Borussia Dortmund manager Edin Terzic has mainly used American attacker Gio Reyna off the bench throughout the 2022-23 season, but even in a limited role at times, the 20-year-old has continued to deliver for the Bundesliga title chasers.
Reyna scored his seventh league goal of the season on Saturday in Dortmund’s 5-2 league win over Borussia Moenchengladbach, staying on pace with Bayern Munich with two matches to play. The U.S. men’s national team midfielder/winger has started only seven of his 28 combined appearances this season, logging just 59 minutes of action since the March international window.
However, Reyna has had an eye for goal in his third season with Borussia Dortmund, tying a career-high for combined goals in a single campaign, while also making an instant impact in several matches this season. Although Terzic has ample attacking players in his squad including Sebastien Haller, Anthony Modeste, Karim Adeyemi, Donyell Malen, and Youssoufa Moukoko, Reyna’s impact has forced the German manager to reconsider his options at times in 2023.
“Gio in particular is not making it easy for me to always only be bringing him on,” Terzic said in a club interview. “He pushes the others every day. We want to have that performance mindset in the team. Karim [Adeyemi] and Donny [Malen] know that they need to keep stepping on the gas.”
Reyna has two final opportunities with Borussia Dortmund this season, with the Bundesliga title still up for grabs for both them and Bayern Munich. Dortmund faces off with Augsburg and Mainz in its final matches before Reyna will embark on a busy summer, which could include USMNT duty in the Concacaf Nations League Final Four.
Whether or not Reyna starts in Dortmund’s final two matches remains to be seen, but his impact regardless has been crucial for his development and his long-term plans with the club.
I think it’s in Reyna’s best interest to continue with Dortmund. With Bellingham likely sold he will have opportunities next season to show out. Don’t make the same mistake Pulisic made. Pulisic should have stayed with Dortmund a couple more seasons.
I still think he’s on the way out that’s why he’s not playing. The team is winning so no need to develop a guy on his way out. (Likely why Pulisic isn’t playing either)
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Notice he mentions wingers as guys Gio is pushing not Brandt, Reus, or Bellingham. No indication they are grooming him to replace Jude who is an 8 not a 10.
Yeah. Absolutely zero chance Gio will ever play the 8…when I think about guys who are “box-to-box” and “relentless pressers” and have “defensive bite”….well, in the entire USMNT roster, I’d have him like, dead last. As in, behind even Matt Turner.
Gio’s very, very talented on the ball, different than anyone else in our pool. But the reason he’s not starting for Dortmund is the same reason he wasn’t starting for the USMNT in the World Cup…he won’t work for the team, and he’s a complete liability defensively. Until he fixes that – or gets so transcendently good on the ball that a team is willing to build their formation around him – he’s going to be a very highly-paid luxury player who comes off the bench for Champions League-level teams, kind of a soccer version of an ace closer in baseball.
Not saying he is Like Bellingham, but he will get more chances next season.
Bellingham is an attacking 8 who has turned more attacking than defending. He isn’t really known for his defensive prowess.
Reyna will get his opportunities for Dortmund in multiple positions next season.
JR.
You sit down guys who are on the way out because you want to save them from being injured. Injury could drop the value of the merchandise.
And besides, I’m pretty sure BVB knows all they need to know about Gio just like Chelsea knows everything they need to know about the guys they are sitting including Pulisic.
In Chelsea”s case Top 4 and relegation are not issues and they have a bunch of new guys they probably know very little about.
“Pulisic should have stayed with Dortmund a couple more seasons.”
This is fantasy. His time with BVB was over.
And what makes you think BVB wanted Pulisic to stay?
BVB were very happy with the money and were unlikely to get more for him down the road. Sancho had pushed Pulisic to the bench and was going to sell for even more.
Between Jadon and his dodgy fitness, I could see Christian not playing a lot at BVB.
Which is much worse than his up and down tenure with Chelsea where at least he had a good excuse.
And you all conveniently forget that for all the bad times, he was a regular and vital part of a Champions League winning team. That’s a career definer for some players and that was very unlikely to ever happen at BVB.
It could be a long time before we can say that about another USMNT player. It possibly the highest level honor, club or country, any USMNT player has achieved. The move to Chelsea was a good idea but a risky one. If Christian had had better luck with injuries, everything could have gone very differently. But he had a very brief window and he missed it.
