Benjamin Zank

Born in Germany in August 2004, Benjamin Merlin Zank is another product of the FC Carl Zeiss Jena academy to break into the Thuringian side’s first team. At FCC, Zank has six goals and one assist in 646 minutes of appearances, which means that the young forward needs an average of 92 minutes to help change the scoreboard.

At 1.92 metres tall – hard to beat in the air – Zank is a morphologically mesomorphic striker with long upper and lower limbs. His speed of movement is superb due to the amplitude of his stride, which allows him to outpace his opponents with relative ease. His running speed is reasonable and there is room for improvement in this regard so that he can become faster when he drops into support or looks to dribble.

Benjamin Zank is a player capable of taking part in every moment of the game. In attack, he starts by pinning the opposition defenders back as high as possible so that he can then act as a frontal support behind opposing midfielders. At this point in the game, it’s normal to see him managing to protect possession due to the openness of his arms, so he succeeds and always ends up passing the ball to someone who is in front of him. When attacking deep, he’s a very strong player: as well as being able to do it in different directions (his diagonals from inside to outside are difficult to defend), he’s able to handle any charge that comes his way and win the ball metres ahead – he’s, therefore, a key element in helping the team stretch the game whenever there’s space at the back of the defensive line to do so. Inside the area, Zank has been increasing his performance, although there is room for improvement at this decisive moment. The FC Carl Zeiss Jena striker has moves to evade pressure that allow him to appear alone several times to finish: counter-moves, moves on the blind side of defenders, or short diagonals are examples of this. In this area of the game, he needs to improve the timing of his attacks on the ball so that his movements are even more successful. This will also improve his finishing technique, as he doesn’t always finish in an orthodox way.

When it comes to pressing, FC Carl Zeiss Jena has changed their approach this season. Initially, the team pressed high up in 4x1x3x2: in this scenario, Zank showed an enviable competitive attitude by the way he was willing to run metres to press – always at a high speed and aggressively. However, he wasn’t always successful, as he didn’t brake to contain and then intercept – as he moved at high speed. In recent games, the Thuringian team has switched to 4x3x3 pressing, with a more compact middle block (more defensive cover), and has been more successful. In this scenario, Zank ends up saving himself physically: now he summarises his defensive play as covering interior passing lines with the help of midfield cover, something he does comfortably and which even gives him more offensive transition situations – a moment when he succeeds due to the intelligence of his movements.

Zank’s competitive attitude is marvellous. This is the kind of player that many managers nowadays like to have in their squads. He has a tremendous availability for every moment of the game and you can see that he does it with concentration and focus. He doesn’t give up on any move and adds to that commendable aggressiveness. He’s making better and better decisions in the game and this automatically results in an increase in his performance, which in turn translates into greater confidence during the 90 minutes.

When I first saw Benjamin Zank, I wrote that he was a striker with more potential than performance and that the injury to the squad’s main striker, Elias Loeder, could help him – in the sense of getting more minutes. Initially, it was a little difficult for him to get a foothold. However, after his goal against FSV Luckenwalde, the striker completed 90 minutes of the next four games and scored four times. It will therefore be interesting to see how the young German performs in the remaining games of the season, which should see the return of Elias Loeder.

About his future, I believe Benjamin Zank has the quality to be FC Carl Zeiss Jena’s first choice for the rest of the season. The more minutes he gets, the better he’ll be able to develop the edges he needs to iron out – there needs to be an increase in his technique. In the medium to long term, I believe that the player in question has the potential to reach the level of the 2. Bundesliga, or even second-tier clubs in the top leagues in Portugal or Belgium.