I think this matters more over there than it does among USMNT fans. "Respecting the club" is a key aspect of a player's job description over there. For Reyna to wish his buddy well in the UCL final wouldn't have been a big deal, if he had likewise wished BVB well. (If he had, I didn't see it.) Alas, I think there are too many barriers to Gio continuing at BVB. I'd like to see him go to La Liga, and learn about "juego de posición," and enhance his creativity in the passing game. Or, to Serie A, and enhance his play in the defensive aspect.
I think some of you all are missing/ignoring the point that this could have been completely intentional by Gio and a form of playing hardball. This is not that uncommon. Despite opinions here, Gio may have already made his mind up that BVB is not in his future at any level. And this tweet at Bellingham was another subtle reminder that despite your UCL success, don't consider me part of the squad going forward. Not anything wrong with that if he mentally already moved on. His next club is what he's betting on.
Reyna may be doing what you describe. But it would be really stupid to burn your bridge before crossing it. Especially when there's no ferry, either.
"I think some of you all are missing/ignoring the point that this could have been completely intentional by Gio and a form of playing hardball." Occams's Razor says he was just congratulating a friend.
If Gio goes back to BVB, works hard, ends up part of Nuri's plans and contributes to a successful season, no one will care about who he congratulated for what. If he goes back and doesn't contribute and gets shipped out as a DNP who didn't shine when he got the chance, it will be an emblematic incident that defines his failed BVB sojourn. Let's hope for the former.
Agree and maybe he was ready to move on but then the coaching change happened and he feels he may get a legit chance to become a starter again. Knock on wood but he's been healthy for a while and his last injury was an intentional foul by Canadiens mistakenly thinking they were on a frozen pond. A lot of his problems came from injuries so if he is more healthy now that will help a lot. He's also learned he must play better defensively and has been doing it. Maybe to the detriment of offense.
I could see a scenario where Gio is ready to leave BvB, playing time or not. I sometimes wonder if he feels like the kid that got left behind in school. His fellow wunderkind friends Haaland and Bellingham "graduated," and he sort of got left behind due to injury, coaching preference, persona, whatever.
If Gio thought he was going to graduate with honors like Haaland or Jude he needed to come back to Planet Earth first before looking for another club. Using that analogy, they graduated and went to Harvard. Gio is at AC repair school.
We've heard of STAR players doing something like this. But a relative nobody in the European game? Fookin' stoopid. Gotta respect the club, even if you don't want to be there. Agreed. Once again, although we are fans of the USMNT, and of Reyna to some degree, him not respecting the club was moronic on his part.
And takes like this from fans of the club are why it is probably best for him to look for a new home. Gio was every bit as promising as those two until he lost out on the better part of a year due to injuries. Even when he returned he was incredibly productive in limited minutes before eventually seeing his minutes all but disappear. And while nobody is expecting Gio to reach the heights that Haaland and Bellingham have now reached in their club careers, to argue that the difference will be Harvard vs AC repair school is just plain dumb. That said, AC repair guys make more money than Harvard grads where I live.
I like Reyna, a lot and preferred he stayed cause i know what he can bring, but c'mon, man...really? Jude and Haaland are players that we are lucky to be a part of in our lifetime. Especially Jude. He is going to be a legend for sure. I cannot put hardly any plyers in his category...very few, not even Reus, and I think the world of Marco. I am just more realistic of the expectations I guess. It has nothing to do with being a fan of the club. It was more a dig at Forrest than Reyna. I live in Florida...I concur 10000% and they deserve it!! Dumb comparison from my end.
Giogate is to soccer fans as the Vietnam War is to foreign policy. It colors all discussions of the people involved, whether explicitly or not, until everybody who remembers it is dead.
Yeah, Bellingham was just your everyday €120M teenage captain at Dortmund who was somehow able to step right into the starting line-up at Real Madrid. BL1 really held him back.
He showed a lot of potential at BvB, but nowhere near what he showed this past season. He had 19 goals in the league this year. I think he had 12 combined in his three Bundesliga seasons.
I think his potential was always there. You could see it, especially his last season with us. A lot has to do with the quality surrounding him as well. At BVB he had Emre Can and Sali Ozcan managed by Terzic. At Real Madrid he has Modric and Kroos with the GREAT Ancelotti. But his quality and potential was always there...you could see it at BVB and you knew he'd be a Ronaldo at any club with the support staff he deserves. Yesterday with England, you could tell he was having to act more like the player he was at BVB due to Southgate's inept tactics - that's not on Jude, he was the one shining star in the match. His potential didn't regress, the quality surrounding him was just shite.
Obviously I’m not saying he has the same accolades as those two. I’m saying it was hoped by many, BvB included, that he would reach his full potential and move on in a big money move like those 2, and for some or all of the reasons I listed, it has not worked out that way.
Ok but Ronaldo wasn’t Ronaldo at that age. Unless you mean the OG Ronaldo instead of the Portuguese one, in which case the OG Ronaldo was pretty much at his peak at this age, since he never really fulfilled his full potential due to injuries. Point is, you can’t compare a guy at the beginning of his career to one at the end.