MLS transfer wish list: Gio Reyna to Gregg Berhalter's Chicago Fire | OneFootball

Gio Reyna's days at Dortmund are numbers, with reports indicating the club has given the enigmatic USMNT midfielder permission to seek a new club.

The timing of the revelation could be particularly interesting for an MLS club with an open Designated Player spot that wanted to act quickly, since the league's primary transfer window doesn't close until April 23.

And if you're the kind of person who roots for the most interesting story, then there's only one obvious place in MLS you'd like to see Reyna end up: Gregg Berhalter's Chicago Fire.

Maybe a reunion between the coach and player whose families were once embroiled in one of the most unseemly sagas in USMNT history is extremely unlikely.

Not only do Berhalter and Reyna have a potentially fractious past, but it's not entirely clear why Berhalter would choose to insert a potentially volatile influence into a team playing well.

And even after going back-to-back matches without a win for the first time this season, it doesn't appear that the Fire's woes are in attack, where Reyna would contribute. Chicago has still scored in every game this season, posting a total of 14 tallies and 11.7 expected goals.

Restoring a legacy?

At the same time, taking on the project of rehabilitating Reyna could provide Berhalter a chance at redemption in terms of his USMNT legacy, which took an enormous hit in the months after he guided the squad to a round-of-16 finish at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Of all the criticisms of Berhalter, the most credible was that the team simply didn't continue to evolve positively following that 2022 showing. And Reyna -- whose reported absence of buy-in at the 2022 World Cup was followed by continued disappointment at the club level with Dortmund and Nottingham Forest -- could be considered one of the most obvious examples of a player who didn't continue to progress.

If Berhalter could get the best out of a player many still consider the most technically gifted in the USMNT pool, that would be -- or at least it should be -- considered an enormous contribution to the Americans' 2026 World Cup hopes.

And frankly, if the Fire took a chance on Reyna and it went poorly, that could be just as compelling given the potential for faultlines of that previous saga to resurface.

Berhalter, Reyna burried the hatchet before

Maybe the danger of those issues being revisited makes this a non-starter. But if there is any possibility of a Berhalter-Reyna reunion, it lies in the context of how those issues came to public light in the first place.

Berhalter was speaking at a leadership conference, and sharing the details of how he believed he transformed Reyna from a player discontented with his role at the start of the tournament to one who won respect from the rest of the team by the end of it.

That Berhalter kept Reyna on the squad and later shared how he did it -- in what he believed were confidential discussions -- showed that he believed in his own ability to reach Reyna as a player.

He still presumably had that belief when he recalled Reyna into his squads for the last year of his tenure, including at the 2024 Copa America that spelled the end. And maybe he still does.