United States men\u2019s national soccer coach Mauricio Pochettino has looked forward to having Gio Reyna back in the squad. But he also laid out clear expectations for the 22-year-old Borussia M\u00f6nchengladbach midfielder.<\/p>\n
“If a player doesn\u2019t behave well,” Pochettino told me, “he\u2019s not going to be with us.”<\/p>\n
Gio Reyna is back in the mix with the U.S. men’s team. (Photo by John Dorton\/ISI Photos\/USSF\/Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n Reyna was surprisingly recalled by Pochettino last week for the Americans’ final pre-World Cup tuneups of 2025, against Paraguay on Friday and Nov. 18 vs. Uruguay. The former prodigy has logged a meager 146 minutes across all competitions for \u2018Gladbach this season, with no goals or assists.\u00a0<\/p>\n Reyna, who has been beset by injury throughout his young career, has not played an entire match at club level since March 2022. He’s made just one appearance for the U.S. under Pochettino, a 21-minute cameo off the bench in a March loss to Canada in the Concacaf Nations League third-place match.\u00a0<\/p>\n And, of course, Reyna’s return and some recent interviews he’s done have brought back into the spotlight that infamous incident at the 2022 World Cup that roiled two of the most prominent families in American soccer.<\/p>\n “We are going to make very clear in [Reyna\u2019s] case that the past is in the past,” Pochettino added. “Now we give the opportunity to this guy to show that he\u2019s more mature, and behave in the way that we expect and then perform.”<\/p>\n If you recall, Reyna is the son of two-time U.S. World Cup captain Claudio Reyna and former women\u2019s national team winger Danielle Egan. And he was infamously almost sent home midway through the 2022 World Cup by then-coach Gregg Berhalter.<\/p>\n A week after the USMNT\u2019s round of 16 elimination by the Netherlands in Qatar, The Athletic reported that Reyna “showed an alarming lack of effort in training” before and after U.S.\u2019s opening match, “threw his shin guards after not being subbed” into that 1-1 tie with Wales and was confronted by several veteran teammates who were frustrated by his “lack of intensity” during the sessions.<\/p>\n Gio Reyna and former USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter at the 2022 World Cup. (Photo by Ercin Erturk\/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n Even before being summoned this month by the former Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain manager, Reyna made news after the Associated Press asked him if he\u2019d do things differently in Qatar if given the chance.<\/p>\n “Maybe in certain ways,” he said, adding that he “was just upset that, you know, I wasn\u2019t really playing.”<\/p>\n “I\u2019m not just going to sort of sit here and take all the blame for something that was made out to be completely my fault, which I believe it wasn\u2019t, and also my family\u2019s, too.”<\/p>\n Reyna made similar comments in another recent interview.<\/p>\n “It’s hard to really say what would anyone have done different, but I don’t know,” Reyna told Men in Blazers. “Maybe people would have, maybe people wouldn’t. But to me, it doesn’t even matter at this point. And I don’t really think it should to anybody else.”<\/p>\n During a 15-year coaching career that also included a Champions League final appearance with Tottenham, Pochettino has worked with some of the biggest stars in the global game. Since being hired as U.S. boss 14 months ago, he\u2019s also often spoken about the importance of his players sacrificing personal ambitions for the collective good.\u00a0<\/p>\n “[Lionel] Messi or [Kylian] Mbapp\u00e9 or Neymar were very good teammates,” Pochettino said. “They have a good balance between the talent and the ego. And on the pitch, they’re the best. But if you have a massive ego, and you behave badly and on the pitch you don’t perform, what is the point of having that player in the squad?”<\/p>\n Having coached the likes of Neymar and Mbapp\u00e9 and Messi at PSG, Pochettino has dealt with top talent and big egos. (Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY United States men\u2019s national soccer coach Mauricio Pochettino has looked forward to having Gio Reyna back in the squad. But he also laid out clear expectations for the 22-year-old Borussia M\u00f6nchengladbach midfielder. “If a player doesn\u2019t behave well,” Pochettino told me, “he\u2019s not going to be with us.” Gio Reyna is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}