Gio Reyna to MLS?

American soccer's greatest enigma will be on the move the summer. If he were to come stateside, where might (and might not) make sense?

Apr 03, 2025

You’re a European superclub with a reputation for developing young talent. Five years ago, you signed an American teenager with a strong footballing pedigree and skillset beyond his years to match. You were confident, as were most close observers, that he was more of a sure-thing than the other American wonderkid you just sold for over $70 million. Instead, several managers have independently concluded he isn’t a good fit for them, his body and ego appear equally fragile, and you’ll be thrilled if anyone is willing to pay you more than simply buying out the rest of his contract.

So how do you solve a problem like Giovanni Reyna? Well, it seems inevitable that this summer Borussia Dortmund will give up trying to figure that out. Reyna has, once again, been a combination of injured and out of favor basically all season, and it’s been years at this point since US Men’s National Team fans could feel any sort of confidence that he was on his way to superstardom.

He’s going to need a new club come June and it needs to be at a lower level than one of the biggest clubs in German football. Which raises the question: what about Major League Soccer? I think it would take some convincing to get Gio to move home but that doesn’t mean there aren’t teams who shouldn’t try. USMNT manager Mauricio Pochettino has stressed the need for players to be getting regular gametime, and if healthy (big if) Reyna walks into any MLS starting XI. So I thought it might be fun to rank the theoretical destinations based on a combination of fit and likelihood.

The largest constraint is Reyna’s roughly $2.5 million salary. He would have to be a Designated Player, even if he were willing to take some kind of pay cut.

The other obvious considerations around Gio are

He’s best playing centrally as a No. 10 attacking midfielder, but can play as an deeper-lying No. 8 or on the wing in the right circumstances
Pros: Ball secure, press resistant, creative, lock-picker, strong and tall
Cons: Defensively absent, doesn’t (can’t?) run more than a light jog, has hamstrings made of papier-mâché , dogs it in practice, and seems generally immature

First we have to eliminate all the teams that do not have space for a DP on their roster. Teams can choose to have two DPs and four U22 Initiative players along with extra GAM – MLS funny money used to extend the salary cap – or three DPs and three U22s.

Teams that fall into one of those two categories include Atlanta United, Austin FC, Colorado Rapids, FC Dallas, LA Galaxy, Houston Dynamo, Inter Miami, Nashville SC, Orlando City, Philadelphia Union, Portland Timbers, San Jose Earthquakes and Seattle Sounders.

That leaves us with sixteen teams (without significantly reworking their squad by, for instance, selling a DP abroad or trading a U22 player within the league) to consider as theoretical destinations for American soccer’s biggest mystery.

In their Dreams

16. Sporting Kansas City

They just fired Peter Vermes, who has been both the Head Coach and GM of the team since the Cretaceous Period. It is not clear who is in charge here. Also, they’re terrible.

15. CF Montreal

Speaking of terrible teams, Montreal just fired Laurent Courtois for the crime of… not having a very good squad that he didn’t assemble. This team might as well have a giant ‘DO NOT ENTER’ sign on it.

14. New England Revolution

They play on a bad field in an empty stadium in the middle of nowhere. Also, they’re bad and the player that everything goes through is a number 10 who doesn’t run.

Currently For Sale

13. Vancouver Whitecaps

Would Gio Reyna and Ryan Gauld be a potentially very fun combo? Absolutely! Is a team currently for sale going to sanction the signing of someone on those kind of wages? Nope.

12. Real Salt Lake

Would Gio Reyna and Diego Luna be a potentially very fun combo? Absolutely! Is a team currently for sale going to sanction the signing of someone on those kind of wages? Nope.

Bad Fit

11. D.C. United

D.C. play very ugly soccer that is predicated on getting the ball to Christian Benteke’s forehead as much as possible. Not really conducive to Gio’s style. Also, their roster is an absolute mess.

10. New York Red Bulls

Well for one, NYCFC would never let this happen. For another, playing for a Red Bull team requires running and, well… It would also be hard to see how Reyna and Emil Forsberg could play at the same time.

9. FC Cincinnati

FC Cincinnati are a team full of talent but whose current issues are that their midfield is Swiss cheese and their fancy number 10 doesn’t play an ounce of defense. So obviously what they need is a number 10 who is a defensive liability.

That’s a Lot of Money

8. Minnesota United

Eric Ramsay has the Loons playing some nice ball, their system has defensive solidity and they could absolutely use a spark of midfield creativity to create better chances for Kelvin Yeboah and Tani Oluwaseyi. However, the only player on the team who made 7 figures last year was Robin Lod at $1.5 million.

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LAFC

*Sigh* I feel pretty strongly that LAFC should be the team to sign Gio Reyna, but equally confident that they’re not going to do it. Currently, their third DP is Cengiz Under who is on loan from Fenerbahce in Turkey until June. It has been an open secret for a while that their Plan A is to sign French World Cup winner and Atletico Madrid legend Antoine Griezmann. LAFC have been after the Frenchman for years, and you could reasonably argue that they only signed his former international teammates Hugo Lloris and Olivier Giroud as bait to convince him.

