He wants me to make runs and create space for Joshua to allow him to come into some spaces — like at the weekend with the goal.
“When Alexis (Saelemaekers) had the ball out-wide, I made a run to leave some space behind me for Josh, knowing that he’s got good ability if he got on the ball maybe 20 yards from goal, and, of course, he did. I hope he can assist me many more times this season.”
𝐉𝐙 serves it up and 𝐅𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐞 slots it past the keeper 🤤🎯#BolognaLazio #WeAreOne pic.twitter.com/R7NkXNkRNE
— Bologna FC 1909 (@BolognaFC1909en) November 4, 2023
Ferguson, who recently signed a new deal until 2027, scored seven times in his 2022-23 debut campaign. His aim is to beat that total and with three after 11 of the 38 league games played so far, he is well on course. Only Giacomo Bonaventura (back in the Italy squad) and Andrea Colpani have more goal involvements among Serie A midfielders this season than Ferguson’s five.
The fans are dreaming of seeing their team play in Europe for the first time since the final weeks of the previous century, when the side included Gianluca Pagliuca, Giuseppe Signori and Kennet Andersson (unless, that is, we count the Intertoto final Bologna lost to Fulham, 5-3 on aggregate, in the pre-season of 2002-03).
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Much like his coach, Ferguson isn’t thinking too far beyond the next game — a tactically intriguing trans-Apennine derby against Fiorentina today (Sunday) in Florence.
But he admits: “The confidence right now is really high. You can feel it in training and around the dressing room and in games. The mood is good around the place. Everyone’s really positive and that includes some guys who maybe aren’t playing as much. Every day in training, they train at a really good level, which means the guys who are playing also need to maintain their level. So there’s healthy competition within the squad and a positive mindset.”
Ferguson takes a similar perspective on next summer’s European Championship in Germany, with Scotland having secured their place in the tournament last month.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he smiles. “I’m not thinking too much about it just now because we’re still in season and have so many games. But it’s in the back of my mind. It’s great for Scotland, because this is where we want to be.
“As a young boy, I never saw Scotland once in a major tournament so, for me, qualifying was one of the highlights, but we have to keep going. We don’t just want to qualify for one tournament and maybe drop out. We want to keep going.”
Naturally, he is in Steve Clarke’s squad for the trip to Tbilisi to face Napoli hero Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s Georgia on Thursday and then meet Erling Haaland’s Norway in Glasgow three days later. Verona wing-back Josh Doig is there, too. Both have benefited from following the trail blazed in Italy by Liam Henderson – now on loan from Empoli to City Football Group’s Serie B outpost Palermo – and Hickey.
“If you want to improve as a footballer, you need to come out of your comfort zone,” Ferguson says.
Celebrating a goal against Salernitana in March this year (Giuseppe Maffia/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Serie A is more physical than he expected and Ferguson is happy to bust some myths about its tempo.
“I think everybody who watches the league has this feeling it’s really slow and you have time on the ball to get your head up and make passes. It’s not like that at all. When you’re in the game and in the moment, you don’t get as much time as what it seems on TV. Some games are really fast-paced.
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“Of course, it is very tactical and down to specific details. It’s sometimes like a chess match between two teams. But that’s good. That’s football. Everybody has a way of winning.”
Ferguson likes to think other Scots will look at this generation of players learning their craft in Italy and be open-minded about playing abroad.
“I hope it’s an inspiration,” he concludes. “I can say I’ve played at San Siro. I made my debut there, actually. I think I’ve really improved over the past year and that’s what I set out to do when I made the move, so I’m quite content. But there’s still more to come.”
(Top photo: Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Ciancaphoto Studio/Getty Images)
