Tanner Tessmann – Player Profile

Tanner Tessmann is a tall and imposing defensive midfielder who made a name for himself with Venezia in Italy before Olympique Lyonnais signed him for €6 million in August 2024. He is a USA international, with six caps to his name, at the time of writing, having made his debut in 2021.

Tessmann, or Francis Tanner James Tessmann to give him his full name, was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in September 2001. In his youth, he spent time at the Birmingham United Soccer Association (BUSA) academy and in 2016 he moved west to join the academy of MLS side FC Dallas in Texas.

For the 2019 season, the seventeen year old Tessmann was given the chance to cut his teeth in senior soccer at North Texas SC. They were newly formed as the reserve team of FC Dallas and they entered the USL League One, which was the newly created third tier of the United Soccer League (USL).

North Texas SC took the league by storm, topping the regular season table by ten points, before winning the four team play-offs to take the championship title with a 1-0 victory over Greenville Triumph SC in the final. Tessmann impressed in central midfield and even made the Team of the Week in match-day 7 when he scored the first goal of his career. His strike, in a 4-1 home win against Orlando City B, was voted Goal of the Week.

Tessmann isn’t the only member of that youthful North Texas SC team to now be plying his trade at a major European club. Striker Ricardo Pepi bagged nine goals that season and is now banging them in for PSV Eindhoven in the Dutch Eredivisie.

Soccer or football?

Following his successful season in the USL League One, Tessmann seemed destined to progress through the ranks in the FC Dallas setup. However, he was still toying with the idea of going down the college route that is so well trodden for aspiring young athletes in the USA. Tessmann had secured a soccer scholarship to Clemson University in South Carolina with a prospective start date of June 2020 and now had a decision to make.

His godfather, Dabo Swinney, is the renowned head coach of the Clemson Tigers, the college football (gridiron) team of Clemson University and a two-time winner of the College Football Playoff National Championship Game. Tessmann was also a talented American football player and would play as a kicker for the Tigers as well as representing the college soccer team, should he choose that path. He even had his player bio page on the university website replete with a photo of him sporting the orange Tigers jersey, shoulder pads and all.

However, in February 2020, the lure of a professional soccer contract proved too much for Tessmann to resist and he signed terms with FC Dallas on a three year deal. He started the first two games of the 2020 MLS season alongside Thiago Santos in central midfield before Covid-19 brought his nascent professional career to an abrupt halt.

Starring in Dallas

It was more than five months until FC Dallas took to the field again, and over six months had passed by the time Tessmann got his next start, a 2-1 Texas derby win against Houston Dynamo. Covid continued to wreak havoc with the sporting calendar and the full schedule of regular season fixtures wasn’t fully completed, but Tessmann did feature in every FC Dallas match from there on.

They reached the post season MLS Cup play-offs where they faced Portland Timbers in the Round of 16. A late Ricardo Pepi equaliser made it 1-1 and took the tie to extra time and eventually penalties. Tessmann stepped up to take FC Dallas’ eighth penalty and coolly converted the kick, helping his side to a 9-8 victory, which he later described as “one of the best nights of my life“. Unfortunately the adventure ended in the quarter-finals when they lost 1-0 to Seattle Sounders.

Tanner Tessmann was a regular stater for FC Dallas when the 2021 MLS campaign got underway, but the season was only a couple of months old when he got the chance to cross the Atlantic and try his luck in Europe. That opportunity came in the form of a bid from Venezia in Italy and they ultimately agreed to pay a transfer fee of €3.64m to secure his services.

A slow start in La Serenissima

Newly promoted to Serie A, the Venice based club were on a major recruitment drive to prepare for the challenge of top flight football and Tessmann was one of a dozen permanent and loan signings that they made that summer. He went straight into the squad and made his debut as a substitute in the opening game of the season, a 2-0 defeat at Napoli.

Tanner Tessmann was almost ever-present in the match-day squad thereafter, although his actual playing time was somewhat limited. He made only six starts in Serie A, playing the full ninety minutes just twice, but appeared a further fourteen times off the bench. The one time he wasn’t part of the squad was due to suspension after he picked up the first red card of his career in a defeat to Lazio in December 2021.

Venezia found the going tough in Serie A and were embroiled in a season long struggle against relegation, which was ultimately unsuccessful. They finished bottom of the table and made an immediate return to Serie B. Their Coppa Italia campaign wasn’t much more successful. They did eliminate Fabio Grosso’s Frosinone side on penalties in the First Round, despite Tessmann having his spot kick saved, but they went out to Atalanta in the Round of 16.

Bouncing Back

Venezia suffered from a severe relegation hangover and got off to a dreadful start to life back in Serie B. They were still down in nineteenth place at the end of January before an upturn in form saw them rise steadily to eighth by the end of the season. That improvement coincided with Tessmann nailing down a starting spot in central midfield and he didn’t miss a single minute of action from the start of March until the final game of the season. He also scored the first three goals of his European adventure.

That late charge up the table secured a promotion play-off spot for Venezia, but they lost out to Cagliari at the first hurdle. That setback, however, was soon a distant memory as the Neroverdi started the 2023-24 season in fine fettle with Tanner Tessmann now a totemic talisman at the heart of the team. He missed only one game and contributed six goals as Venezia finished fourth but this time successfully negotiated the play-offs to gain promotion back to Serie A.

Ligue 1 beckons

That summer Venezia looked to cash in on their rising star and Tessmann was strongly linked with a move to Internazionale before Lyon moved to snap him up, making him the first American to sign for the Olympique Lyonnais men’s team. At 6 ft 2″ and nicknamed ‘Tanner the Tank’ he promises to be a useful additional to the Lyon midfield options.

Thus far he has been used sparingly by coach Pierre Sage, making just three starts and seven substitute appearances in the first half of the Ligue 1 season, with a further four starts in cup competitions. Opportunities may be more forthcoming after the January transfer window if the Lyon squad is thinned out by player departures.

Representing the Stars and Stripes

As of January 2025, Tanner Tessmann has six international caps to his name. His first involvement with the USA national team setup came in September 2019 when he earned a call-up to the U-20 squad from coach Tab Ramos whilst playing for North Texas SC. Just sixteen months later, in January 2021, having impressed for FC Dallas in MLS, he was selected for the full USMNT by coach Gregg Berhalter.

Tessmann’s debut came as a 78th minute substitute in a 7-0 friendly win over Trinidad & Tobago in Orlando. He didn’t get any further playing time until September 2023 and another substitute appearance in a 3-0 friendly win against Uzbekistan in St Louis. During the intervening period he had been racking up appearances for the USA U-23 team and he was subsequently part of the squad that went to the Olympic Games in France in 2024.

In fact, Tanner Tessmann was given the honour of wearing the captain’s armband during that tournament and he led his country into the knockout phase despite a 3-0 defeat to the hosts in their opening match. They recovered to comfortably beat New Zealand and Guinea in Group A before being outclassed by Morocco in the quarter-finals.

Following his move to Lyon, Tessmann has been back in the senior USA squad and he made his first starts in the CONCACAF Nations League quarter-finals tie against Jamaica in November 2024, in which the USA won both legs to progress to the semi. He looks set to be a mainstay of the USMNT for years to come.