Giovanni Reyna

The 21-year-old USA senior international has been under contract with Borussia Dortmund since July 2019. He spent the first half of 2024 on loan at Nottingham Forest. As of June 2024 (the cut-off point for all statistics), the attacking player has made 121 appearances for BVB in all competitions (17 goals / 17 assists) and lifted the DFB-Pokal in 2021.

From the Borussia Dortmund youth academy all the way to the senior squad of the eight-time German champions: Giovanni Reyna made this leap and wrote his name in the German football history books early on. The 17-year-old scored in the cup tie away to Werder Bremen on 4 February 2020, which made him the youngest scorer in the history of the competition at the time at the age of 17 years, two months and 21 days.

The son of the former Bundesliga player Claudio Reyna, who made 74 appearances in the German top flight for Leverkusen and Wolfsburg, was born on 13 November 2002 while his father was playing for Sunderland in the English Premier League. Both Reyna senior and his mother Danielle Egan, a former USA international, seem to have passed on their sporting talent to their son, who is named after the former Netherlands international Giovanni van Bronckhorst. The Dutchman played alongside Reyna's father at Glasgow club Rangers.

Up to the eighth grade, “Gio” played basketball too – but his full focus then moved to “soccer”, as football is known in the United States. Reyna joined the New York City FC youth academy, where his father was working as the sporting director at the time, at the age of 12. The versatile youngster, who can play in a range of attacking positions, then joined Borussia Dortmund four years later, in the summer of 2019, and moved into the Youth Performance Centre. “BVB are a great club for young players who are fighting for the chance to play at a high level as early as possible. When the request came from Dortmund, I didn't have to think for long. Dortmund is a bit different from New York, but it’s perfect for me,” he told members’ magazine “Borussia”.

Head coach at the time Lucien Favre kept close tabs on the promising youngster from the start and included the then 16-year-old in the senior squad that went on the USA Tour in the summer of 2019. “He's very intelligent and can play in almost any position in any system.” He made his first Bundesliga appearance against Augsburg in a 5-3 away victory on 18 January 2020, before scoring his first goal 17 days later – and it was a corker too – in the cup defeat in Bremen. “Disappointed with the result but happy to score my first professional goal,” he said. It was certainly a successful start.

After coming on as a substitute in 13 of his 15 Bundesliga appearances in the 2019/20 season, he was involved in 32 of the 34 matches in the following 2020/21 campaign, making the starting XI 23 times. Involved in eight goals in the first 11 games (three goals, five assists), Reyna was very, very impressive in the first third of the season. In the 4-0 win over Freiburg on Matchday 3, he became the first 17-year-old to claim an assist hat-trick in a Bundesliga game since records began (in 1992). He bagged a brace in the DFB-Pokal semi-final, scoring the first two in a 5-0 victory over Kiel.

He was already a permanent fixture in the team by his 18th birthday, before his 2021/22 season was cut short by serious injuries. In the 2022/23 season, he acquired a reputation as an impact sub. The technically-gifted attacking player came off the bench in 17 of his 21 Bundesliga appearances – more than any other BVB player. Five of his seven goals – a new personal best for a single season – came as a substitute. All of these goals came after the winter break. Having only managed a series of cameo appearances in the first half of the 2023/24 season, the still young player sought a switch and joined English Premier League outfit Nottingham Forest on loan for six months – with the express approval of sporting director Sebastian Kehl: “Gio is a player who possesses enormous capabilities and in whom we still see a lot of potential.”

Reyna could have played international football for four different nations: USA, England, Argentina (his father is half Argentinian) or Portugal (his mother is half Portuguese). He chose the USA and made his international debut against Wales one day before his 18th birthday, on 12 November 2020.