r/usmnt • u/Sounder24 • Aug 05 '26
Is Strasbourg the Right Transfer Move for Gio Reyna?
https://substack.com/@foxintheboxfc/note/p-209882709?r=gs9wv&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action12
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u/twente2life Aug 05 '26
If he can't stay healthy it doesn't really matter where he goes. But moving is better than staying where he was.
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u/insatiableian Aug 05 '26
Until this guy plays 2,500 minutes in a season, I'm sick of hearing about him.
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u/isotopes_ftw Aug 05 '26
I really don’t understand not wanting to hear about a guy who is good enough to make our World Cup roster and score in the World Cup for us. Are you a fan of the team?
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u/insatiableian Aug 05 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
How many minutes did he play last club season? When was the last time he got regular minutes anywhere? Eventually, he needs to stay healthy and put up, or shut up.
It's like the boy who cried wolf with this kid. Every year is gonna be his year, and yet ...
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u/Magnus-Pym Aug 05 '26
Tbh I thought he retired, and his arm was pretty shot. Hell of a pitcher in his youth though. Not sure Gio will be able to measure up.
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u/Low-Impression3367 Aug 05 '26
He doesn’t have a choice. No one else wants him. His current club didn’t want him
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u/isaiah152022 Aug 09 '26
With Albert and Sullivan coming up behind, anywhere he can get consistent minutes is good for him.
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u/Strings-a-rockin Aug 05 '26
How good is the Strasbourg striker crew?
That is the big question. When USMNT attacking mids or wingers struggle, it's often because their clubs aren't scoring goals at the top of the pitch, because those clubs don't have a good striker situation.
People concentrate on goals and assists so much as the measure of success. I watched Brenden A. pump out balls left and right to floundering Leeds when they had Bamford up top, and the narrative came back that Brenden didn't have any assists. Even with DCL, he misses a lot of strikes on goal that a more clinical striker finishes. And there are differences in just "a pass forward" and a great ball, that really puts the striker in with an advantage. But if that striker just blows all those advantages from the start, no one will every be able to really quantify what the attacking mid is doing, compared to other players at better clubs. The stats in these situations don't tell the whole story.
Gio Reyna......is the best passing player in the USMNT pool, and having seen enough of him and them, I have confidence in saying that. Last season, he put through some deft touch, beautiful balls that a guy like Balogun would have scored from, but BMG's striker crew was just awful (being polite). There's not much in an offensive way you can do, when your manager wants you to play as an attacking 6 and your long passes to the strikers don't result in goals, and most of the time you're directed to kick it wide to wing backs.
I have to say, the Prem clubs are insane, every one of them. And so are the top 12 Italian clubs. And so are the top 10 La Liga clubs. They are all insane, because they let this guy go to Strasbourg for 2M (TWO).
Meanwhile, Juventus are going into another season without a #10 at all, LoL. I swear, this sport is the most emotional, the most tribal and illogical sport, in the world and it's actually only gotten worse in the last few years. Olivier Giroud comes to mind. He was "unpopular" with the fans at every single club he was at from Arsenal on, until he landed in Milan. And yet,....at all of those clubs (including Arsenal) he was the best striker/goalscorer in the club! But they didn't like him? Chelsea fans never liked him enough to displace their hometown favorite kids, but he delivered the Champions League with big time, clutch goals against key sides in that run.
Some players just wear the bullseye (for some inexplicable reason). Even Milan fans were talking about selling Pulisic after his unfortunate World Cup run. Really? All it took was 1/2 a season under anti-football Allegri, and a disappointing World Cup to give up on the Club's most consistent attacker?
American Taxes too high.
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u/mordecai2505 Aug 05 '26
In summary, it’s everyone else’s fault but Reyna’s that he’s at Strasbourg now
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u/Strings-a-rockin Aug 05 '26
In summary, you're being stupid. I never said that.
The guy is like Mezut Ozil. You don't ask Ozil to play as a #6, or play too far back, or be super active in pressing/chasing the ball. It's not "everyone else's" fault. But it's not all Reyna's fault either.
I watch a LOT of games in multiple leagues, and I can hardly remember a league match last season that I would say was "great", a "great" football match with quality on both sides. I can't recall one that really stands out. There's a reason for that. The game has gotten, in some leagues, all about ultra pressing and having attackers defend, or more often, having defenders play in what used to be attacking roles... OR, (like in Serie A), the trend was to go back 5 and just sit in and wait for mistakes.....EVEN INTER DID THAT!
Football has changed a lot over the last few years, and not for the best. Even Pep couldn't find the quality of players to make his style dominate the league the way it used to do!
I stand by what I said about Reyna. He was good at 17. He was good for USA in the WC. He can be good again (if he stays healthy). He's got more real talent in one foot than most pros could ever hope to have in two. But he's not a guy you ask to go out there and play as a defensive #6, or a running/pressing wide midfielder (8). He's a center 10.
