Giovanni Reyna: Stats comparison with the world's best young attackers
Borussia Dortmund winger Giovanni Reyna has set his ambitions high by suggesting that he’d like to establish himself as one of the top 10 players in the world.
The Bundesliga talent has less than 40 senior appearances to his name, however there’s no doubt that Reyna has already shown a huge amount of promise in Germany.
This season alone, the American has already bagged three goals and six assists; not bad for a player that only made his debut for Dortmund in January of this year.
But how realistic is Reyna’s dreams of being counted among the best players in the world? And, despite his minimal game time to date, can we already predict how good the Dortmund player currently is and how much better he can get in the future?
How well is Reyna doing this season?
When we put together a shortlist of the best players under 21 in world football at the moment that play in Reyna’s general role for Dortmund - classic winger, wide playmaker or inside forward - we quickly get a list of the contemporaries Reyna will undoubtedly be compared to over the course of his career.
All competitions and internationals in 2020/21:
Reyna v the Best (P90)
| Player Name | Goals | Assists | Dribbles | G+A |
| Gio Reyna | 0.2 | 0.25 | 2.4 | 0.45 |
| Jadon Sancho | 0.19 | 0.33 | 2.4 | 0.52 |
| Kai Havertz | 0.28 | 0.33 | 1.6 | 0.61 |
| Phil Foden | 0.33 | 0.22 | 2 | 0.55 |
| Vinicius Jr | 0.19 | 0.06 | 2.6 | 0.25 |
| Mason Mount | 0.13 | 0.13 | 1.3 | 0.26 |
| Martin Odegaard | 0 | 0.27 | 0.6 | 0.27 |
When we look at how each player is doing this season we can see how much of an impact Reyna is having at Dortmund and how it compares. And, as you can see in the table above, the young American is certainly holding his own against some of European football’s most promising players.
Reyna comes just after Chelsea’s Kai Havertz and Manchester City’s Phil Foden for goals P90 and when it comes to assists P90 only Mbappe, teammate Jadon Sancho and Real Madrid’s Martin Odegaard come out on top.
Similarly, when we rank each of the selected players for successful dribbler P90, Reyna comes alongside Sancho and Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior. But undoubtedly ahead of some exceptional players.
Indeed, Reyna’s talents seem to lie in his ability to do a bit of everything very well. While he may not be the most gifted goal scorer among these players or the most accomplished playmaker, when we combine his goals and assists P90 he comes behind Havertz, Foden and then Sancho with 0.45. But he’s unquestionably putting up comparable numbers to some of the most sought-after players in world football.
How much potential does he have?
So we now know that Reyna is doing remarkably well compared to some of the most promising players in his position, but how much better can the Dortmund winger get over the next couple of seasons?
That is, of course, a difficult question to answer but what we can do is compare Reyna’s stats now to similar players that have since become exceptional talents when they were the American’s age.
A good comparison here is perhaps Bayern Munich winger Leroy Sane. The German international came through at Schalke in the Bundesliga at a similar age and level and has since gone on to prove his worth at Man City and now Bayern.
Using data courtesy of SciSports, we can track each player’s actual talent (indicated by the coloured line) and their potential (dotted line) to see where each player is or was at every age.
As we can see, Sane made a very steady and impressive rise between 18 and 23 and has since seen his development plateau out due to injuries and moving clubs.
However, what’s perhaps most interesting is that at this moment in time, SciSports believe Reyna is currently performing at a higher level than Sane was at 18. A large part of that is down to the fact that Sane was only just getting started at Schalke at that age, but it undoubtedly shows that Reyna is perhaps beginning his career with more talent than Sane showed in his early days.
Another intriguing feature of SciSport’s analysis also shows a steep incline for Reyna’s ability over the course of the last six months at Dortmund. Which could suggest that the American’s trajectory may end up being even higher than Sane’s was at Schalke.
In other words, Reyna may not only prove to be as good as Sane has become as a senior player, but may already be showing signs of becoming a much better player than the German international.