Gio Reyna hasn’t had much of a role with the U.S. men’s national team over the past year, but it isn’t stopping him from having goals ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Reyna has only featured once for the USMNT in 2025, making a substitute appearance in the CONCACAF Nations League third-place loss to Canada last March. The 22-year-old was not part of the Gold Cup squad this summer or the September and October international windows over the past two months.
Despite scoring eight goals in 32 international caps to date, Reyna’s chances have been limited under Mauricio Pochettino, and could continue heading into the final window of the year.
Although Reyna knows he needs to earn consistent minutes at Borussia Moenchengladbach this fall and winter, he still has his eyes on being part of the USMNT’s World Cup roster next summer.
“I do obviously think about [the World Cup] pretty often as it’s somewhere where I need and want to be,” Reyna said in an interview with the Associated Press. “But I try to focus daily here, stay present here, work here every day, and hopefully believe everything will fall into place.”
Reyna’s international career to date is more so known for the lingering effects of the 2022 World Cup. The attacking midfielder played only twice off the bench for the USMNT that winter, before later being identified as a player that was nearly sent home for a lack of effort in training by head coach Gregg Berhalter.
Berhalter was later investigated by U.S. Soccer for an old domestic violence allegation involving his now-current wife, an incident that was brought to light by Reyna’s parents; Claudio and Danielle. After U.S. Soccer’s investigation was completed, Berhalter was later re-hired by the program before eventually being relieved of his duties after the USMNT’s Copa America exit in 2024.
Reyna revealed that a lack of playing time under Berhalter in Qatar led to the tension between his former head coach and his family.
“At the end of the day, I was just upset that, you know, I wasn’t really playing. I was playing at Borussia Dortmund,” Reyna said. “I thought that I wanted to play at the World Cup and ultimately in the end, I didn’t do that, and that’s really what it stemmed from.
“I guess the frustration and the disappointment was just wanting to play and help my country,” he added. “It’s so far removed now and so far in the past, I don’t even really want to talk about it any more.”
Reyna has played just 120 minutes during the current Bundesliga season while on-loan from Borussia Dortmund and was an unused substitute on Tuesday as Borussia Moenchengladbach advanced in the DFB Pokal competition.
He will aim to get back to action on Saturday when Gladbach visits St. Pauli in league play.
Gio needs to put his head down and just work. His name should not even be in the mix for the final 26-man roster (increased from 23) to make the World Cup. He is playing FOR THE WORST TEAM CURRENTLY IN BUNDESLIGA, and Eugen Polanski, the interim coach who’s fighting for his job, is not relying on the skills or ability of Reyna to get the team going and out of last place.
In desperate times, no coach benches their “best players”, plain and simple. He fell out of favor with Dortmund, after years of being there, for a reason. He fell out of favor with GB and the USMNT for a reason. He is not starting for Gladbach for a reason.
We all know he is talented, but something is wrong with Reyna’s game that ALL his coaches eventually see and don’t like.
He hasn’t done anything in 4 years to merit a call-up.
Pundits like to talk about potential, bad moves, and old family drama, but no one can point to any major accomplishment during that period of time.
I hope he finds a good spot, and I’d love to see him slalom Mexico’s defense again, but I want to see him fight for a spot, lock it down, and be a steady presence in whatever league he plays for.
I want him to be like McKennie, who is the perennial odd man out at Juventus, but then makes the squad, is reliable, and then captains his Champions League team.
Gio offers something that no one else in the USMNT player pool does, which is why anyone who follows the USMNT continues to write, talk, post, podcast, and discuss, ad nauseum, on whether he will make the USMNT roster for the 2026 World Cup. All of this, even after he has not played more than 1200 minutes in all competitions and over the last 4 European seasons.
In short, he’s click bait, which is why Larry continues to write about Gio, as well.
Gio has plenty of time and will have up until the very last minute to make the roster…just like anyone else. The timeline is not this upcoming window in November…it’s not even the upcoming window in March 2026…he will have until May 2026.
