Lewis Ferguson Bologna contract update emerges amid 'surprising' injury development

Lewis Ferguson has agreed a new contract extension with Bologna and is ahead of schedule in his return from a serious knee injury, according to his dad Derek.

The Scotland midfielder has been linked with Juventus over recent transfer windows after emerging as one of the top performers in Serie A following his £3million move from Aberdeen in 2022.

As well as being named Bologna captain, he was also voted the league’s best midfielder last season and has become the top-scoring Scottish player ever in the Italian top-flight.

He helped the side qualify for the Champions League for the first time in 60 years, but was dealt a horror blow when a cruciate ligament injury towards the end of the campaign ruled him out of Euro 2024 with Scotland.

He is now back on the comeback trail and having watched footage of his son training this week, father Derek admits he was taken aback by his progress as he also divulged a major contract update.

Speaking on the Let Me Be Frank podcast, Ferguson senior said. “I got a wee bit of footage of him training the other night, and this has actually surprised me, where he is in his rehab at the moment.

Lewis Ferguson of Bologna | Getty Images

“When I saw the footage after five and a half months, to see him already at that stage, he’s coming on leaps and bounds. If you look at an ACL – and it wasn’t just his ACL, he did his medial as well – it’s somewhere between nine and 12 months.

“But it’s just when I saw the footage. I’ve watched it numerous times, and I’m looking at it thinking, should he be moving like that at that stage? But it’s totally different from our day.

“I don’t want to get too excited, but inside I am. I’m going over to see him next week for five or six days. So the rehab is going very well, and they’ve just renewed his contract; he’s there until 2029. They are full on the way they have looked after him. The rehab place is right next to where Bologna train.

“The boy who made the tackle ended up in the rehab place after hurting himself. He came over and apologised to Lewis but there was no apology required because it wasn’t intentional – just a split-second thing.

“It just shows you what can happen in a split second. His foot was planted, wrong moment, wrong time. But it was horrible because of the Euros coming up.”

Derek, who starred with Rangers, Hearts and Sunderland, says he’s bursting with pride as how Lewis has adapted to well to life in Italy, where he amazed viewers by conducting a press interview in Italian just a few months after arriving there.

And he heaped praise on the Serie A club for the way it has helped him develop on and off the park. He said: “It’s been an amazing experience for him and me as well. I’m lucky enough that I can go over as often as I can. Within three or four months, he had started to get a gauge of the language, and now he’s fluent in Italian, which is great when you’re going out for a bite to eat, and he’s ordering for you. But it’s great watching him being interviewed in front of the cameras.”