Tanner Tessmann Scout report
Firstly, who is Tanner Tessmann? He’s a 20 year old (01) midfielder who came through the academy at Dallas FC before making 29 appearances across a season and a half And making one appearance for USMNT. Last summer he joined Venezia for approximately £3.3 million. The move hasn’t worked out for him yet, he’s only started five games in the league this season. He’s a versatile midfielder who can play as both a six and an eight comfortably.
He is approximately 6"2 and well built, utilises his height well and wins most of his aerial duels, often making first contact at corners as well as dropping into a centre back position when the ball is played into wide areas and it looks like a cross will be coming in. He’s strong , protects the ball well and it’s difficult to knock him off when he’s running with the ball. He’s relatively mobile, although does lack acceleration and opponents can easily break away from him once he’s been beaten 1v1.
His technical ability is very good, he controls the ball well and often has a positive first touch setting up his next action, which is often a long pass out wide. He tries to spread the ball quickly when in possession , showed good awareness of where his teammates are to take the ball on the half turn and then spread it out wide. He keeps the ball well when pressed and showed a good ability to play out under pressure. Also his ball carrying ability is pretty good, he is a powerful runner who has the ability to drive past players with ease, notably against Inter he went straight past three players before playing in a forward. He shows good reading of the game, making some good interceptions and a key feature of his game when playing as a 6 is not letting attackers receive the ball in zone 14 unchallenged, sometimes he panicked when clearing the ball and cleared poorly though, but I feel this could be helped by getting more game time at a high level.
He is a threat in attacking transitions, his ball carrying ability and power means he can drive forward before the opposition has time to react, this is a prominent strength to his game particularly when playing as an 8. When playing as an 8 he presses well and supports the attack, but seems to lack confidence to take on shots and opted for a pass out wide the majority of the time. When playing as the 6, he sits in front of the back four and picks up loose balls clearing up behind the two midfielders ahead of him, normally Busio and Crnigoj, who buzz around in front of him pressing and he picks off the passes that get through. In possesion, he collects the ball from the centre backs and looks to play the ball out wide , rarely trying passes along the floor through the centre of pitch to the striker/midfielders, which is something I feel he should do more.
Key Strengths and weaknesses
- Good physical profile, strong, tall and relatively mobile.
- Good ball playing ability, awareness and general control of the ball is excellent
- His most notable weakness is his vulnerability in defensive transition partly down to his lack of acceleration.
Forecast for the future
In the near future, if he stays at Venezia, he would benefit from getting more minutes to gain his confidence, even if those minutes are in Serie B. Within 3/4 seasons I could see him becoming a solid six for a mid table team/ team challenging for europe if he continues to develop. I think Italian football suits him quite well due to his good physical profile and ball playing ability, playing in a team that defends deep would hide his weaknesses better and he could provide value in attacking transitions, but on the other hand, playing in a possession based team would perhaps utilise his on the ball strengths well.
