Role reversal: Gio Reyna and Borussia Monchengladbach vs Malik Tillman and Bayer Leverkusen is a showdown of two USMNT midfielders heading in opposite directions

The Reyna journey is well chronicled. He followed the Pulisic character arc at first. He was in the Dortmund team at a young age, setting all sorts of records for the youngest player to do nice things: score, assist, and appear in the Champions League.

Pulisic blazed the trail, Reyna was the one who could not only step into his shoes, but also stretch the limits of how good an American in Europe could be. 

Of course, it all went a bit wrong. Some of the reasons were out of Reyna's control. Others he perhaps could've impacted. Reyna, we were told, had - perhaps still has - an attitude problem. Certainly, for the USMNT there was a perception that he was above the concepts of "running" and "being a good teammate."

Here was a kid with an ego, a guy who knew just how good he was. Maybe he was even too aware of it. 

And then there are the things he couldn't have counted on. Reyna's hamstrings are fickle. So are his calves. He was used so much, so young, that his body simply couldn't keep up with the high intensity of the upper echelon of the Bundesliga.

He's a fluid, luxury player. His legs aren't built for the rough and tumble of the German day-to-day. Reyna got injured a lot. Managerial changes didn't help. By the end of his Dortmund career he was left either watching from the bench or settling for garbage time minutes. It was clear that the journey was over. 

Tillman, meanwhile, has gone from strength to strength. He appeared to come from a dangerous place, in a sense. The Bayern Munich academy came with immense expectations. He was in and out of the side for the youth setup, appeared a handful of times for the senior team, and settled for a necessary - if slightly underwhelming - loan to Rangers in the 2022-23 season.

He came back to Germany the year after as a player in stasis, clearly not good enough for the Bayern first team but needing regular football. The solution was another loan, this time to PSV. A couple of knocks rather limited him, but he was otherwise a promising prospect - playing a valuable creative role either in the midfield or out wide for the Dutch giants.

They activated his buy option for what now looks like a bargain at $14.1 million (€12M), and he only developed more. He was probably their best player for the first five months of the 2024-25 campaign. Fellow USMNT-er Ricardo Pepi may have been the one scoring the goals, but Tillman was orchestrating and doing everything else.

He looked a player brimming with confidence, holding his own in the Champions League and providing all sorts of clever passes from a more overt attacking midfield role. He looked a shoo-in for the U.S. team under Mauricio Pochettino. And even when he picked up a serious ankle injury in January, he had shown enough for Bayer Leverkusen to pay his $41.1M (€35M) release clause. He became the German giants' record signing.

The irony here, of course, is that both endured poor starts to the season for reasons out of their control, and are rather in limbo in their squads. Tillman found the back of the net in his Leverkusen debut, and was otherwise immensely effective for an hour. He was less impressive - but still solid - a week later.

However, things were poor at his club. New manager Erik Ten Hag, it was widely reported, had done an excellent job of antagonizing the club and everyone around it in his brief few months in charge. Leverkusen sacked him after three games, deeming the situation irreconcilable despite the short amount of time that had passed. But Leverkusen did the thing all the same, and the man who had spent a record outlay on the American was now out the door.

Reyna, too, was thrown into jeopardy. He perhaps was more pronounced in his need to leave his former club. Dortmund was never going to offer a clear pathway to first team football, and the German side had already tried to sell him earlier in the summer - only for a move to Parma to break down.

Monchengladbach seemed a much more natural fit, not least because of the manager's willingness to use a No. 10. Well, that manager was let go, too. Gerardo Seoane was already on thin ice after orchestrating a dramatic crash out of European football contention towards the end of last season.

A winless start to this one, highlighted by a home battering by Werder Bremen, was enough for the board. Sporting director Roland Virkus admitted that the club no longer had faith that the manager could turn things around. That, too, was a risky move. Seoane should have gone in May. 

Still, the point remains: both are new clubs, neither under the manager who vouched for their signature. That's a precarious spot.

It's worth asking what this all means for the USMNT. Tillman was excellent in the Gold Cup - especially the group stages - as a largely backup U.S. side made an agreeable run to the final. It was hard to intellectualize the tournament, but many used it as proof for the fact that Tillman should be in the side when the top players all return.

Success at Bayer Leverkusen, you'd assume, would only reinforce that notion. If Tillman could do it at PSV, then showing that same quality for Leverkusen, at 23, would prove that he could some day be a star for the national team.

Reyna, meanwhile, admitted that the move to Monchengladbach alone was basically brought about by his desire to be back in the USMNT when the World Cup comes around: 

"I believe I'll be there. That was one of the reasons for my move. I'm in open contact with the coach. If I play well at Borussia, I'll definitely find my way back to the national team," he said after his arrival.

Ironically, then, these next nine months will serve as a real test of that. Tillman was left out of the squad for the September camp, Pochettino admitting that he wanted the attacking midfielder to find some form. Reyna was never going to be in it - such was his lack of playing time. 

But the two, effectively, remain in direct competition. Pochettino effectively has one extra attacking spot open. If he plays with an attacking trio, then Pulisic and Weah have two spots locked down. If he played with two No. 10s behind a striker, Pulisic is in, but there's just one position left.

Effectively, Pochettino has a choice: go with the guy whose talent is stratospheric, or back the youngster on the rise. 

Logic dictates that a healthy, fit and firing Reyna should walk into the team ahead of Tillman. You could make a thinly-veiled argument that he might be the U.S.'s most important player on his day. But those days, for years, have been too few and far between. Tillman, meanwhile, has improved month-by-month, and if there's one thing that Pochettino has shown, it's that he is willing to reward form over pedigree. 

And so we arrive at Sunday. These are two struggling teams, underperforming. New managers, both. Yes, they will probably revert to the mean. Monchengladbach will finsih mid table. Leverkusen will snag a Champions League spot. This matchup, though, serves as a microcosm of how far one player has fallen, and how his backup might have surpassed him in the USMNT's hierarchy.

This is not what we predicted. But, for now, it's reality.