That’s what happens sometimes. it’s hardly the end of the world.
Christian still has a very high ceiling and assuming he can get a decent situation( there are rumors that Pochettino has requested they not be so quick to dump Christian) it’s all there in front of him.
Gio’s in a different situation entirely. Terzic is saying he’s using Gio to keep the guys in front of him on their toes. One reason, Brandt,Adeyemi and Malen are so hot is because Gio is keeping their feet to the fire. Odds are Bellingham and some of the others will be sold by next season so who knows what Gio will be looking at?
Keep hearing Pulisic to AC Milan. I like that move. He and Giroud are very familiar with each other from their time together at Chelsea, and Giroud likes him a lot. (When I keep thinking of these big-tall target strikers like Zlatan, Giroud, and Dider Drogba, it seems like they tend to peak late and then play until they’re like, 50, which bodes well for Ricardo Pepi, who is the same sort of player even if he’s not yet in the same breath as those guys.)
But Serie A is just so tactical. If the Prem is all about pace and athleticism and intensity and brutal rip-your-guts-out effort and millimeter-thin tolerances, Serie A is about complex tactics and intricate passing patterns and formations and assignments that can shift three or four times in the course of a single half. That suits Pulisic to a T, since the thing you want – and can achieve, with teams that are tactical enough to drag opponents to where they want them – is to get Pulisic in space facing the goal, running at defenders 1-on-1, and from preferably the left channels.
You get that, Pulisic can absolutely take over a game. I think he suits Serie A a whole lot better than the Prem.
Funny his time with BVB was over? What did he accomplish with BVB? Was he a 10 to 20 goal scorer for BVB? No. Was he a game in and game out starter with his time at BVB? Nope. He left BVB too early. He hasn’t even established himself as a top player before moving on to Chelsea. And we have all seen how that has gone for Pulisic….. one summer of good play from him.
BVB wanted Pulisic to stay on and tried to get him to sign a new deal. When Pulisic had no intention of re signing then BVB sought out the best deal for themselves.
far be it for someone to remind folks of the actual history but as someone who watched dortmund’s whole season his last year there, pulisic went from starter to sub his last season in dortmund, spent a lot of the year as an irregular sub except for some time periods where he filled in for injuries. he left because that was an erosion in his role there. dortmund might indeed have offered him to stay but that has to be contextualized to “are you willing to put up with more of the same.”
and to combat the constant tendency on here to make big club coaches into perfect geniuses, as pulisic’s role withered, dortmund went from 1st by a few points in the winer to losing the title at the end. sometimes these coaches aren’t as bright as people think.
along those lines, note lampard’s record on his second CFC stint. you know, the guy whose critique of pulisic was taken as gospel. personally i thought his coaching efforts at CFC actually got worse from his predecessor.
maybe it’s i’ve been in situations where a team has accomplished its goals and also ones — particularly in school sports — where a coach is handed a pile of talent that should win “state” or compete in “conference” and fritters it away, but i was long ago broken of the idea coaches are infallible or necessarily the objective arbiters of their players. they are complicated, sometimes mistaken human beings. have none of you moved teams or been cut and been apologized to a year or two later that they made a mistake, because you zoom off into the stratosphere in a new situation? give reyna that chance. weah too IMO. whole list really. go play someplace you’re really wanted. it tends to reflect in confidence and play.
re pulisic to ACM, i get it’s a fanboy obsession to have our players at the most elite clubs, and part of me even wants to see US players get similar reception in italy and spain that they are now getting in germany and italy, to expand options. but the reality is dest went to ACM and rotted. the reality is reynolds went to roma then on loan. i wouldn’t assume he’s being courted to start necessarily. this is not venezia, he wouldn’t have a friendly owner pushing his case. this is more like business.
side point, i feel like US fans are slipping in various phases, tactical sense, etc., but one particular is forgetting that players like this can be signed to sell jerseys or as loan assets. can we move past the childlike naivete where they must want him to come and start? just like i doubt antonee robinson was theorized to ACM to start just the same. we haven’t rebuilt our standing in serie A where i would assume anyone is being signed to start there.
i mean germany and england.
