Bryan Reynolds continued his European development in the Belgian Pro League last season and will now reportedly embark back to Belgium this fall.
Reynolds is set to join KVC Westerlo on a season-long loan from AS Roma with an option to buy, Sky Sports Italia reported Wednesday. It will be the second loan spell for Reynolds since earning a permanent move to Italy from MLS side FC Dallas.
The 20-year-old fullback scored one goal in nine appearances during the second half of last season with fellow Belgian side Kortrijk. Reynolds, a former U.S. youth national team player, will now join up with Westerlo, who won the Belgian second-tier last season to gain promotion to the Pro League this fall.
Reynolds totaled 31 appearances for FC Dallas during his time in MLS before making the move to AS Roma in 2020. Jose Mourinho rewarded Reynolds with only three appearances during the early stages of the 2021-22 season before eventually allowing him to leave on loan in January 2022.
The Texas native will now have a new opportunity with Westerlo, as he aims to earn a starting spot in Jonas De Roeck’s lineup. Reynolds has earned two caps to date with the USMNT and remains a highly-touted prospect within Gregg Berhalter’s player pool.
Westerlo’s competitive schedule is set to begin in August.
While it may be too late for Reynolds to break into the 2022 squad, he is still a talented player who could be a huge part of the USMNT in the future.
People forget that for most national teams players don’t usually start breaking into the squad until they’re around 23. The USMNT’s current squad is abnormal in the number of players we have who are in their early 20’s….and how many Caps they have. At any other time in our history…or possibly even in the future….having a 20 year old 6’3″ RB on the books at Roma and on loan to get 1st team minutes would be something we’d be excited about.
I don’t read much into his loan away from Roma. Reynolds was signed before Mourinho became the coach and he’s the type of coach who wants his players to be finished products…not development players.
If Reynolds continues to develop I could easily see him work his way into the US squad discussion for 2026. With his size & mobility I could also see him eventually become a CB. Especially considering how thin we’re going to be once we move on from Long & Zimmerman.
A hypothetical back 3 of Richards – Che – Rynolds with Dest & Jedi as wingbacks in front of them could be something to be tried at some point over the course of the next cycle.
2026 Possible RB Options:
Dest (21 yrs/17 caps), Cannon (24 yrs/27 caps), Reynolds (20 yrs/2 caps), Scally (19 yrs/2 caps).
We’ve got a good team right now but by 2026 when are players are truly established with their clubs we could have an exceptional team.
Curious if Mourinho got an initial look at Reynolds and decided he could not play for him? “The Chosen One,” has seen a few players in his day but is a bit of a narcissist
i think it’s more of a fanboy or snob thing where they want everyone signing UCL and allowed to courageously fight for time to prove by proxy how good a team the US is. like some sort of adam smith invisible hand obsession. personally i think the more direct version of how good is the US is how the US plays in games. and personally if my coach telegraphed i was going to rot and that meant the NT coach would forget my phone number, i would take that frank prejudice and an invitation to loan/transfer out as a favor. go play someplace you’re wanted. be glad the coach was blunt and didn’t keep you around as some perhaps unneeded backup plan. i would only want to stay if i was like gooch who seems like he’d just as soon retire than leave sunderland, even if that kills any NT chance he could have. that’s the only situation where i’d be content to bide my time and see if i can outlast jose in roma. otherwise plenty of fish in the sea and in a couple years rotting in roma will start to negatively impact both your NT trajectory and your career as a whole. plenty of hyndman- or zelalem-type stories where they were going to set the world on fire and are now subbing in MLS or down in USL.
Mr. rule,
“Curious if Mourinho got an initial look at Reynolds and decided he could not play for him? ”
Mourinho was signed by Roma in May of 2021. Reynolds was there then. Roma did not start the 2021-22 season very well. Mourinho got his initial look at Reynolds and basically said Reynolds was ready. It seems he thought Bryan was very young and not ready yet.
Jose wasn’t willing to put his own job at risk just to prove that the FC Dallas world class talent bandwagon is legit.
At least he didn’t cut him outright.
Guys like Mourinho are expected to show huge progress and maybe win something immediately if not sooner.
Unlike Berhalter he doesn’t have endless time and chances to wait on players.
Unlike Berhalter, Mourinho has always been expected to produce immediately. If you can’t play for him NOW he will find someone who can.
And if you do produce for him NOW he doesn’t care how old you are (McTominay, Scott).
Reynolds is undoubtedly talented but if a 21 year old kid not is ready for Serie A just yet, he’s not ready.
People point to Busio and Tessman and say they played a lot there
Yeah they did and you see how much that helped Venezia avoid relegation.
If Reynold’s is the hot shit right back, right wingback, I’ve heard he’s supposed to be and he starts to show it in Belgium, he won’t be short of options.
He might yet make it to Qatar since the defense has not been very convincing when you consider they have mostly faced crap opponents.
“is a bit of a narcissist”
What does that have to do with being able to evaluate talent?
EDIT “said Reynolds was NOT ready”
I thought Cannon had a rough summer window. Looked shaky both defensively and with the ball. Gave up some real bad errors that would hurt in the WC.
If Reynolds can get into the starting lineup in Belgium, we could see a fall callup for at least a competitive shot.
We need fullback depth, per usual. Good news is that Pulisic can now play wingback, apparently. Just kidding!
I could definitely see him with a push into the USMNT WC team as Dests back up. Good move for him.
