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Tanner Tessmann named U.S. Soccer Young Male Player of the Year

The 2024 U.S. Soccer Young Male Player of the Year award has gone to a first-time winner.

Tanner Tessmann was named winner of the annual award, U.S. Soccer announced Wednesday. Tessmann earned 70% of the vote while Gianluca Busio finished second with 15% of the votes and Niko Tsakiris finished third with 8%.

The Alabama native enjoyed a successful 2024 for club and country, taking major strides in his overall development. Tessmann helped Italian club Venezia earn promotion back to Serie A last spring before eventually earning a transfer to French Ligue 1 side Lyon.

Tessmann has made 16 combined appearances for Lyon in three different competitions this season. He made his UEFA Europa League debut and has also featured in Ligue 1 and the Coupe De France.

Internationally, Tessmann captained the U.S. Olympic men’s team in their first Olympic involvement since 2008. The Americans reached the quarterfinals of the Summer Olympics.

He also featured twice under new USMNT boss Mauricio Pochettino, starting in both CONCACAF Nations League quarterfinal matches vs. Jamaica.

Tessmann will hope to be part of Pochettino’s next squad this March when the Nations League Final Four takes place.

Comments

  1. From US Soccer:
    “ The criterion to be eligible for the 2024 U.S. Soccer Young Male Player of the Year is any player who has participated in a training camp with any of the USA’s Men’s Youth National Teams during the calendar year. Players can win the U.S. Soccer Young Male Player of the Year Award only once. Ricardo Pepi won the award in 2021, Yunus Musah won in 2022 and Kevin Paredes won it in 2023.”
    Pepi was doubly not eligible.

    Reply
    • JR,

      WTF is wrong with you?
      Stop it with the criteria, rules and logic.
      Why introduce any kind of sense into this pissing contest?
      Here are the winners since 2000;

      2000 Landon Donovan
      2001 DaMarcus Beasley
      2002 Bobby Convey
      2003 Freddy Adu
      2004 Eddie Johnson
      2005 Benny Feilhaber
      2006 Jozy Altidore
      2007 Michael Bradley
      2008 Sacha Kljesta
      2009 Luis Gil
      2010 Gale Agbossoumonde
      2011 Brek Shea
      2012 Rubio Rubin
      2013 Wil Trapp
      2014 DeAndre Yedlin
      2015 Matt Miazga
      2016 Christian Pulisic
      2017 Josh Sargent
      2018 Alex Mendez
      2019 Sergiño Dest
      2020 Gio Reyna
      2021 Ricardo Pepi
      2022 Yunus Musah
      2023 Kevin Paredes

      I admit I will always love Miazga for doing the “short people got no reason to live thing ” with Diego Lainez but if you look closely at that list hopefully it’s clear our young males are looking better for the long haul than they have been.

      Reply
      • A lot of guys from that U20 group either out of soccer or in USL. Mendez doesn’t play for Juarez. I guess we should probably just be happy to have 4 good regulars in Weah, Dest, Richards, and McKenzie. I remember we were finally embracing our Hispanic players with Mendez, Ledezma, Soto, Cerillo, Konrad, Llanez, Servania, Dos Santos, Ochoa. Cerillo just finally found his footing at LAG and Ledezma has been hurt for most of that time, but everyone else has done little.

    • “Players can win the U.S. Soccer Young Male Player of the Year Award only once.” and needs to have participated in a training camp with any of the USA’s Men’s Youth National Teams during the calendar year. ………HAHA, THERE IT IS!!!!!!
      Now it kinda makes sense as the award is directed towards an exclusive group, USSoccer, and it rules out players like Malik Tillman (because I was about to say Tessmann shouldn’t even be in the same convo as Tillman in terms of achievements)

      Reply
  2. I’ll be watching Tsakiris closely this MLS season. A player not much talked about, but has quite a bit of talent. Hopefully Bruce can get him going for San Jose. He is another talented LF attacker.

