Giovanni Reyna: the American Dream
Marcus Thuram, Timothy Weah, and Erling Braut Håland, all share a commonality not only on the field but also off the field. Apart from playing as an attacker, they are all the sons of ’90s football superstars. Thuram’s dad, Lillian, is the most capped Frenchman in history with 142 international appearances for the France national team. He also has a World Cup and a European Championship medal in his home.
George, Timothy’s father, is the only African to date to ever win FIFA World Player of the Year and the Ballon d’Or. George is currently serving as the president of Liberia, making him the first-ever footballer to become a head of state. Last but not least, Alf-Inge, the father of Norwegian sensation Håland. Alf-Inge’s career was not as stellar as the previous two patriarchs mentioned, but many still remember the famous incident back in April 2001. That time, Roy Keane — Manchester United legend — notoriously planted his foot to Alfie’s right knee; forcing Keane to accept a £5,000 fine and getting banned for the next three matches.
The father-and-son line continues in 2020 with the arrival of Giovanni Reyna. The son of Claudio — former USMNT captain who was called to four consecutive World Cups — made his Bundesliga debut last January, aged 17 years and 66 days. Such a feat made him the youngest-ever American to grace Germany’s top-level football since Christian Pulisic in 2016.
Player profile
Gio Reyna plays as an attacking midfielder, unlike his father who played in a deeper role during his career. Reyna spent the first part of the 2019–20 season with Dortmund’s U-19 squad, before Lucien Favre called him to the first team in January 2020. After his debut, the American never returned to playing age group football. He even finished the campaign with 15 league appearances and played in two UEFA Champions League matches against eventual finalists Paris Saint-Germain.
Favre seems to really like Reyna and is willing to give him more playing time in 2020–21. So far this season, the teenager has started five out of six league matches and has started in both Champions League and DFB Pokal games. His seniors are also willing to accept playing a different role in Favre’s tactics due Reyna’s thrilling performances. Just ask Julian Brandt or even Thorgan Hazard, who has moved to central midfield and left wing-back respectively after the American’s arrival.
As an attacking midfielder, Reyna is gifted with superb spatial awareness and elite passing ability. No wonder he has made five assists in just 10 matches in the 2020–21 season so far. That includes a hattrick of assists against SC Freiburg last month.
Roles in build-ups
Favre doesn’t experiment much with his team when trying to build their attacks. Dortmund prefer to play short via the defenders, but there are no intricate movements involved. It means that all the players tend to stick in their initial positions and occupy their respective areas instead of moving freely across the pitch.
As an attacking midfielder, this lack of freedom can hurt Reyna’s playing style. However, Favre tends to use a 3–4–2–1 system. In this shape, he has two attacking midfielders who can move rather freely in their respective sides while still keeping the initial structure intact.
Reyna likes to use this bit of freedom first by dropping to midfield. When he does so, he can help Dortmund overload that particular area. Two possibilities that can happen from this:
First, one of the players in midfield is open and can be accessed by the defenders. Second, this can open a vertical passing lane for the striker upfront. Both possibilities are important for the Black and Yellows since they have a great passer in Mats Hummels.
Great spatial awareness
One thing I like the most from the 17-year-old is his superb awareness of the space around him. To be honest, not just for him but also for his teammates. Having good spatial awareness makes Reyna can easily find pockets of space inside the defensive block, in which he can exploit later after receiving.
The first way he accesses that space is by nature. It means as an attacking midfielder he’s inclined to play in between the opponents’ defensive lines. As mentioned before, Favre tends to play with two attacking midfielders at the same time. Reyna and his partner have to split the pitch and each has to play only on one side. Such a division makes him play inside the half-space more often rather than centrally.
Secondly, he can access the space by moving first. That means that he can drift, drop or do both toward the space just outside the defenders’ reach. Also, he can attack the space in between the defending players by running there from deeper areas. His adeptness to manipulate space makes Reyna a crucial part in Dortmund’s free-flowing attacks.
Elite passer
Not only blessed with a great spatial understanding, Reyna is also gifted with amazing passing ability. This is an important feature for Dortmund’s open plays as well as their set-piece situations. In open plays, there are various ways on how this particular ability can be used:
First, in deeper areas. As mentioned previously, Reyna has a tendency to drop into midfield and help overload the area. He does so not only for the sake of overloading the midfield. But, his presence is also useful when Dortmund try to move their attacks from one flank to the other quickly. If we look at the statistics, 75% of Die Schwarzgelben’s attacks this season come from the wide areas. Such number underlines the importance of Reyna in bridging his team’s attacks in deeper areas.
Secondly, in the middle third. As a flank-focused team, Dortmund tend to create chances through their wing-backs. That means Reyna has an important role to set-up the overlapping players in the flank so the receiver can send incisive crosses into the box.
Last but not least, in the final third. Dortmund are blessed to have a very explosive striker in Håland. His playing style relies heavily on lots of runs in behind and accurate first-time finishes. The Norwegian’s offensive tendencies compensate perfectly with Reyna’s skill sets. It means that Reyna is often able to find Håland with well-weighted through balls into the box.
Potential issues
Despite all his talents at such a tender age, Reyna still has some issues that he needs to fix. The first being his tendency to control the ball with a heavy touch. It means that Reyna is sometimes unable to perfectly hug the ball with his feet, thus allowing it to move far away, sometimes closer to the defender(s). This lack of ball-control quite often makes the opponent easily tackles the ball out of his possession.
Secondly, his tendency to receive the ball with a closed body orientation. It means that there are occasions where Reyna has received the ball inside the opponents’ defensive block, yet he faces the wrong way. This makes him unable to connect with his attacking comrades in advanced areas. Even worse, this can also force his team to play backwards and even lose the ball.
On one side, Reyna’s potential problems seem ironic for an attacking midfielder. However, one thing to remember is that he will only be 18 in mid-November. His issues as pointed above are quite common among his age peers. I believe that through more minutes and mentoring from the likes of Marco Reus, Sancho and others, he can fix those issues within a short time.
Final thoughts
Reyna is the real deal. Excuse me for exaggerating a bit, but honestly, I have never seen a 17-year-old with a higher ceiling than this. Not even Bukayo Saka, Ansu Fati, or Mason Greenwood; whom I have scouted as well. No wonder Gregg Berhalter has called him to the national team to play alongside his predecessor, Pulisic.
Can Reyna be better than his father? Can the teenager surpass Pulisic? Can he be the next American to win the Champions League after Jovan Kirovski (also with Dortmund) in 1997? Only time will tell.
Credits: mlssoccer, nytimes, transfermarkt, wikipedia, whoscored, wyscout, youtube.
I’m Petrick Sinuraya, a 23-year-old football writer based in Indonesia.
Currently, I work as a freelance writer at Ronnie Dog Media; mostly writing match analysis pieces for totalfootballanalysis.com.
Check my works here: https://totalfootballanalysis.com/author/petrick-sinuraya.
