Gio Reyna seizes his moment with the USMNT, and is now in the World Cup race

From the moment the U.S. men’s soccer team’s starting lineup was announced Saturday, all eyes were fixed on Gio Reyna.

Not only was he about to play for his country for the first time since late March, but he was starting for the first time since last year’s Copa América group stage finale — a loss to Uruguay that sent the U.S. out in the group stage on home soil, and sent manager Gregg Berhalter out of his job.

Reyna, 23, didn’t make any of Mauricio Pochettino’s squads until the Nations League final four in March because of a groin injury. Then he didn’t play in the semifinal loss to Panama, and was an ineffective second-half substitute in the third-place game loss to Canada.

For all Reyna’s talents — and he has perhaps the most natural talent of any U.S. player besides Christian Pulisic — Pochettino declared him not “ready to play in the way that we expect from him” on the eve of the third-place game.

That was how far he had fallen, in terms of fitness, form, and playing time at his club, Germany’s Borussia Dortmund.

Nor was he done falling. Reyna went to the Club World Cup with Dortmund instead of the Gold Cup and the friendlies before it, because Dortmund wanted him at their games and Pochettino didn’t want players at the friendlies whom he wouldn’t have afterward.

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Would that be salvation? No, it was almost the opposite. Reyna got off the bench only once in Dortmund’s five tournament games, a mostly useless 12-minute cameo in the group stage finale.

Only after that did he finally leave for newer pastures, a move many outsiders had hoped to see for years. Borussia Mönchengladbach bought him for about $4.5 million up front and $3 million in incentives. It was miles below what Dortmund expected when a 17-year-old Reyna made his first-team debut in early 2020.

It was to be a fresh start, but it barely started before Reyna suffered the latest of seemingly countless muscle injuries in September. He returned to action in mid-October, but only as a substitute.

So it was a pretty big surprise when Pochettino called him up to the national team this month. But over the course of the week in Chester, it felt increasingly inevitable that he would start Saturday against Paraguay at Subaru Park.

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Right on cue, there he was, and the message was clear. This was Reyna’s shot. Would he take it?

The answer came within four minutes.

It was a broken play out of a corner kick, the ball pinging around off all manner of limbs on both teams. Eventually, it fell to Max Arfsten, and he chipped a cross into the crowd. Reyna rose highest and met it with a header that caromed in off the crossbar.

As the crowd roared, Reyna ran toward the corner flag, pointing to the U.S. badge on his jersey. Within seconds, his teammates had swarmed him to celebrate.

“I know the kind of player he is, and I’m just really happy for him — he deserves it,” said Medford’s Brenden Aaronson, who started with Reyna in the attacking midfield spots. “He’s been through a lot with injuries, with all this stuff. But whenever he plays for the national team, he’s always there, and it’s awesome to see. … He’s confident in his ability, he knows what he can do, and that’s the beauty of him.”

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There wasn’t time in the moment to point out that Reyna has not in fact always been “there” when with the national team. That was the whole point of the 2022 World Cup scandal that nearly torpedoed him.

When that goal went in, though, it was a moment for his immense burden of history to be a privilege, not a weight. The tally was his ninth for the U.S., passing his legendary father Claudio’s eight.

And for once, Claudio wasn’t invoked because of that scandal, or all the times Claudio interfered with U.S. Soccer officials before then, or yelled at referees from the sidelines in Gio’s youth days, or by genetics passed his ego on to his son.

By the time Gio emerged from the locker room to meet one of the biggest media packs at a U.S. game in quite a while, he had already texted with his father.

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“It was just fun, love,” Gio said. “He was obviously happy for me that I passed him, but I had no idea. So he was more making fun of me for the fact that it was my first header I’ve ever scored.”

The negative side of the burden struck twice after that. On Paraguay’s 10th-minute equalizer, Reyna was late and slow to challenge Junior Alonso before he launched the long ball that sprung Miguel Almirón for a dazzling assist on Alex Arce’s goal.

In the 50th, Reyna had a look to shoot in the 18-yard box and didn’t take it, choosing instead to dribble into what became a crowd of defenders.

Those were small moments, but they mattered. Just as pressure is a privilege, Reyna knows his talents bring extra scrutiny.

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The scale tilted back his way in the 71st. Reyna combined superbly with Folarin Balogun to create the winning goal. The man of the hour had delivered again, and the U.S. went on to close out a 2-1 win.

“I think in the end, performances like this that can help everybody here,” Reyna said. “But I want to have, more importantly, seven or eight good months in the rest of the season with Gladbach. And then I believe if I keep performing like I did tonight, then I’ll have a good chance to make the team and have an impact there, too.”

There’s still a ways to go, and as Pochettino said, plenty for Reyna to do to earn a seat on the plane next summer. But in a moment when he was asked to step up, he did, and in national team soccer there are never many moments. So when you get one, you have to take it.

“He showed why he started, and yes, confirmed that he’s a player that needs to improve because he needs to play more in his club,” Pochettino said. “But we can see today that he was great: scored and assisted. And the way that [he has] always the capacity to read the game, and find the free space in between the lines, I think that was a nightmare for Paraguay, and I think he did a very good job.”

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Reyna thanked Pochettino in turn, with some notable humility.

“I knew it was an opportunity for me to to show that I belong here,” he said. “He’s been great with me all week, working with him, and just trying to give me the freedom and the confidence to sort of be myself. So I can’t thank him enough, obviously, for the start and just for the relationship that we’ve really built this camp.”

The stakes only get higher from here, and so does the quality of opponent the U.S. will face. After meeting Uruguay on Tuesday in Tampa, Fla. (7 p.m., TNT, Universo), to close out this month, it’s expected that March’s games will see big-time opponents from Europe. Portugal, France, and Belgium are reportedly on the radar, with Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium set as a fittingly big-time venue.

Time will tell if Reyna earns the right to be there. For now, he’s only in the race. But that alone is the best place he’s been in for a long time.

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