With Al-Tamari, Rennes have a new weapon on the left
Winners of six of their last seven matches in Ligue 1 McDonald's, Stade Rennais are one of the division's form sides, thanks to the strong play of Musa Al-Tamari. Learn more about the Jordanian international in our latest "One to Watch."
“He’s completely different from the Musa I knew six months ago,” coach Habib Beye admitted just before the break, after the match against Brest (3-1) which his player had turned around by providing the assist for the equalizer before scoring the goal that made it 2-1.
Named Player of the Month for December by Breton fans who had long been skeptical of him, Al-Tamari, at 28 years old—and a few months before Jordan's first World Cup, for whom he is a key player—seems to have finally found the effectiveness he lacked to establish himself at the highest level.
Having played in Cyprus and Belgium, he became the first player from his homeland to play in France when he joined Montpellier in 2023, then Stade Rennais at the very end of the last winter transfer window.
A role model for the team
His start to the 2025/2026 season, mirroring that of Rennes, had been very frustrating, as he played as a right wing-back, a position that demands a lot of defensive work, which the winger he was clearly disliked.
The expected return of Przemyslaw Frankowski to that flank seemed to bode for him, in the short or medium term, to a role as a substitute.
But for both SRFC and himself, the tide turned at the end of October, when he surprisingly came on as a substitute on the left flank for the second half of the home defeat against Nice (1-2).
Confirmed in this position in Toulouse (2-2), he scored and provided an assist thanks to one of his countless pressing actions, becoming indispensable to the new-look Rennes team.
“He’s a player who plays with joy, with a smile, without doubting himself. Above all, he’s a player who, every day in training, has raised his game at all levels,” Beye praised him after the Brest match.
“He never stops pressing, he never stops moving forward; this is what the team should look like all the time," he had even added.
This repositioning of Al-Tamari was not a gamble at all; it was almost a no-brainer.
"He has the profile of a disruptive, game-changing player who can be very interesting for our style of play (...) He's a player who is extremely threatening in behind the defense, very good in one-on-one situations," Beye had said of his player as early as mid-September.
"Supersonic"
But as a left-footed player, "when he was on the right side, (...) we saw a lot of limitations in his primary quality, which is speed, since he often cut inside onto his left foot," the Senegalese coach also recalled after the Brest match.
With Al-Tamari repositioned on the left, Rennes are now benefiting from "his greatest quality as a player, which is being 'supersonic' in terms of speed. There are few players who can contain him in that respect," even if this sometimes creates imbalance without the ball because "we can't ask him to be so impactful offensively and also be perfect defensively."
Even the French U21 international Quentin Merlin, recruited this summer to fill this position, before being relegated to the bench or moved to the right by Al-Tamari, is being a good sport.
"Musa has speed that is far superior to mine. That's where he excels, when he makes runs in behind, when he drives forward with the ball at his feet using his speed, so I could never do what he can do," he acknowledged on Friday.
"It's a great competition we're having against each other. We push each other to be better, we challenge each other every day in training, and we're both performing well. The coach, I think (...) it must be a pretty difficult choice for him. It's up to us to give him that kind of problem," he added.
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