Gio Reyna leaves pitch in tears as devastated Dortmund star suffers another injury on first start in six months
BORUSSIA DORTMUND starlet Giovanni Reyna left the pitch in tears after picking up another injury on his first start in six months.
The American winger, 19, was forced off in the 28th minute during BVB’s 6-0 win against Borussia Monchengladbach on Saturday.
Prior to Saturday’s clash, Reyna hadn’t been included in a Bundesliga starting XI since August 27 after injuring his hamstring while on international duty.
He made his Dortmund comeback on February 6 after coming off the bench in the 5-2 defeat against Bayer Leverkusen.
Reyna was a second half substitute against Rangers last week where the Scottish side stunned the German giants to win 4-2 in their Europa League Round of 32 first leg.
And boss Marco Rose decided that it was time to unleash Reyna from the start, but his return ended in a nightmare as he went off with another hamstring problem.
Following the match, Rose said: “With Gio we have to assume he has torn something on the old (injury) site.
“I don’t want to get ahead of things but Gio was gutted as he has just come back from long term injury and I was so glad he was back again.
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“A fit Gio Reyna gives us something and it would have been important for him to establish some game rhythm.
“I was conscious of that and named him in the starting XI and he had also trained very well in recent weeks. It is of course extremely disappointing.”
He also stated: “Gio is really upset. You can see it in the pictures. He’s just back from injury and was really in good shape.
“I was, we were all happy that he was back. It was important for us to have him on the field with the quality he has.
“We’ll get the boy back and we’ll give him every support because we need him, because he’s an outstanding athlete, a great person.”
It won’t only be Dortmund that are sweating over Reyna’s fitness, with America hoping he would be ready for selection ahead of next month’s World Cup qualifiers.
The USA national team sit second behind Canada in the qualifying table ahead of their clashes against Mexico, Panama and Costa Rica.
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