IV: I have no doubt you watched Pulisic’s last season but your memory isn’t exactly accurate. Pulisic began the year as the starter. Started 8/20 and 8/26. Then was injured 8/31, Int. break, 9/14 inj, came off the bench 9/18 against Brugge (1st minutes after injury). Started 9/22, 9/26, 9/29 (playing 248 mins) reinjured missed 10/3 and 10/6 and Int Break. Having missed 5 weeks of the first 2 months of the season he began coming on as a reserve while starting CL. By this point Pulisic’s team have already informed BvB that he wants to leave. The deal is officially announced Jan 2 and the team begins to invest in Sancho instead of Pulisic who after the announcement is a Chelsea player on loan. Pulisic misses 6 weeks in Feb, Mar and April injured the final 3 after being injured against Chile in Berhalter’s first full camp. Did Dortmund move on from Pulisic in his last season? Yes, but repeated muscle injuries pushed them just as much. Also Chelsea bought him in January but for financial rule reasons couldn’t bring him in until summer so Dortmund was somewhat forced to take him back in order to give Pulisic the destination he wanted. I’d say it was at worst 50/50 as injuries and announcing his intentions to leave in the fall certainly forced BvB’s decisions. There have been rumors that Gio was planning on using the WC to facilitate his move to a bigger club, if those are true it would seem Gio’s team is shopping him and BvB is focusing on guys who are coming back. I’ll be really surprised if he’s there in September, not because of his limited minutes but because Reyna and Dortmund have planned it all along.
really? i read the quotes as coach-speak. the whole premise of the fanboys is players on teams like this are constantly “pushing each other.” this is the neverending fanboy sales pitch for gutting out lousy situations on teams like this, that the contest for time makes a better player. that contest never ends, does not always benefit you (the snob fallacy — i mean, he’s sitting, duh — or maybe the idea is to always blame the player), and shouldn’t be an excuse for staying in an awkward situation unless you are lynden gooch and your goal in life was to be a career sunderland player regardless what league they are in, how much you play, and the impact on your NT status.
in the real world the question is does this situation benefit him and what are his real odds of starting again. in the real world after saying how “hard” he makes it, he’s a sub regardless. in the real world his NT status has eroded under NT coaches obsessed with analytics who downgrade him based on his reduced club role and injuries. to people who don’t believe in magic this would suggest it’s time to move as there is no obvious sense he is being groomed for an increased role based on his success. at least under this coach. in which case the fanboy theory practice and game effort at big clubs is always rewarded is bunk and he needs to go someplace he is better appreciated and used.
to me it’s very simple. dude has gone from The Next Big Thing a la pulisic to someone in search of a NT position and role, whose status is debated, and whose critics based on the whole scandal aren’t even sure should be involved. does that sound like “more status quo” or like someone who needs a “reset?” exactly.
Mr. IV,
This is a business.
Should I stay or should I go?
Diva shitbag Gio will have an interesting off season.
“status quo”?
“reset”/
The nice thing about playing for BVB is there’s a “reset ” pretty much every season. There’s no status quo with these “selling team” guys.
You can always count on them to value star sales over the team being cohesive enough to actually win the BL Title or the Champions League.
Gio being the next big thing coincided with Erling being his Uber driver and Bellingham just starting to show his stuff.
He then missed a lot of time injured. This season is really his first one since he’s come back full time healthy. And he’s come back to a different team..
It may be that he just doesn’t fit into this team.
Then again the odds are that next season it will be a pretty different team yet again.
Losing Haaland changed them a lot and losing Bellingham will also change them But Jude may not be the only change.
And BVB may not want Gio to go.
You wonder if the market is souring on BVB players.
NEGATIVE BRANDING -BVB players turn into snowflakes elsewhere
Dembele $125 million
Sancho. $87.94 million
Pulisic $ 73 million
POSITIVE PUBLICITY- BVB players worth something
Haaland $187.2 million
Bellingham ??
I’m guessing Gio isn’t worth shit on the transfer market right now. Tranfermarkt lists him at $30.4 million but that’s just walking around money compared to what they could get with a little work.
If I’m BVB , who I would argue know Gio and his abilities far better than anyone on SBI, even you, I would like to hang on to him for at least one more season and build him up so that they can get some of that “next big thing” money they had originally hoped to get for him.
I would think, unless Man City or Real Madrid want him, that GIo would like that as well. It makes good business sense.
The only worry is that when Gregg gets rehired by Crocker, Gio’s USMNT career is probably over so BVB will have to make up for that with a good run in the Champions’s League.