However, if they were to make that move it’s hard to see exactly how that team would function. Griezmann would almost certainly end up in the team’s front line with Denis Bouanga and David Martinez (depending on how striker Jeremy Ebobisse bounces back from his current injury), as Giroud struggles to make any impact in SoCal.

The attacking line isn’t where LAFC need the most help, that’s the midfield. Trading out Tim Tillman for Reyna would be a substantial upgrade and give them creativity and an ability to better build through possession that they lack. Instead, Griezmann will likely join the group of talented attackers feeding on scraps and trying to score on transition balls to Bouanga.

This Just Might Work

7. Toronto FC

Ok, where are we? Right, teams that will actually have the roster space to pull this off. Toronto are finally about to get out from under Lorenzo Insigne’s albatross of a contract when it expires this summer, thus freeing up space for a new DP. But would Reyna be any more available? Or work any harder? For a salary roughly 20% of the size, it might be worth the risk. TFC are also at the start of what should be a rebuild, and Reyna could be a great piece to build around. Matty Longstaff also is a recent blueprint of a reclamation project for a young midfielder from Europe. Still, this team is very bad right now and asking Federico Bernardeschi to share the ball a bunch might just create another Insigne situation.

6. St. Louis City

St. Louis sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel loves a Bundesliga signing! He also loves paying them a lot of money, as despite not sporting any household names St. Louis entered 2025 with a top five payroll in MLS. It’s hard to imagine they have much space to fit even the DP budget charge. Still, Reyna profiles well for them if they can find the money (they do have over $2 million in GAM to play with).

5. Charlotte FC

Like LAFC, Charlotte currently have a very functional midfield that doesn’t have a whole lot to it going forward if Pep Biel isn’t playing as a 10. How he and Reyna would work together is intriguing, and could be really fun. However, the last thing a team containing Wilfried Zaha, Ashley Westwood and Tim Ream needs is to get slower. Plus playing on turf is probably a significant turnoff.

4. Chicago Fire

So this is a fun one. Is Gregg Berhalter a pro or a con for the Fire’s case as a destination? Both? Family feuding aside, it’s inarguable that the best soccer Reyna has played as professional was for the USMNT with Berhalter as the coach. He fits the play style, and already knows what Gregg expects and wants to do. The question is how he fits into the team. Can you play him and Brian Gutierrez together? Are they too similar? In a healthy Fire squad, one of them would have to play on the right wing. Given that role currently has an attacking right back joining in, I think in possession this could be awesome. But without the ball? Berhalter has this team pressing quite a bit, and it’s hard to see Reyna giving that kind of effort.

3. San Diego FC

The surprise package of MLS in 2025, expansion side San Diego have hit the ground running with a well-assembled, St. Louis-esque roster that plays some good soccer under former US U-21 and Olympic coach Mikey Varas. Varas is, of course, part of the Berhalter coaching tree and there are some shared sensibilities there. I think Reyna in front of a Luca De La Torre - Anibal Godoy midfield pivot could work wonderfully, but a signing like this would be very much outside of the efficient way they’ve built this roster. A number 10 is probably the right signing (rumors of them wanting to sign Kevin De Bruyne pop up every couple of months), but I doubt they’d see Reyna as the right 10.

2. NYCFC

These justifications are getting longer for the higher rankings, but this placement rests on two simple facts:

NYCFC is Gio’s home club having come through their academy, and thus they have his rights (unless they traded them at some point but that would be shocking)
Maxi Morales is 38 years old

That’s kind of it. Switching Morales for Reyna I think is an immediate win and their midfield depth is severely lacking anyway. This would also bring him within the City Football Group sphere of influence which could offer easier paths back to Europe than other MLS clubs. Reyna could also be the face of the new stadium when it opens in 2027. Play your ace, New York.

1. Columbus Crew

That’s right, I think the team that plays the best soccer in the league, dominates possession, has lots of other guys who run hard, and has a bunch of roster flexibility should take the risk on a high ceiling progressive ball-carrier number 10. To paraphrase Matt Doyle on his Substack, hey Columbus sign an f-ing attacker! A striker is probably more pressing than a number 10 but they need both if they’re gonna actually contend this year. Their current DPs are Darlington Nagbe (who could almost certainly be bought down) and Diego Rossi (their only current premier attacking piece). I want to see Gio Reyna play Wilfried Nancy Ball. Columbus are already good team. They have a dearth of talent in attacking positions and money to spend. Make a statement and be the destination for the listing raft that is Gio Reyna. It’s also pretty easy to imagine how he might look in black and yellow.

Do you think I largely got this right? Did I insult your team? Do you want Gio on your team? Let me know what you think!