In a quiet corner of a luxurious hotel lobby in Atlanta, gio reyna settles into a chair during a relentlessly busy U. S. men’s national team camp, smiling as he talks about the sport that fills his days and even his dreams. “Soccer, ” he says, “is my life. ” The scene is calm, but the context isn’t: he hasn’t played a single minute of competitive soccer in over two months.
That gap in minutes would normally push a player to the edge of a national-team window. Yet gio reyna is here, and he knows it. He knows the camp could have convened without him, and he knows that plans for the World Cup could be structured around others. He does not speak like someone who feels entitled to a role. He speaks like someone trying to earn one again, from the inside of a roster he still calls home.
Why is Gio Reyna’s call-up drawing attention right now?
The call-up is notable because it comes with a complicated club picture and real fitness questions. Reyna acknowledged in Atlanta that the news may have surprised people, describing it as potentially one of Mauricio Pochettino’s “more difficult” or “controversial” decisions to bring him in. “Again, I can’t appreciate it enough. Love this team, love this staff, love this group of people. So just always honored to be here, ” Reyna said.
Pochettino has framed the decision around ability and usefulness even when club minutes are limited. “We really know he’s a very talented and very special player, ” Pochettino said earlier this week. “To give the possibility, even if he’s not playing too much in his club, it can be very useful for us. ”
The camp in Atlanta is taking place ahead of friendlies against Belgium and Portugal. The moment, for Reyna, is both opportunity and test: an invitation that carries trust, and a reminder that trust can be conditional when the body doesn’t cooperate.
What has Gio Reyna been dealing with, and what does he say has changed?
Reyna’s recent story is threaded through interruptions: injuries intervening, coaches turning elsewhere, and repeated stretches away from the field. In Atlanta, he described a personal reset that is partly physical and partly emotional. He said he is “feeling good, getting back in the right rhythm, ” and “appreciative. ” He pointed to his wife and family and dog as anchors through “a recent rough patch. ”
He also spoke about the frustration when soccer is taken away. When injuries intervene or when coaches choose other options, “it sucks, ” he said. The most recent setback came after he felt he was nearing full fitness over a month that included four starts for Borussia Mönchengladbach before the German Bundesliga’s winter break. Soon after the league resumed, he suffered what he called “just a shot in training, ” when his quadriceps went. He described it as “a reoccurring injury in my quad, ” explaining that the treatment required additional caution: “When the same injury happens twice, ” he said, “you sort of have to put on an extra week or two [of rehab] to make sure it’s all taken care of in the right way. ”
In another part of the picture, Reyna has been used sparingly at club level. He has made 13 appearances this season for Borussia Mönchengladbach, and only two since January, totaling 26 minutes across those. His broader club situation has been unsettled since a loan to Nottingham Forest in 2024 that was intended to generate playing time but delivered little of it. On his return, Dortmund used him sporadically, and Mönchengladbach have used him only sparingly since early in the season.
What does the USMNT see in Gio Reyna when club minutes are scarce?
The national team’s calculation rests on what Reyna has shown when he does arrive and is asked to affect a game quickly. Over the 2026 World Cup cycle, he has stepped off transatlantic flights, into national team games, and performed despite limited club action.
He has described the answer as “part preparation, part innate. ” In his words, the last couple of years taught him a kind of professional minimalism: train well, train hard, train consistently, then be ready when the moment comes. “In the last couple years, ” Reyna said, “I really learned, whatever the situation is, to just train well, train hard, train consistently. And when that moment comes, or when I’m called on … that training will come through and show that I’m ready to play. ”
When he does play, he points to the parts of the game that don’t require a long runway. His “vision and ability to read a game, ” he said, can take over — “my instinct, my positioning and my intelligence on the field. ” “I’m lucky that a lot of that has come natural to me, ” he added.
That belief has been supported by recent national-team contributions. In November, after just 77 minutes in five substitute appearances for Borussia Mönchengladbach over the two months prior, Reyna starred for the U. S. in a 2-1 win over Paraguay and delivered another assist off the bench in a 5-1 win over Uruguay. He did it while “probably 80, 85” percent fit, he said, and then neared 100 percent over the month that followed.
What are the tensions around this moment — and what comes next?
The tension is visible even in Reyna’s optimism. Fitness remains a concern, and he has had groin and thigh issues that have recurred often. There have also been lingering worries about his attitude, with references to a stigma from Qatar tied to a perceived lack of effort in training and fewer appearances than expected, which later escalated into an off-field situation in American soccer. In Atlanta, that history sits in the background while the present-day dynamic is defined by selection, trust, and performance.
Reyna, for his part, emphasized his relationship with the coach and his readiness to contribute regardless of his club role. “Me and Mauricio have a great relationship and we speak often, ” he said. “He keeps the vibes and energy in this group and this camp amazing. It’s always an honor to come back, understanding the club situation … At the same time, I feel prepared regardless of the playing time situation at the club. So if the chance comes up in the next few games, I have confidence in myself in the team that I can do extremely good things and make an impact to help. ”
Competition for influence remains part of the reality. Reyna has been supplanted in the pecking order by Bayer Leverkusen attacker Malik Tillman, and he is described as most directly in competition with Real Salt Lake’s Diego Luna, who has emerged over the last year as another of Pochettino’s favorites. Luna, still recovering from an injury, was left out of Pochettino’s plans for this window.
Back in that Atlanta lobby, the calm does not erase the uncertainty; it reframes it. The camp is a chance to turn careful rehabilitation, a disrupted club season, and a coach’s exception into something sturdier. For gio reyna, the question is not whether soccer is his life — he has answered that — but whether his body will allow the life he wants to keep living at the pace the next window demands.
