EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ — Tuesday could have been a benchmark day for Borussia Dortmund midfielder Gio Reyna.
The Westchester County native was in MetLife Stadium — a venue he frequented growing up — for his side’s Club World Cup opener against Brazilian side Fluminense. Even a month before the tournament started, he admitted that he was “very excited” at the chance of playing for the German giants in his backyard, even going on to say that he was going to “have to get a lot of tickets” for “all my family and friends in the area.”
But the 22-year-old, once deemed a central figure of the United States national team’s future, never got off the bench in a goalless draw. Neither did fellow Americans Cole Campbell nor 16-year-old wunderkind Mathis Albert.
Trotting Reyna out, even for the final minutes of the match, could have salvaged an afternoon for the few Americans who were on hand at MetLife Stadium. The 82,500-seat venue had just 34,736 on hand for the noon ET match, an atmosphere that Dortmund manager Niko Kovac admitted was “not easy” to play in front of.
It also appears not to be easy for Reyna to break into Kovac’s side.
“I can imagine you’re very interested in Gio, but we have a big squad and we have some top players,” Kovac, who took over a club which finished fourth in the Bundesliga and made the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League back in January, said. “For me, it’s important whatever I see in the training… that’s how I choose players. Some good moments from all of them, but the others there for sure [have been better].”
Reyna appeared in just 25 matches across all competitions with Dortmund during the 2024-25 campaign, and started only five of them. This came after a disastrous loan spell at Premier League side Nottingham Forest, in which he appeared in just nine matches.
There is a significant log jam in front of him on Kovac’s roster. Dortmund boasts established attacking midfielders in a pair of German internationals, Julian Brandt and Karim Adeyemi. They also just spent $38 million for 19-year-old English midfielder Jobe Bellingham, who made his club debut during the second half of Tuesday’s draw at MetLife Stadium.
A transfer away from Dortmund appears imminent this summer, with links already emerging with Spanish side Real Sociedad and Brazilian club Flamengo, which is also competing at the Club World Cup in the United States this summer.
