Giovanni Reyna earned his first Bundesliga start on Saturday, and commemorated it with a beautiful assist in Borussia Dortmund’s big clash against RB Leipzig.
It didn’t take long for the 17-year-old to make his impact felt, delivering an assist on a 30th-minute Erling Haaland goal in Saturday’s 2-0 win.
First @Bundesliga_EN start, first assist for Gio Reyna ✨🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/lW7iYkIp39
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) June 20, 2020
Reyna played 80 minutes before being replaced, and drew a second-half yellow card. Reyna had been limited to appearances off the bench since making his first-team debut in January. He was in line to earn his first start twice before, but once he missed out due to an injury in pre-game warmups, and more recently he missed out due to illness.
The victory helped Borussia Dortmund clinch second place in the league table after Bayern Munich captured its eighth-consecutive title a week ago.
Fellow American Tyler Adams started on the bench for Julian Nagelsmann’s side, but came on at halftime for RB Leipzig.
Until today, I had not realized exactly how tall Gio is. 6’1″ per Wikipedia, which I found sort of unbelievable until I saw him towering over Adams in the post-match photo (wish I could find a link… it’s out there on reddit etc). Am I the only one who had not entirely picked up on this? Given he is 17, does this mean we are talking about a freakish 6’2″-6.3″ Number 10 in the long run? Who is this guy???
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Also, based on the numbers above and the footage of the game, I can only conclude that Erling Haaland is 8 foot 5
8 foot 5!! Good one! GP! I notice in the U17 Concacaf tourney, that Gio looked bigger now, than his father did, fully grown. ….and Haaland towers over Gio, damn, these are some big teens! I’m glad futbol leagues are back on tv!
Haha. He looked bigger because he is! Claudio is (generously) listed at 5’9″ in his playing days, and his mom (Danielle Egan, another former Nats player) is listed at 5’6″. Bizarre stuff…. and watching him play I hadn’t realized at all. Had anyone? Seriously?
Actually, that’s always been part of the narrative, that he’s big and strong enough, that he can hold off much-older opponents.
Reyna is looking like he’ll be a MAJOR talent….very similar to Pulisic. I am looking forward to watching Reyna and the rest of our youthful USMNT once international play resumes. They may be young, inexperienced, and may make mistakes….but the group of players we are starting to see emerge are going to be fun to watch as they gain experience. The following talents are all 22 or younger, playing in top leagues, and all look to be real talents and not just prospects….
Attack: Pulisic, Reyna, Uli, Sargent, Weah, Ledezma, Mendez
Midfield: Adams, McKennie, Vassilev,
Defense: Dest, A. Robinson, Richards, Otasowie,
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Sprinkle in a handful players in lower level leagues and/or are a bit older….
Miazga, CCV, EPB, Holmes, Saucedo, Cappis, Green, Cannon, Pomykal, Aaronson, Ferreira, Yueill, and there is enough talent & depth that this group could become something special over the next 2-4 years.
Still a little thin at a couple positions, but still players in the pipeline or duel nationals that could jump into the picture.
Let’s let Uli, Ledezma, Weah, Mendez, Vassilev, and Richards actually do something as pros before penciling them in as backbones of the national team. And by “do something”, I mean do something more than occasional minutes with the first team and garner lots of flattering talk of potential. Richards just got his first appearance for Bayern (in a meaningless game). Uli, Ledezma, Weah, Mendez look like promising young players, but if every promising young player turned into a productive national teamer, we’d have won the World Cup already. Even Sargent still has a lot to prove, right now he’s getting time on a bad team, and he’s not scoring. We need someone better than the current version of Sargent.
Sure, all those guys are young and should be in the national team conversation, but right now it’s a coin flip as to whether they’ll be the next Pulisic or the next Gideon Zelalem.
same thing as richards. why can we bring in pulisic before dortmund is using him much, but reyna has to wait? 5 seconds later and he’s starting and producing. at a point of accumulation this sounds like cowardice in the face of a youth movement as opposed to being guarded. particularly with the quantity and quality of kids coming up we need to get over this “but you’re not starting for dortmund yet” bull. they wouldn’t be at dortmund if they sucked.
Pulisic had made 6 appearances for Dortmund beginning Jan 30 2016 (2nd match after Winter Break) Reyna made is debut Jan 18 (1st match after Winter Break). Pulisic’s first call up was in March 2016. Reyna’s first call up was March 2019 they followed the exact same timeline the only difference is Reyna’s debut didn’t happen in March because of the pandemic. Reyna was at the U17 WC in October so he could have been added to the roster for the NL matches in November but nothing from his performance in Brazil said he was ready two weeks later to beat Canada. JK brought Pulisic along slowly only making a cameo in his first cap 9 minutes. There were 10 more USMNT matches before Pulisic got his first start, he only played 85 total minutes in 6 matches of the Copa America. Berhalter started Dest in his first cap after he had made 7 appearances for Ajax. Please actually look up information before pontificating on how much smarter you are than everyone else.
Not trying to argue your point but Reyna’s call up would have March 2020 not 2019. But I agree with what u said.
Hah with this quarantine I never know what day of the week it is and now I’m apparently forgetting the year too.
Well, this article was super quick!! Lol. @ the time, of this comment, it’s the ‘47. Reyna is a future 10. His 1st start, & Favre has Reyna playing centrally, attacking mid, that’s not a mistake. I’m enjoying this match, so far… O! Reyna just missed a chance to score…