DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) — How far can the power of friendship get you at the World Cup? With Gio Reyna and Joe Scally in the team, the United States might just find out.
Reyna and Scally are old friends who’ve had a blast playing together this season at German club Borussia Moenchengladbach and both made the U.S. roster for the World Cup this week.
“The chemistry’s there and it will always be there,” Reyna said this month in a joint media availability with Scally.
“We’re already close, but it feels like we’ve gotten even closer, which felt impossible, but it’s been a good year together,” Reyna said.
He added his wife is friends with Scally’s fiancee and even their dogs are buddies.
Reyna told the Associated Press last year his friend was the “cherry on top” in his decision to join Gladbach to revive his career this season after injuries and a controversial time at the 2022 World Cup.
Scally argues their bond brings on-field benefits.
“On the training field, in the locker room, in the car rides every day, I think we’ve definitely enjoyed every day because we know it doesn’t last forever,” Scally said. “I think we understand each other very well on the field. We want to play together more than we have. In the time that we do play together, something good normally comes out of it.”
The 23-year-olds were youth players together at New York City FC a decade ago and have both made their names in Europe but the on-field similarities end there.
Scally is a versatile, reliable defender who rarely misses a game. Reyna’s a creative, unpredictable attacking midfielder who can make a sudden impact in games but has been repeatedly sidelined with fitness and injury issues for large parts of the last few seasons.
It’s the second World Cup appearance for Scally and Reyna and follows a dispute which overshadowed Reyna’s time with the team in Qatar in 2022.
Reyna played only twice off the bench and then-U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter said after the tournament that an unnamed player, later identified as Reyna, was nearly sent home for a lack of effort in training.
Reyna’s parents — Claudio and Danielle Reyna, both former national team players — lobbied the U.S. Soccer Federation for more playing time for Gio and contacted the USSF about a three-decades-old domestic violence allegation involving Berhalter and the woman who later became his wife — Danielle’s former college roommate.
Reyna told the AP last year he’d now handle the 2022 incident differently “in certain ways” and his actions stemmed from frustration, but the dispute wasn’t “completely” his fault or that of his family.
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AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup
