He is the Comeback Kid who keeps coming and going (and coming and going).
Each time Giovanni Reyna returns for club or country, we see why his career thus far is so frustrating — a cycle of promise, setback, return, shine, setback, return. Rinse and repeat.
If he could only stay fit consistently. If he could only bank a solid run of minutes. If he could only become a regular first-teamer. If.
On Tuesday night, against Ghana in his latest comeback for the USMNT reminded everyone of the special talent which, for large parts, has remained tantalisingly out of reach.
Forty-five minutes, two shots, two goals, seven passes into the final third (more than any team-mate) and two ball recoveries. As his admiring coach, Gregg Berhalter, said later, it was a “dynamic”, almost man-of-the-match performance (defender Sergino Dest edged that accolade because he’d played the full game).
Later, the 20-year-old midfielder would downplay his sparkling return to the fold following an absence through injury and his high-profile fall-out with Berhalter.
“It’s been completely normal,” he said on team-mate Tim Ream’s podcast. “I was there in Vegas and Orlando the camp before that. Nothing has really changed. I’ve been here before. I’m still here now. You just want to be successful as a team, it’s not more than that.”
He has been here before, that is true. So has every USMNT supporter, watching and hoping for the pattern to break.
At least there has been reconciliation with management. That discord with Berhalter has been smoothed over after an initial Zoom conversation before the camp when the pair agreed to move forward and talk no more about their controversial row.
Reyna and Berhalter (in grey) have moved past their differences (Carly Mackler/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
The issues began with Reyna’s behavior at the World Cup in Qatar last November and December and Berhalter alluding to those problems during comments at a leadership conference, albeit without mentioning the player by name. That eventually prompted Reyna’s angry parents, U.S. Soccer veterans Claudio and Danielle, to provide information to then-U.S. Soccer sporting director Earnie Stewart about an incident 30 years ago.
They recalled how Berhalter kicked his then girlfriend and now wife, when they were students at the University of North Carolina, and it prompted an investigation into Berhalter that stretched for months. The 50-year-old was cleared for employment at U.S. Soccer in March and eventually re-hired as manager of the national team in June.
Berhalter has repeatedly described the conversation as positive, but even before the Ghana game he acknowledged that it “will take time” to mend the relationship.
“There’s a difference between a Zoom call and being in person, but I think that both intentions are positive,” he said. “And the idea is that we work together for the team to be successful. And I think we’re both prepared to do that.”
Following Reyna’s emphatic response on the pitch, there was a feeling that both parties were really buying into the constructive rapprochement.
The real challenge now for the Borussia Dortmund midfielder is to be there next month in Texas, when the national team face Trinidad & Tobago in the home first leg of a CONCACAF quarter-final.
It would be as much an achievement as the goals against Ghana in Nashville. It would also hint at the genuine chance that Reyna can turn a corner in the sequence of injury disappointments which have plagued him in recent years and left some behind the scenes wondering if his fitness can ever be relied on.
Reyna showed his class against Ghana on Tuesday (John Wilkinson/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
It cannot be through lack of trying.
A cursory scroll through his social media shows the agonising tale laid out in grid format.
Look back to February 2022, when he wrote on Instagram of his excitement to be back for Dortmund after five months out with injury. He duly got 29 minutes from the bench against Bayer Leverkusen. “Been a tough few months,” he wrote. “But it felt so good to be back.”
Sickness then ruled him out of the following game against Union Berlin but he was well enough to come from the bench again in the next game, a Europa League defeat by Scottish side Rangers, and then came his first start. Dortmund thrashed Borussia visitors Monchengladbach 6-0 at Signal Iduna Park that day. The Yellow Wall was smiling but, as he limped off in tears with another injury after only 30 minutes, Reyna was not.
It was a leg issue this time, suffered in the move as Dortmund opened the scoring, but it in the end it meant only a fortnight back on the sidelines. Fast forward a month, though, and history was repeating itself. Reyna leaving the field in palpable anguish after just two minutes of a start against Stuttgart.
It would be almost six months before he would play again but when he did it offered another flash of what club and country had missed. Back in the Bundesliga starting line-up for the first time since April, again versus Stuttgart, he curled a shot into the corner, and fell to the ground more in relief than jubilation.
After the final whistle in that game a year ago this weekend, he told reporters movingly about doing five to six hours of physiotherapy per day throughout the summer months, “hard work behind the scenes that no one sees”, and about finding the right balance between pushing himself and protecting his body.
It seemed clear how important it was that he stay healthy, for his sake and the club’s, as Dortmund looks a much different proposition with him on the pitch: more cohesive, more incisive.
Few are better than Reyna receiving passes between the lines; in a side that then routinely struggled to break down defences, he was the best, most reliable conduit into the danger area Dortmund has had since Jadon Sancho left in the summer of 2021. But can his club ever truly rely on him to be robust enough to play regularly?
Of Dortmund’s 11 games in all competitions this season Reyna has played just 26 minutes, replacing Donyell Malen from the bench in a 4-2 win over Union on October 7. Dortmund only ever explained his absence as being due to a leg injury (it was believed to have been a fractured fibula) but even if some there must wonder if he will ever be consistently available, the club is still adamant it needs him.
Reyna’s injury record at Dortmund has been poor (Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images)
“Gio really deserved to get game time,” sporting director Sebastian Kehl said after that Union game. “He started well, had some good moments. He’s not threatening goals just yet, the way he can do. But he’s an important player for us, whom we need.”
Reyna’s current deal runs out in June 2025 and Dortmund faces a question over whether to sell this summer or more likely offer him a new contract in the hope he can shine consistently and eventually become a saleable asset akin to his friend Jude Bellingham, now ripping up records at Real Madrid after a move from the Germans this summer. Given Reyna cost them very little when he joined as a 16-year-old, any sale would mean a significant profit for Dortmund.
The scrutiny on him at club level is far less than it is for his country.
Coverage of his fall-out with Berhalter was less frenzied and widespread in Germany, and there is often more focus among supporters over the potential of Karim Adeyemi, Malen, and older, more consistent performers such as Julian Brandt and veteran Marco Reus. Dortmund is currently fourth in the Bundesliga and yet to lose in the competition this term.
But even if Reyna is some way behind his former team-mate Bellingham’s development and impact, manager Edin Terzic valued the American’s output last season when he scored seven Bundesliga goals, and contributed two assists, many of them from the bench.
“Giovanni’s scoring rate was outstanding as a sub last season,” Terzic said in September. “He’s got incredible potential, he just needs to show it on the pitch.”
Reyna certainly showed it in midweek. Berhalter was clear when explaining just why he wants the compelling option of using him in an advanced midfield role behind such a potent runner and finisher as Folarin Balogun.
“Besides the goals, it was how he brings players into the attack and is able to be calm on the ball, giving us that calm and poise we need at times,” Berhalter said. “But then he is decisive when making final passes.
“To me, this performance was just really an indicator of his entire camp. He had a very strong camp, great mindset and training sessions, and it’s not only offensive stuff he did, it’s off the ball, the relentless work rate defensively. We talked about it before the game, and he certainly does that.
“It was a good step for us in midfield. We went with two and then one, Gio a little bit higher, but I still think there is more to it where it can be flexible and rotating more and we will continue to work on that.”
Berhalter got a glimpse of a system, with Reyna pulling the strings, which could well be the team’s future in the monumental few years that lie ahead.
But, as Terzic noted, first everyone just needs him to be on the pitch more often.
Additional reporting: Jeff Rueter
(Top photo: John Wilkinson/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
