🏆 Drinking Irn-Bru from the Coppa Italia: How Ferguson became Bologna's lynchpin

On Wednesday, Lewis Ferguson can inspire his club to their first Coppa Italia in half a century

Adam Clery writes about football tactics for Nutmeg every month. But he writes about football tactics ALL THE TIME on 87 Minutes. And his new ACFC channel on football tactics is some of the best football content on the internet.

Of all the slightly surreal occurrences we’ve had to sit through, open-mouthed, this season (we’ve still got a 32-team club tournament to come, the winners of which are to be given what looks like a functioning warp drive as a trophy, and then 100 million quid in an envelope from Donald Trump so, sure, okay… normal) there’s still one to come in Italy that might top everything.

Bologna are on the cusp of a first Coppa Italia in over 50 years — they take on AC Milan in the final on Wednesday, and if they win their captain is going to drink Irn-Bru out of it. Read that back. Take that in. This is your reality and all the best bits are passing you by.

Picked up for the proverbial pittance from Pittodrie back in 2022, Lewis Ferguson has become one of the most important players in a Bologna side that jumped from the bottom half of Serie A before his arrival, to a shock Champions League qualification last season. They’re currently holding off Juventus — or, they’ve got a firm, unyielding hand in The Old Lady’s face, if you want to be both flowery and dramatic about it — for that coveted fourth-place finish. It’s going well, basically.

Ferguson is a completely different player this season. Let’s look at the tactical transformation that has taken him to the brink of history…