    Reply
  3. Haha…..wow. What in heavens name has he done to get this award??? What achievements has he earned to warrant this award???? When was the last time he started for Lyon in 5 consecutive games?? Haha, Tanner Tessmann and his accomplishments doesn’t hold a candle to:

    1. Ricardo Pepi (22 yrs)
    or
    2. Malik Tessmann (22 yrs)
    or
    3. Even Gianluca Busio (22 yrs)

    2024 U.S. Soccer Young Male Player of the Year award…..I call major BS!!!!!

    Reply
    • Yeah, Tessmann had a good year and really did emerge on the USMNT’s radar – personally I think he’s a long-term starter, eventually, he just does so many things so well and he’s both a savage competitor and a high-character team-first guy to boot, which does matter – but while getting to Lyon’s a substantial accomplishment and he’s carving out a role for himself there, I’d agree he’s behind those guys in terms of accomplishments for the year.

      Left me scratching my head a bit, and I’m one of Tessmann’s most vocal proponents.

      Reply
      • What really caught my eye about him during the Jamaica series last fall was how often his teammates looked to him to help break out of our own third (or even quarter) as Jamaica was pressing.
        Lyon is a much better team than Venezia. He’s a worthy choice.

    • The answer is 3rd paragraph … maybe it’s my eyes tricking me, did the article say Tessmann helped Venezia to promotion to Serie A? Did Pepi & Tillman helped PSV get promoted to the 1st division in the Eredivisie? Pepi is a backup like Tessman is a backup, except Tessman was a starter for Venezia during promotion and Pepi has always been a backup for PSV. Is Serie A more competitive than the Eredivisie? Is Venezia a top team in Italy like PSV is to Netherlands? Is Ligue 1 more competitive than Serie A and/or the Eredivisie? Busio was Tessman’s teammate; whose stats are more significant for Venezia’s promotion? How old were they at the time of Venezia promotion? Were they younger than they are now? How many young US players help a club move up to Serie A then transfer to a more competitive league? Diego Luna, Paxton Aaronson, Cade Cowell, Tsakiris, Tillman, nor Pepi have this on their resume. Busio may have an argument but it would be a tie at best. Busio is not a dominant central midfielder as Tanner is. Busio is a winger masquerading as a central midfielder. Tanner is elite athleticism meets soccer skill. He has the strength to handle the rigors of 90 minute game in the center without much drop off at the end of games. I don’t see a better young player more deserving. I’ve legit tried & these are the questions I ask myself, as long as the pool of young players.

      Reply
      • Hmmmm, thank goodness, because I thought I missed the criteria for 2024 U.S. Soccer Young Male Player of the Year…….looks like they asked “did the player help an average team get to the first division? Was he average enough to have this team off load him after the new promotion because they didn’t need he’s so-call talent? Is this player NOT a regular starter? Is this player rated in the bottom 200 (Player stats) in Ligue 1? Has this player scored a goal or got an assist yet…..no? Yup we got our man. Sold…..Lets make him 2024 U.S. Soccer Young Male Player of the Year haha

    • Judging by the three highest vote getters you had to play for a youth team last year which Pepi and Tillman didn’t. Tessmann vs Busio is a reasonable shout, and if Busio doesn’t get hurt during Olympics maybe he beats out Tanner, but Tessmann was a better player for the same club last year and captain of the Olympics team.

      Reply
      • Hmm…I can see the argument, and if youth-team participation is a big part of the criteria I definitely see what happened, since two of those guys didn’t play for the U23’s and Busio did get hurt.

        Still, despite the fact that Lyon’s a higher-profile club than Venezia and a fairly common participant in European soccer competitions, an argument could be made that Venezia competes in a tougher league than Lyon – Opta has Serie A third in world soccer league strength, Ligue 1 fifth – and Busio’s a regular starter in Serie A whereas at the moment Tessmann is mostly a squad player for Lyon.

        Still, the fact that we’re having this argument at all (especially in guys under the age of 23!) is sort of an “Uptown problems” argument and shows the progress our pool is making, especially when we’re talking about two guys still trying to force their way onto the first-choice USMNT roster.

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