So... he’s going to become the youngest Bundesliga player EVER if he plays at any point in the first few games. Not any non German... any player ever.
You have to consider how many players Gio is behind. BVB just reloaded. I think he'll train with the first team but it'll be hard to get any minutes. I'm hoping for some Pokal time, but even then, Dortmund has a zillion players that can play out wide.
BVB load up every year, yet there always seems to be at least one teen in the lineup who jumps past the expensive guys brought in during the transfer window. Maybe Reyna will be that teen this year. One could argue it’s a helluva business model to play one or two young guys before any other big club ever would. While they are obviously talented, their values skyrocket because they’re playing for a big club at such a young age. Dembele, Pulisic and Sancho values have benefited from simply playing a lot for BVB as teens. For a club that has the resources to start Freddy Adu at left back and still qualify for the Champions League, yet not enough resources to consistently challenge Bayern Munich, there’s little downside to playing Reyna at 16. As long as the kid looks decent his transfer in a couple years will fund the purchase of two or three Julian Brandts.
I was doing some research about when he can play. Sorry for not providing the links but it is quite clear that a player can play when he turns 17 during his respective birth year. Gio turns 17 in november. So he actually can indeed play the first game of the league season!!! Right now n. sahin has the record with 16 and 10/months or something like that... Kind of torn between wanting him to get 15 min every two games or playing u19/4th division. Someone mentioned overload on his position at bvb wing/center and i def dont think they are overloaded when you consider bvb tradition of giving teens a chance.
So at the YNT level Gio plays much more like Pulisic plays as a pro than YNT Pulisic did. Possibly because he has been consistently a + athlete and possibly because his team needed to rely more on him for attack. My expectation was that he would be with the U19’s, train with the first team, go to the winter camp, and start making the first team bench and getting some sub appearances in the 2nd half of the season. That would be a crazy fast integration into high level play for an American, and it looks like he may beat that. Right now I expect that he might get more regular training with the first team, and will play with the U19’s, but he seems to be in line to see the bench if there is fixture congestion/an injury. I wonder if they try him at ST with the U19’s because that is where they lack depth with the first team. Hazard and Brandt have been pretty healthy the past two seasons, Reus and Guerrero seem to be injury prone. Gotze also has his troubles. Bruun Larsen missed most of the 17/18 season but it seemed like Favre likes him, despite his lack of end product.
Would agree, however, he is training with the first team right now so there is an outside chance of him earning a spot. Obv the next couple of games with determine if he remains with the first team. If reyna does get minutes at 16 with a top ten euro team.... Well no neeeeed to get graphic Need to find who they play next...
My understanding of how it has worked at BVB is that top youth guys get brought in from time to time to first team training from the U19’s, eventually they train more regularly with the first team then still play games with the U19’s. In Pulisic’s first half-season he would still play U19 games after he had started to come on as a sub for the first team. I’ve been told that BVB prefer to have their 2nd team train together regularly so they do this instead of having young guys train with the first team and play with the reserves. Right now Dortmund have Reus, Sancho, Brandt, Hazard, Gotze, Guerreiro, Larsen, Phillip, Wolf and I guess Gomez on the depth chart in the 3 spots on the AM line behind the ST. A couple of those guys can play ST. I can see Gio getting up to 7th in the combined W/AM depth chart, 5th at W and 5th at AM, but that’s probably not good enough for the bench without an injury or heavy squad rotation.
from an espn.com pulisic profile but relevant to reyna: https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/3910275/chelseas-christian-pulisic-is-not-your-wonderboy-anymore
It will be interesting to see if he's still with the first team for tomorrow's game, which a glorified exhibition.
Reus - will mostly play the 9 unless Alcacer is too good to keep on the bench Sancho, Gotze, Phillip, Hazard - yes Guerreiro- think he's playing wingback now Wolf and Gomez - I think Gio can (not will) surpass them So I think best case scenario puts Gio 5th or 6th on the depth chart, which puts him on the bench at least some of the time. I could easily see him have, say, 8-10 appearances by the end of the season (all comps), maybe even a start. And yes, I can also see him have 0.
Add in 1-2 of those guys getting injured at some point in the season. Reus is the most likely which would push Phillip, or Gotze up top. I don’t remember injuries providing room for Pulisic when he first started getting time, but I remember it continued to get him minutes even when he had some poor-average games. We all were surprised at one point that Pulisic kept getting time; that Tuchel believed in him. Hope this is the case with Reyna.
At the #BVB academy getting a great tour from Sebastian Geppert. Just asked him about #USMNT Gio Reyna. “The boy is crazy he could have signed for any club in the world. We already wanted him last winter but there were problems with licensing.” pic.twitter.com/TsSPcP6aLA— Manuel Veth (@ManuelVeth) August 2, 2019
I wanted to plan my saturday to see if reyna was potentially making the bench today. He is not. The link states that he and pherai will be available for the first time today in a u19 cup match. https://www.ruhrnachrichten.de/loka...letzte-spiel-profi-unterstuezung-1434228.html I keep wondering why bvb doesnt put them in their second team (4th div). I suspect they want those two to play with the 14 year old moukoko to build chemistry and build a new axis of evil once moukoko can play in the following season (2020/21).
What I’ve been told is that BVB want their reserves to train together full time while they are fine having their best youth guys train with the first team and play with the youth.
I'm a bigger Reyna fan than anyone, I think there's just something there with him that will make him a star. But even if I say he's the next Messi, he's not going to very many minutes, if any, at 16/17 when his competition for attacking midfield/wing minutes is: Philipp Wolf Bruun Larsen Hazard Brandt Gomez Kagawa Gotze Reus Guerreiro There's at most 4 spots on the field for those guys, and those guys need minutes, and this is probably the closest Bayern and Dortmund have been in terms of talent in years. They'll be gunning for the title, and need production, now.