Four years after World Cup drama, Gio Reyna gets another shot with Team USA

Last week, Gio Reyna and his wife, Chloe, were sitting in a parking lot, outside a smoothie shop in Connecticut, waiting to hear if he’d made Team USA’s World Cup roster. They knew word would be coming from the coaching staff any minute, but they wanted to be alone.

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Back at his wife’s family’s house, he said, “We knew there would be some nerves.” His parents were elsewhere, also “waiting anxiously,” Reyna said. “Just like I was.”

Soon enough, Reyna received notice: he’d made the roster . He called his parents to share the news. “Just over the moon,” he said, describing their reaction.Years ago, he was considered the next great young American soccer player, the son of two former members of the men’s and women’s national teams, Claudio and Danielle Reyna. He was only a teenager when he went to train with Borussia Dortmund in Germany. A young, attacking midfielder with preternatural touch, he could dribble through entire defenses or create an advantage with a perfect pass — skills that cannot exactly be taught.

But at the 2022 World Cup, Reyna didn’t play much. Questions swirled about his effort, his attitude, and lack of fitness. He seemed to be in coach Gregg Berhalter’s doghouse . Reyna had just turned 20 years old. Eventually, the situation devolved into a full-blown soap opera between Reyna’s parents and the coach, who had known one another for decades.

Berhalter was fired two years later after a poor performance in the Copa America and replaced by Mauricio Pochettino, an Argentinian who had managed world-class clubs Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain. Now, Pochettino had chosen Reyna to be among the 26 players he would take to the 2026 World Cup.

“Gio [has] amazing talent and experience,” Pochettino said Tuesday at a news conference in Manhattan announcing the roster. He added: “I really trust in him.”

Minutes later, Reyna met with a horde of media to answer questions, alongside several of his teammates. Reyna didn’t seem to really want to excavate the 2022 World Cup.

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Did he reflect on what happened? “Reflect? I guess,” he said. “It was a while ago. But yeah, it happened. It is what it is.”

Was he disappointed he didn’t play more in 2022? “I mean, of course,” he said. “Everyone wants to play every minute of every game. But sometimes it doesn’t work like that.”

What did he learn from that experience? How was he different now, four years later? “Uhh, not much, I guess,” he said. “It’s obviously in the past.”

The past four years, Reyna’s club career hadn’t gone to plan, either. He hadn’t broken into the starting lineup playing for Dortmund in the Bundesliga, or during his one season playing for Nottingham Forest in the Premier League, nor this season, his first playing for Borussia Mönchengladbach, a less prestigious Bundesliga team.

At times on Tuesday, Reyna sounded humbled by it all. “This time around, I’m just willing to do whatever it takes,” Reyna said. “Whatever’s called for by me, I’ll be willing to help.” He repeated that he wanted “to help the team in whatever way possible.”

Reyna suggested that the whole team had grown up since the last World Cup, and that experience would be one of the team’s strengths. “There’s so many players who have developed,” he said. “It’s really competitive. A lot of guys are close to, or in, their primes. We’re all older. We’ve matured as people and as players.”

Pochettino made no public promises to Reyna: “I don’t say that he is going to play the game,” Pochettino said. “But he can help. He can help because he’s a different player, different talent. And I think in all the roster, you need to have a player like him.”

At one point, a reporter asked Reyna to describe the difference between Berhalter and Pochettino. “You’re putting me on the spot here a little bit,” Reyna said.

“They have a lot of the same qualities,” Reyna continued. “It’s just … maybe a little bit more of the South American, maybe a little bit looser culture [now]. Where Gregg had a few more rules. But I don’t know. They’re both demanding. Both gave a lot of freedom to the players. But at the end of the day, you need to train, you need to prepare, you need to play. And if you did those things well, then both coaches gave you freedom to enjoy off the pitch.”

Pochettino said he trusted Reyna, and that was not lost on the 23-year-old.

“It means a lot; I can’t thank him enough,” Reyna said. “At the end of the day, I want to repay him on the pitch and help this team be successful.”