One of Scottish football’s rising stars, Lewis Ferguson, is set to make his 50th appearance for Aberdeen tonight against Rijeka in the Europa League. The 19-year-old has been a revelation since arriving in the north-east from Hamilton Academical last summer.
One of Ferguson’s stand-out moments for the club came in just his second appearance, when he scored a bicycle kick against Burnley. However, it was in vain as Aberdeen were eventually knocked out by the Premier League side.
This summer, he has already played in Finland against Rovaniemi, in Georgia against Chikhura Sachkhere, and now he is looking forward to getting his teeth stuck in on the Croatian coast.
“Playing in Europe is different class,” he said. “I never thought for a minute a couple of years ago when I was at Hamilton that I would be playing in Europe within a few years. That’s surprised me a bit. I just take everything in my stride and take every game as it comes.
READ MORE: Scott McKenna: Aberdeen livid at Championship clubs for leaving it late
“Does it feel like we’re a proper European club? Yeah it does. Last year we only got a wee taste of it because it was just the one tie but when you’re playing every week it starts to feel real. It’s something that I always wanted to do was play in Europe and test yourself in places like this.”
Ferguson’s father is the former Hearts midfielder, Derek, so it was slightly surprising when television footage surfaced showing him fervently celebrating Aberdeen’s winner against the Gorgie club on Sunday.
As Ryan Hedges struck the ball into the net, he and his team-mates, including Ferguson, set off towards the Richard Donald stand to celebrate with their cheering fans. In amongst the scrum was Derek.
“I just ran over and jumped in and celebrated,” said Ferguson. “I haven’t spoke to him about it. He was sitting down in the front seats so he must have just got caught up in it. That’s just part of the game.”
Ferguson has been widely tipped to make his debut for the Scottish national team in the imminent future. He is a regular face in the under-21s but is edging closer to the first team.
He said: “It would be massive, it would be an honour to play for Scotland or even to get called up. I don’t really think too much of it. I just go out and try to perform for Aberdeen. If and when that does come, I’ll take it. Obviously it would be a very proud moment but I don’t think too much about it. I just take every day as it comes and try to perform for Aberdeen.”
But, for now, Ferguson is just looking forward to making a milestone appearance.
“It’s come as a bit of a surprise,” he said. “I don’t know why I haven’t really thought about it. It’s nice to hear that.
"You can never really think that you’re going to go straight into a side and set your mark because you don’t know what can happen in football. Obviously that was my aim to come up and go straight into the team and work as hard as possible and show the staff and boys what I was capable of.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here