I liked the kid in the Northern Ireland game and thought he was a little hard done by to get nothing else, though I think that was his choice for Gold Cup. So this may give him an outside chance at Qatar somehow, since he will be actually playing which GB sees as end-all. Roma always felt overambitious for him and like he was buying a series of loans, and there are dudes like Miazga going round these optimistic circles for years, so in terms of this as an off ramp, we’ll see. How many years did it take CCV to escape? There is like a story every year on Miazga talking up that this year’s move is his way out or his way back into the NT. There will be happy talk if he begins starting. Then he gets benched or the cheap team getting a player on loan doesn’t want to pay a “Chelsea” or “Roma” price. Part of the problem here is Roma will value him as a Roma asset even if Westerlo is more the speed where he would play; but he likely won’t be offered at a Westerlo price. Creates a constant roadblock to a full transfer. CCV escaped because he finally got loaned to a team like Celtic that could finally afford his cost.
I agree. So I would guess the transfer fee, and the player’s cut, is why so many players are willing to go this route. Not like Waterloo would have paid FC Dallas a transfer fee for Reynolds. We forget this is a business and most athletes careers are short lived. So if someone is going to pay you a very large fee right now, it’s hard to turn it down.
Depends if your focus is career or money. Unless you are Born Pulisic, I personally prefer the Aaronson/Haaland incremental approach. Start slow. Move up to ever so slightly better teams. Set yourself up to succeed and try to peak with moves later on. Chase the big moves and the big money in your mid 20s perhaps with a NT role already established. Either that or I think you need to be abroad by 18 (or earlier if you have the passport) where you go into their academy and age group setup and they invest in training and teaching you rather than just want a final product.
To me the UCL obsession, when you aren’t already a NT regular and just awesome, has to be some combination of ego and money. Like they want to be “City” or “Roma” even if it’s not realistic they play, perhaps because the money is good. But to me the money doesn’t last if you turn into a loan warrior. You end up back in MLS or USL for peanuts if you don’t get your career going. To me it’s slow money vs fast money and a lot of people take fast money shortcuts even if that may mean that’s your only good contract ever.
I also think you have to be mindful of the NT coach’s mentality and this one is not like JK where he would take some second team kid to Brazil because he saw something. This guy wants numbers on a spreadsheet and social media buzz and that doesn’t happen sitting. So even someone like Weah needs to consider whether he’s going to play enough for this coach to give him a chance. So I generally pimp “calibrated” transfers — go someplace you’ll start — but even more so with this selection mentality. Under this guy if you sit he assumes you are “off form” and picks someone else, regardless if that’s true in reality.
“CCV escaped because he finally got loaned to a team like Celtic that could finally afford his cost.”
Not exactly.
Whatever team you’re auditioning for on loan you have to play well enough to convince them you’re worth the money they are willing to spend.
Loans are a way of showing a team what they would be getting for the money.
Some loans, teams find out you’re a worthless jerk. Other loans teams find out you’re great but they can’t afford you but you saved them from relegation or got them promoted, so thanks. The money they invested in the loan was worth it.
You paint all loans with a broad brush. You keep trying to separate cost from fit and performance and you can’t do that.
Celtic is the first time CCV convinced a team that his production was worth whatever Celtic were willing to pay. And that he was a compatible fit.
CCV has generally played well on loan,
Just not THAT well.
The loaned player usually knows going in, what the terms are and probably has or should have, a good idea of a club’s financial wherewithal.
It’s up to him to play himself into a long term sale.
Loans are just another way of keeping player’s feet to the fire. They should always play with that intensity.
I’m sure Miazga gets down on his knees every day and gives thanks the Chelsea loan army.
“I personally prefer the Aaronson/Haaland incremental approach. Start slow. Move up to ever so slightly better teams.”
You say that as if real life happens that way.
By the way, Aaronson does not belong in the same sentence with Erling. Aaronson is a good player. Haaland is a generational, transformational player. It’s not even close.
Haaland scored 9 goals in one game in the Under 20 World Cup and things have not “slowed down” for him much since. “Start slow”?? Haaland has been consistently productive at an amazing pace since the Under 20 World Cup. Very few if any players in history have had the luxury he has had of deciding where exactly he wants to go.
I think you forget how lucky Aaronson was to wind up at Salzburg when he did . And I think you forget just how much he still has to prove. And you forget how rare it is for any soccer player to get an offer from ANY top flight or near top flight Euro club. You’ve gotten arrogant about our talent pool. As if Dallas FC guys, because of their pedigree, have their pick of the litter, when it comes to clubs to sign for.
I’m sure they wish it was so.
“So I generally pimp “calibrated” transfers — go someplace you’ll start — but even more so with this selection mentality. Under this guy if you sit he assumes you are “off form” and picks someone else, regardless if that’s true in reality.”
It would be great if life was as easy to “calibrate” as you suggest.
For example, I’m sure there were any number of clubs that would have been a far better fit for Pepi to move to in Europe. Had they followed “my plan” he probably would be a World Cup lock today. But, to the best of my knowledge none of them contacted Pepi’s people and gave him the choice.
Same for Reynolds.
It’s just like anything else. You get opportunities most often from people you have some kind of prior connection with.
That’s part of the reason we have so many kids going to Germany, because our kids’ representation already have a history of connections there. Or we see kids going to clubs with American ownership or American front office people( Venezia, Roma, Leeds, Arsenal, Nottingham Forest, etc.) and it’s obviously better than it has been but there’s a ways to go yet and, other than Pulisic, there is no big money “sure fire” star yet.
It’s easy for us to sit at home behind our keyboards , with perfect hindsight and criticize a player for a bad non-incremental career move when we don’t really know what went into it before decisions were made. Or what choices, if any, were available to them.