Gio Reyna’s limited minutes: USMNT’s loss is Borussia Dortmund’s gain

Borussia Dortmund midfielder Gio Reyna exited the World Cup this past weekend as the USMNT lost to the Netherlands 3-1.

The World Cup continues in Qatar, albeit another Borussia Dortmund player lighter as Gio Reyna and the USMNT fell to the Netherlands this past Saturday. The game ended 3-1 with Gio coming on at half time to provide more of an attacking impetus for Gregg Berhalter’s side; a side that had seen Reyna feature very little in across the group stages.

Reyna’s limited minutes throughout the tournament came as a surprise to many US and Dortmund fans alike, particularly because he is by and far one of the team’s most talented players despite his young age. There was ample speculation as to why Berhalter had chosen to go with other options for his starting 11, and at least in the group stages, these choices paid dividends as the US went unbeaten and advanced out of their group with England, sending Iran and Wales home.

Reyna’s appearance in the second half of the USMNT’s clash with the Netherlands provided some spark of creativity, particularly in the latter stages of the game when he seemingly grew into it a bit more. Reyna put in two or three good balls into the box that were indeed dangerous, but these chances came too little too late and the Netherlands moved on to the next round, where they will face Lionel Messi and Argentina.

The main question mark surrounding Reyna’s involvement pertains to whether or not giving him more game time would’ve offered him the opportunity to have more of a say in how long the US spent at the World Cup as a whole. As we’ve mentioned, Berhalter’s approach saw the US advance out of their group, and it is hard to say whether or not Gio’s involvement alone could have perhaps allowed them to top the group or not, changing their opponent in the knockout stages and possibly extending their stint.

What we can say however is that with more game time, we could have perhaps seen more out of Reyna than we did. The player himself has dealt with a lot of injuries recently, only really coming back for Borussia Dortmund in October. Limited game time in the lead up to the World Cup and then limited play time at the tournament likely dulled Reyna’s ability to be as impactful as perhaps USMNT fans would have hoped.

The argument on the flip side is that, with so little game time prior to the World Cup, Berhalter was perhaps keeping Reyna in reserve so as to not aggravate any injury, but was also cautious about his ability to start considering the lack of game time. This argument falls by the wayside as other players in the national team had had similarly harsh injury struggles over the course of 2022, especially Weston Mckennie. McKennie picked up a metatarsal fracture in February of 2022, which kept him out of Juventus’ second half of the season (16 games, 87 days). His injury woes continued into the new season where he picked up shoulder and muscle injuries that limited his game time, only truly returning for his side in the middle of November. Despite this, he played a plethora of minutes in the USMNT’s midfield.

There may of course be things that go on behind the scenes that we do not know, so speculation on its own will not delineate exactly why Gio Reyna didn’t play a larger role for the USMNT in this tournament. While it was sad to see so little of him on the world’s stage, Dortmund fans will be happy to know that he will be returning to the club fully fit and ready to go for the second half of the season; a silver lining that considering Dortmund’s recent luck with injuries cannot be celebrated enough.

With Gio Reyna, Dortmund will go into the season one attacking option richer, which will allow the squad more rotation going into the Rückrunde. The return of players like Jamie Byone-Gittens and Marco Reus will further bring back depth for Dortmund to take advantage of. While their current standings in the Bundesliga are less than favorable, one can expect that Reyna will play a hand in changing Dortmund’s fortunes should he be able to remain fit. Dortmund are still very much in the Champions League and DFB Pokal, competitions they should of course be pushing to go as far as possible in.