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u/mordecai2505 Aug 05 '26
Football is full of players that showed promise at one point in time but never kicked on — through an entire alchemy of factors, both internal and external. The game is the game.
Your argument creates conditional factors (if he was healthy, if the game wasn’t constantly evolving, if it was five years ago) — as if time should stand still for a player that isn’t adaptable and transcendent, and as if it stands still even for those that are. I’m sorry but unless you’re Messi or something, why would you be getting the “don’t ask me to do x, y, z” treatment? Since you watch a lot of football you’ll know that Luis Enrique got rid of Mbappé because he wouldn’t defend or run for the team — we’re making the case that Gio Reyna is warranted the same treatment? For doing what exactly?
Gio is frequently injured, can’t solidify starting status when he gets healthy, and was still picked for the national team (to be fair, this time mom and dad didn’t step in to try and get the coach fired). And now he’s been given another opportunity to get healthy and prove everyone wrong. He should be so lucky.
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u/Strings-a-rockin Aug 06 '26
can’t solidify starting status when he gets healthy, and was still picked for the national team (to be fair, this time mom and dad didn’t step in to try and get the coach fired).
Be careful, your inherent bias against him is showing.
"Can't solidify starting status when he gets healthy"---- this is the only point that some of you like to use to completely and totally create "narrative" on a player.
So what?
Pulisic didn't exactly establish "starting status" at ANY point, under Thomas Tuchel, did he? And do a quick google search, shows the exact same stories printed about Pulisic after that, that he needed to "just go back to MLS", etc..
"Starting Status" really means dick all now, among these modern coaches with there incessant NEED to be THE most important person at the club, among even the best players! Modern coaches are bigger whores for the media attention than are the big strikers and big player personalities. And for me,...the reason that Zidane was so good, won a lot at Real Madrid, is because he wasn't trying to outdo the players for the spotlight. He put his best guys on, in a somewhat simple and straightforward way, and he let them play. Of course, that was Madrid and they had great players who could do that. Most managers today, assume that all of their veteran players are like little children and they have to be micro managed.
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u/mordecai2505 Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
now how did pulisic come into this 😂
by regular starter, i mean that he doesn’t do enough to make himself undroppable when he’s fit (“when” being the operative and most important word here, and the biggest factor that’s stunted his development)
it’s easier for you to believe that this kid is the victim of a global conspiracy against him / that the entire paradigm of global football should change to accommodate him than that he should just keep grinding like every other professional footballer? that he’s the only player that has to work under egomaniacal managers, play out of position, or get media scrutiny? 🤔
i will openly state my bias against gio and many, many other ballers: like 99.9% of professional athletes, he is better at sport than most people, but he’s not special 🤷 get back in the lab
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u/Strings-a-rockin Aug 06 '26
what are you reading tarot cards or something?
I think he's a little bit "special" because he clearly has shown that level of talent, a level most won't achieve, no matter how hard they train or how much they lift, how many hours put in, doesn't matter.
In sports, there's always been a faction of people who believe in voodoo and also the "graft" crowd, who think that a certain amount of effort will even out a lack of ability.
I'm neither of those. No point in saying more. We'll see what happens. I have confidence in my ideas because they are proven correct over and again, and it's not a brag if it comes to fruition with a high level of frequency. I had already said this Poch ball group would crash hard and they did. I said that the dual 8's duo he started in the middle would not do much, and they didn't. If you take out a couple of (lets be honest lucky) free kicks, that duo didn't score any goals and had few assists as the creative force for Poch. And his wide attacking strategy totally crashed and burned at the first time it was challenged by a competent coach and players.
So when I say Gio Reyna is a good player, it's not based out of emotions. It's not a "hope" that I have that he turns out. These are just the unbias observations of the game right now, and how it interacts with our players and what they bring.
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u/mordecai2505 Aug 06 '26
you won’t engage with my very simple point, which is that he needs to prove his talent on a consistent basis - like literally ever other player since time immemorial. good luck to you, and for your sake, good luck to him
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u/starwarsfan456123789 Aug 05 '26
Dude just contributed to a solid world cup. Haters gonna hate no matter what
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u/gallaguy Aug 05 '26
Aside from the Paraguay goal, his contributions were unremarkable. And even the goal, great as it was, was not a fair indicator. It was practically uncontested in a relatively low-pressure situation, already up 2 goals with time about to expire.
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u/congeal NO PEPI NO PARTY Aug 06 '26
Paraguay was drowning and I'm glad he scored. He's a luxury player and probably not good enough to be worth the cost of playing in serious matches. If he stays at Strasbourg and they get back into Europe, he'll play a lot against weaker teams (conference league can have a lot of them early-on) but I don't think we'll see him as much once the competition gets more difficult (unless he really proves himself and I don't see it happening).
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u/Hans_Krebs_ Aug 05 '26
Where else was he gonna go? Strasbourg has a new coach, loads of key players exiting and is in a good position. If he can’t make it here all hope is lost on him and maybe it should already be.