Even so, none of the next two upcoming windows matter. As another post mentions, Gio needs to focus on his club career. First, he must stay healthy and be available to play. Second, when he plays, he must be effective, productive, and impactful. If he can do that, everything else will fall into place.
At Gladbach, and in his first game Bundesliga game this season vs Weder Bremen, he was Gladbach’s best player and showed that he can be effective, productive, and impactful. He needs to continue to build off of that.
Him not getting in today’s game is Gladbach being careful with him, so it’s not concerning.
If there is something that would be concerning about Gio and his time at Gladbach, it was his 30-minute sub appearance vs Union Berlin. He came on with Gladbach down 2 – 1, but individually, he did not get into a rhythm, nor did he get on the ball much, so he never got into the flow of the game, and frankly, he was not effective, productive, or impactful. Gladbach lost, but his attacking teammates played well, all while Gio was on the field.
Those types of performances will not earn Gio a spot on the USMNT roster, nor should they.
Gio’s talented, but I think he needs to be in MLS right now.
The guy needs minutes. He needs success. He needs to be more than a professional afterthought in Germany. The B1 is a hard league and aside from the Prem probably the one that least suits Gio’s skillset. He’d do better in Spain or Italy…but I don’t see any takers, not right now, and I hate to tell him this but he’s probably a TAM guy in the million-dollar range, not a DP at the MLS level…which is certainly nothing to sneer at, but I don’t think that’s where he rates himself either.
I think he should have gone to play in the Eredivisie
And I know I’m in the minority here but I hope he makes the squad
I’m with you too. I wished he took Tillman’s spot at PSV (even though he wouldn’t be guaranteed to start) to help build his game and confidence
Too late for next summer. If he’s not starting and dominating for a team as bad as Gladbach right now, I just can’t imagine how he gets back on the USMNT radar in the near future. Hopefully he can string some games together, maybe have a great performance against Bayern or someone and get noticed, get another move next summer and work his way back up for next cycle.
He needs to be focusing on playing regularly for his club team first of all. We are way beyond calling in a player, no matter the team or league, who isn’t playing regularly. A more deserving player is Milan Iloski, now with Philadelphia. He scored 10 goals in 14 games with San Diego and had 3 with Philly and then scored a wonderful goal in their first playoff game the other day. Having watched him play, he is incredibly accurate in his shot making and rarely misses the goal. At the very least he should be called into the December camp.
Dude he couldn’t even get on for a Pokal game. Its looking unlikely he makes the USMNT WC team. The only chance he may have is get recalled by Dortmund and make a Jan loan move to an MLS team. But he would have to light it up in that 4 months.
And right now no respectable team in Europe has him on their radar.
Although a one goal game they were in control, you wouldn’t sub in your guy with injury concerns if you didn’t need to.
Don’t buy it.
Hard to tell he did start and then got hurt and has played a few minutes here and there since. Also the manager that brought him in got canned. The U23 guy is the interim. The new sporting director was most recently at Red Bull so as I mentioned a couple weeks ago gegenpressing might not be Gio’s forte.
He was sold not loaned so he can’t be recalled.
He is on loan with an option to buy.
Yeah you’re right I thought it was a loan with option to buy.
It’s ok I had to look it up to be sure.
“I was playing at Borussia Dortmund” lol, barely.
He hasn’t played for more than 650 minutes in a season for the last six years. At his current pace an injuries I will be surprised if he reaches 1000′ minutes this year.
He’s only 22, so who knows what happens in the future, but his ’26 WC window is disappearing quickly.
I think he meant in Fall of 2022 he was playing. He had returned as a regular, starting about half the matches between league and CL and playing at least 15 minutes or more every time he didn’t start.
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I still think Berhalter was scared after he went off in the first half against Saudi Arabia. He didn’t want to give up a sub window in the first half of a WC match.