At the 2022 World Cup, I fell back in love with the USMNT, thanks in no small part to Gio Reyna and Christian Pulisic. So convinced was I that these two would only continue to climb higher than most in American history that I bought a Pulisic jersey and a Reyna shirt.

The dark days between 2018, when the USMNT somehow failed to even qualify for the World Cup, and 2022 seemed to at least bring about the future of what should have been the best group of players this country had ever produced, with Pulisic and Reyna featuring prominently.

Now, the 2026 World Cup was indeed led by the best group of players this country has ever had on the men’s side. But they still collapsed in the Round of 16 against top-tier European competition. Nevertheless, the “golden generation” label wasn’t inaccurate. It’s just that our version of gold is not as shiny as England’s, Spain’s, France’s, Argentina’s, or that of other world powers.

This was a team full of quality players. Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams, Antonee Robinson, Chris Richards, Alex Freeman, Folarin Balogun, and Malik Tillman, the latter three of whom really upped their quality at the tournament, are good players.

But at the World Cup and in international competition, you need more than good players. You need someone or a couple of someones to step up and be top-tier players. Croatia’s not a world power, but Luka Modric carried them for a long time. Norway’s not some elite soccer country, but they happen to have Martin Odegaard and Erling Haaland.

The USMNT was supposed to have two such players: Christian Pulisic and Gio Reyna. To varying degrees, neither became what they were meant to, and that is perhaps the biggest reason the Americans seem capped at the Round of 16.

Gio Reyna and Christian Pulisic Were Meant to Be Beautiful

In 2020 and 2021, if you told a future fan that Gio Reyna and Christian Pulisic would be part of the 2022 and 2026 World Cups for the USMNT, they would have been thrilled. At that time, Pulisic was already clearly the best American to ever play at the club level, and the hopes for his national team performance were through the roof.

Reyna was just breaking into the national team, but he showed ridiculous promise. Obviously, these are two different players with different results so far. Pulisic may not be the prince who was promised, but he’s still the best American to ever lace them up, and his club results speak for themselves.

Reyna, though, has largely not panned out yet. He’s younger than Pulisic, so there’s still time, but neither one quite lived up to the billing. There are numerous failings of U.S. Soccer as a federation that come to a head every four years, with some of them slowly being addressed. Some of those failings certainly impacted the growth of Reyna, who was just 19 when things went awry at the 2022 World Cup.

We must backtrack before that to understand why both Gio Reyna and Pulisic have been a little disappointing, which is said by someone who very much still believes in both. They just haven’t been who the entire country hoped and wanted them to be, but there was a reason they both had such outsized expectations.

ESPN’s Ryan O’Hanlon wrote an excellent piece breaking down why revamping the youth soccer system (a very necessary change) won’t exactly fix U.S. Soccer. It won’t turn them into a powerhouse like everyone foolishly expects. It may not quite even get them over the hump alone. Part of it is sheer luck, which the Americans have not really had.

O’Hanlon pointed out Norway as an example. Right now, Norway’s ranked lower than the USMNT on FIFA’s rankings by three spots. They jumped 12 during their run to the quarterfinals, while America jumped just one for a run to the Round of 16. Why couldn’t the USMNT get that sort of break and make that sort of run on home soil?

Bad Luck for USA

Luck. Bad luck, to be more precise. I mentioned Erling Haaland, perhaps the best goal-scorer in the world, and Martin Odegaard. Those two prized prospects panned out for Norway. America’s prized prospects, Gio Reyna and Christian Pulisic, just didn’t.

But the hope was there for both, just like it was for Odegaard and Haaland. Gio Reyna was genuinely a wonderkid at one point. Here’s a list of the soccer players since 2010 who have generated at least 5.5 expected assists before turning 19:

• Lamine Yamal
• Florian Wirtz
• Jadon Sancho
• Jude Bellingham
• Gavi
• Warren Zaire-Emery
• Lennart Karl
• Kylian Mbappe
• Jeremy Doku
• Gio Reyna

The two names just below Reyna on the list? Jamal Musiala and Pedri. For the most part, this is a who’s who of Reyna’s generation of soccer stars. Lamine Yamal is a star for Spain and just booked his spot in the World Cup Final for the first time at the age of 19.

Jude Bellingham has six goals as a midfielder for an England side looking to join Spain. Florian Wirtz is incredible, and we all know about Kylian Mbappe. Jeremy Doku didn’t do much against the USMNT, but he is probably the best Belgian player. Musiala and Pedri are excellent, too.

The only non-world-class players are Lennart Karl, who is still pretty good, Warren Zaire-Emery, who plays big minutes for PSG, and Gavi, who is a key contributor for FC Barcelona, and Reyna. One of these is not like the others.

What happened? Reyna was in Germany, so it’s not like he’s a victim of poor US development. Injuries, up-and-down form (as well as some up-and-down minute totals at his clubs), and a ridiculous controversy with then-USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter have stunted the development.

It’s not too late at 23, but the odds of him being that world-class player the USMNT needs to elevate into that upper echelon are slim. The other candidate, Pulisic, may have missed his window for that. Unlike Reyna, he did make good on his potential, just not to the max.

There’s been a ton of criticism directed at him, some fair and some not. But the fact of the matter remains that no American has really ever achieved what he has at the club level. He was a crucial player on a Champions League-winning team at Chelsea, for crying out loud. During the first half of 2025-26, he was arguably the best player in Serie A.

“Since 2010, just seven wingers have produced more expected goals+assists before turning 21 than Pulisic did. Some players he was ahead of at that point in his career: Raheem Sterling, Vinicius Junior, and Ousmane Dembele,” O’Hanlon wrote. Pulisic isn’t on their level, but he’s not at all a bust.

The Americans, however, need someone on the level of Dembele, Vini Jr, or Sterling to break through the ceiling they’ve hit every four years. Had Gio Reyna reached his potential or even just simply had a better break and landed in the middle like Pulisic, we wouldn’t be having these conversations.

Instead, Gio Reyna has suffered, as O’Hanlon put it, “close to the worst-possible career outcome” for such a promising young player. Pulisic never quite became the world-class, nation-carrying player some thought he would be. And as a result, the Americans remain good but not great at soccer.