By Ryan Makuch

AFC Ann Arbor are excited to announce the signing of Ellie Ferguson ahead of the 2022 USL W-League season. Ferguson was set to play with The Mighty Oak for the canceled 2020 season, and this season will mark an ‘official’ joining of the club for the Irish youth international.

Prior to her experiences at Ohio, Ferguson was an excellent youth performer in Ireland on both the club and international levels. At the club level, Ferguson spent 2014-19 with Shelbourne FC, a side that earned a league title in 2018 as she was part of the youth sides at the club. Internationally, Ferguson has served as the captain for the Irish women’s national team at the U15, U16, and U17 levels, and took part in qualifying for UEFA’s U17 European Championship in both 2018 and 2019.

Ultimately, though, Ferguson made the decision to further her education and playing career in the U.S. at the Ohio University. Ferguson made eight appearances as a sophomore in the shortened spring 2021 season, starting in two of those matches. As a junior, Ferguson remained a key piece of the puzzle making 11 appearances off the bench for an ever-improving Ohio side that lept from 3-7 in 2020-21 to 11-5-3 in fall 2021.

A return to Ann Arbor, for real, this time, is something that Ferguson has pondered for a while, now. “I think deciding to come to play for this summer season is just something I’ve always had in the back of my head as something I would like to do,” she would say. Ferguson previously noted the high standards of player care and appreciation that the club has for all who join as a key reason to join the side, and with a season just months in the horizon, this is her chance to experience exactly that.

Plenty has changed since 2020, and Ferguson is well aware of that on a personal and professional level. “Definitely since 2020 I’ve grown a lot as a person. I was freshman, and now I’ll be going into my senior season, so I definitely think that there was a lot of maturing.” She also took note of the improvements of her game, a game that impressed Women’s Head Coach Boyzzz Khumalo when he first saw game footage of her in 2020.

Rafa Simoes, a former player for AFC Ann Arbor during the 2016 and 2017 men’s campaigns, currently serves as an assistant coach for Ohio’s women’s team, and he was the first to make the connection between Khumalo and Ferguson. Once Khumalo mentioned to Simoes that he would be coaching the women’s side, Simoes sprung into action and assisted in the player recommendation process. Ellie Ferguson happened to be one of those players he spoke most highly of. As Khumalo recalled, “According to him, she’s a team leader, very good in the air, very good with her feet, and he sent some video of her and we said, ‘yeah, that’s someone we want at AFC Ann Arbor’.” An excellent and versatile defender, Ferguson adds a real element of quality to the squad no matter how Khumalo plans on deploying her in the line-up.

In talking about hopes for the season, Ferguson is straightforward in her hopes. She would say, “My goals for the summer season are to enjoy it and play as well as I can for the club!” She’d go on to add, “Hopefully, we can win a lot of games, and I’ll give everything I’ve got.”

With a desire to play in the blue of The Mighty Oak despite having her initial opportunity to play for the club fall through, and a willingness to leave it all on the pitch, Ferguson figures to have the exact mentality needed to perform at a high level for the club.

We once again would like to extend a warm welcome to Ellie Ferguson into the AFCAA Family!