The number seven has taken on two very different meanings in Giovanni Reyna's career in recent years. On one side, it represents a brutal spell of setbacks he will want to leave behind for good. On the other, it now points to the hope building around the former BVB wonderkid.
Reyna is finally moving in the right direction again. This summer, the playmaker once tipped as the Bundesliga's next superstar left the league behind and joined Racing Strasbourg in Ligue 1. For a fee of just three million euros, a figure he would have hoped to surpass many times over by now at 23. And should have, given his natural talent.
Yet the years after his breakthrough at Borussia Dortmund, when he was just 17 and 18 and a regular starter for BVB under Lucien Favre, went very differently. The biggest reason was his dreadful luck with injuries after that early peak.
Giovanni Reyna's ordeal: only seven league games from the start in 30 months
Between his 20th birthday in mid-November 2022 and the end of the 2024/25 season, Reyna started only seven league matches in roughly two and a half years. To put it bluntly: seven league games from the start in 30 months. Even a loan move from Dortmund to Nottingham Forest in the first half of 2024 changed nothing. His form was almost always missing, and his confidence kept draining away.
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Muscular injuries in particular kept knocking the highly talented American backwards. Time and again, he had to fight his way through another comeback, and his body bore the cost of all those physical problems. As for the match rhythm he especially needs, Reyna, who after his BVB spell experienced a mixed year at best at Borussia Monchengladbach and from there moved to Strasbourg in August, could only dream of it.
"People sometimes think rest is a good way of managing the workload. But I get back into shape best when I get as many minutes as possible and, ideally, starts as well. And I'm getting stronger all the time," Reyna now said, according to The Athletic, with things finally looking up again.
Giovanni Reyna sets personal best
That brings it back to the number seven, this time for a much better reason. Between the end of August and the start of October, Reyna started seven matches in a row for club and country. That is a personal best, because he had never before started so many consecutive games in his professional career. Then, in the early hours of Wednesday, he took it one step further with his eighth straight start in the USA's 1-0 friendly win over Canada and set a new record.
"I feel like I'm slowly getting completely back to being myself again," Reyna said after his convincing display in the USA's 3-0 friendly win over Mexico last weekend. He always felt the trust of national team coach Mauricio Pochettino, with the Argentine standing by him even in difficult times and nominating Reyna for the home World Cup last summer despite his club problems.
"For me, he is a great player. He understands the game at a high level," Pochettino said of the attacking midfielder, who provided an assist in each of the late-September friendlies against Peru (4-1) and Chile (4-2). Pochettino also pointed to Reyna's quality in combination play, his outstanding touch and his close control.
How has former BVB star Giovanni Reyna started at Racing Strasbourg?
Those strong displays for the USA were built on his start in Strasbourg, where he has signed until 2031. He quickly forced his way into the first team, feels the trust of coach Hugo Oliveira and has become a fixture as one of the two number eights in the 4-3-3 system. In five appearances so far, Reyna has already scored once for his new club from north-eastern France, with the 23-year-old finding the net in the 6-2 thrashing at Troyes at the start of September.
Getty ImagesThose constant injury problems once left deep mental scars on the former Bundesliga professional. In recent years, he had been troubled by doubts over whether he was physically built for top-level football at all. "I don't think about that at all any more," Reyna can fortunately say today. "I've left that behind me."
Still only 23, Reyna is young but already carries a huge amount of experience, from early success to the darker side of professional life. In both Strasbourg and the national team, two very young sides, he is already one of the more experienced players. He can guide the younger ones and seems to be thriving in that role. Given Reyna's potential, this may be only the start of a glorious renaissance.