Giovanni Reyna had the chance to change the tone of a sleepy Borussia Dortmund performance in the Champions League on Wednesday. Reyna, on for some rare minutes as a substitute against Sporting Club, hit the inside of the post with his first touch.
It was not an important miss — in any sense. Dortmund held a 3-0 advantage from the first leg of the playoff and their progress to the last-16 never looked under threat. For Reyna personally it was of little consequence either, as he will be allowed to leave the club in the summer.
Reyna, 22, is approaching the final year of his contract in Dortmund, and the club — approaching an expensive squad rebuild and eager not to lose the midfielder for free in 2026 — will entertain reasonable offers. The feeling internally is that Reyna is unlikely to realise his potential if he remains in Dortmund and that as a result, a new, long-term contract does not make sense for either party.
Key to Reyna’s stagnation has been his inability to remain consistently involved. That his 21 minutes against Sporting felt substantial, relative at least to his ten against Bochum at weekend and the five against Stuttgart the Saturday before, felt characteristic of the problem The American has started just 12 Bundesliga games since the beginning of the 2021 season. Prior to Wednesday, he had played just 369 minutes of club football in 2024-25 and, clearly, that is not the pathway to progress.
Dortmund have been open to a permanent transfer for some time. They would have sanctioned a sale last January had an offer in the region of €20m ($20.8m) been forthcoming. Ultimately, the best option was a loan move to Nottingham Forest, but that did little for either party. Forest moved on last summer. Reyna returned to Germany, to a future far from the one he was expected to have.
Reyna’s early career, in Dortmund team including Erling Haaland (right), was filled with optimism. (Guido Kirchner/picture alliance via Getty Images)
He joined Dortmund as a 17-year-old in 2019 and was once considered among the club’s most valuable future prospects. Not unreasonably so; in 2021, aged 18 years and 14 days, he became the youngest player in history to make 50 Bundesliga appearances, setting a record which has since been broken by Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz.
Three months later, he made his first appearance for the USMNT, debuting against Wales in November 2020, before scoring his first goal, against Panama, a few days later.
There is no single reason why his career has not developed in the years since.
A succession of muscle injuries have limited his availability over the past three years, but have also prevented him from becoming a dependable member of the first-team squad.
Internationally, Gregg Berhalter’s criticism of Reyna’s attitude during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar descended into a bitter feud involving both of Reyna’s parents and leading, ultimately, to an 11-month absence from the national team.
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Not that life at club level has been smooth. Unhelpfully, his career has coincided with a period of prolonged coaching instability at Dortmund, with Reyna debuting under Lucien Favre in January 2020, and then working for another four full-time head coaches in five years.
Whatever the principal cause, Reyna’s lack of pitch time has stopped him from specialising in one position and being able to compete for a role in the team. Versatility is a strength, unquestionably, but that has allowed him to plug gaps and soak up inconsequential minutes in a way that, really, does little for him long-term.
This year so far, Reyna has played eight different positions during his 178 Bundesliga minutes. In 2022-23, the last full season he spent in the Bundesliga, his 611 minutes were spread across seven different roles. In 2021-22, it was 441 minutes in five positions.
Reyna has given competent performances in each of those positions, but has never been able to displace the first-choice player in any of them. Even now, with Dortmund sitting 11th in the Bundesliga and most of their attacking players badly out of form, he has been unable to present himself as an alternative.
In late January, Dortmund dismissed head coach Nuri Sahin, replacing him with Niko Kovac. Up until last weekend, he had been limited to just 15 minutes across two substitute appearances under Kovac, who — as he did against Sporting on Wednesday — has preferred Julian Brandt in attacking midfield, Jamie Gittens on the left wing, and Karim Adeyemi on the right.
Despite Felix Nmecha suffering a knee ligament injury in January and not being expected back for at least another month, Reyna has been unable to challenge for one of the deeper midfield roles, either, where Pascal Gross, Marcel Sabitzer, Salih Ozcan (who was recalled from loan at Wolfsburg in January) and Emre Can, when not being used in defence, are all ahead of him. Chelsea’s Carney Chukwuemeka arrived on loan in January and, when match-fit, he will also compete for those roles.
Dortmund are not displeased with Reyna. In fact, they were encouraged by the individual work he did over the summer to prepare for the 2024-25 season and were impressed with his attitude following that disappointing loan in England. He was rewarded with a place on the bench in the first Bundesliga game of the season, coming on for the final ten minutes of the 2-0 win again Eintracht Frankfurt.
Speaking in the mixed zone after that appearance, sports director Sebastian Kehl told journalists that Reyna would need to use the chances available to force his way back into the side.
“He has to accept his role, free himself from it. It was clear when we had the talks in the summer that Gio wanted to take on this role, that there will be enough games in which we need him. We know that he has incredible abilities.”
After overcoming an injured suffered on international duty in the autumn, Reyna made his first start of the season, unexpectedly, against Barcelona (2-3) in December, and was selected again from the start for the draw (1-1) with Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga. His third and final starting appearance came in the defeat (2-1) to Bologna in January that cost Sahin his job.
Dortmund have not given up on Reyna’s potential. There is still hope that he regains the necessary rhythm to fulfil his promise. Given that he is only 22, there is plenty of time for that to happen. There is an increasing realisation, though, that club and player are unable to make that journey together and that these are likely the last months of a relationship that has never quite flowered.
(Top photo: Federico Gambarini/picture alliance via Getty Images)
