TRANSFER TRACKER STATUS:Signing
FC Dallas
have signed midfielder
Tanner Tessmann
to a Homegrown contract, the club announced Thursday .
Tessmann will be under contract with FCD through 2022 and have contract options for 2023 and 2024.
The 18-year-old midfielder had initially planned to attend Clemson University, where he was set to be a kicker on the school's powerhouse football team in addition to his duties on the soccer team, but he's decided to sign with FC Dallas instead. Tessmann joined the FCD academy in 2016, making 67 appearances for the club's U.S. Soccer Development Academy side and netting 25 goals. He played in 14 games and scored one goal for FC Dallas' USL League One affiliate North Texas SC last season.
"Tanner has been a great player in our academy," FC Dallas president Dan Hunt said in Thursday's release. "We know he had a wonderful opportunity at Clemson University and we're pleased he chose the professional path here at FC Dallas."
The news will be a disappointment for Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney, who had talked about how high he was on Tessman's American football kicking abilities.
"The guy is an amazing athlete — I mean amazing," Swinney said of Tessman, per Scott Keepfer of the Greenville News. "He is a potential Deshaun Watson-type guy for soccer. ...He can kick if left-footed, right-footed, however far you need him to kick it. He can punt it, he can kick off. He's just a raw guy when it comes to kicking the football because he's been always been kicking the soccer ball."
