Gio Reyna heads into the 2022 World Cup as one of the United States' brightest young stars. Controversy over his training efforts and family conflict with the team's then coach overshadowed his performance.
A World Championship The next year in the United States will be a guiding light for 22-year-old Reyna in reviving her injury-plagued career.
Reyna says he would now “definitely” approach the 2022 incident differently and his actions were out of frustration, but the controversy was not “entirely” his fault or his family's fault.
Talking to The Associated Press at his new club Borussia Monchengladbach The attacking midfielder said last week he wants to use this season to convince US coach Mauricio Pochettino that he still belongs in the team.
“I'm obviously thinking about [the World Cup] quite often it’s where I need and want to be,” he said. “But I try to focus here every day, stay here, work here every day and hopefully have faith that everything will fall into place.”
In Qatar in 2022, Reyna played off the bench only twice. Then-American coach Gregg Berhalter said after the tournament that the unnamed player, later identified as Reina, was nearly sent home due to a lack of effort in training.
Reyna's parents – Claudio and Daniel Reyna, both former national team players – lobbied the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) for more playing time for Gio and contacted the USSF about a three-year-old domestic violence charge involving Berhalter and the woman who later became his wife – Danielle's former college roommate.
Asked if he would do things differently if he had the chance again, Reyna told the AP: “Maybe in some ways, but I'm not going to just sit here and take all the blame for something that has been made out to be entirely my fault, which I believe is not the case, and also my family's.”
Reyna added that the tension “stems from” dissatisfaction with his playing time.
“At the end of the day I was just upset that, you know, I didn't actually play. I played in Dortmund. I thought I wanted to play in the World Cup, but I ended up not doing that and that's really what made it happen,” he said.
“I think the frustration and disappointment was just wanting to play and help my country. It's so far away now and so far in the past that I don't even want to talk about it anymore.”
Reina hopes Gladbach will be his springboard back into the national team. Having his friend and Team USA teammate Joe Scully join him was the icing on the cake.
Numerous injuries prevented Reina from gaining momentum. He was used as a substitute over the last three years at Dortmund, loaned out to Nottingham Forest and then spent most of last season on the bench.
Reyna last played 90 minutes in a league match in March 2022, and has played once for the United States since the 2024 Copa America. Fitness problems prevented him from playing four of the eight matches. Bundesliga games in Gladbach at the moment.
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Even coming off the bench for Gladbach, Reina said, “is still better than what I did for most of last season.” With only four friendlies against the USA scheduled before the team's pre-World Cup training camp, Reyna's main chance to make an impression is against Gladbach.
“I think Pochettino said very clearly: 'You need to play, perform, and then if you do that you have a good chance of getting back on the pitch,'” he said. “It’s all on me now.”
Dortmund are renowned for producing talented youngsters, but Reyna now wonders if he should have moved “a little earlier” to get more playing time. “I had a good feeling when I made the decision to stay there. It didn't work out.”
Over the past five years, Reyna has had at least eight different injuries. Most of them had soft tissue and muscle problems, as well as a broken leg.
Fitness issues have also limited his role against Bundesliga strugglers Gladbach.
“I learned a lot about my body,” Rayna said. This means that fitness work should be seen as a dialogue with the club's sports coaches and finding new ways to cope with the mental stress caused by another failure.
“The first 24 to 48 hours are always going to suck. There's no way around it,” he said. “What I have learned now is that after those one or two days when [there’s] obviously a lot of pain, a lot of downtime, low energy, you just have to deal with it. You have to take action, you have to just attack the rehab center.”
Reyna says he is taking on more responsibility on and off the field as he tries to realize his potential as a player.
“I’d like to look back into the future and say this has been a defining year, several years here,” he said. “But actually talking is not the way to go. You have to turn talk into action.”
