Borussia Dortmund manager Edin Terzić has said Gio Reyna’s consistent goalscoring off the bench is giving him the proverbial problem every coach wants to have.
Reyna has started just one game since the World Cup but has scored in five of his 10 substitute appearances since the Bundesliga restarted in January.
The 20-year-old scored again in Saturday’s 5-2 win over Borussia Mönchengladbach, taking his average to 1.06 goals per 90 minutes — best in the Bundesliga among players with more than 500 minutes.
Dortmund, which is just one point behind first-place Bayern with two games to go, has won 13 of 17 games since the World Cup. With attackers like Donyell Malen, Julian Brandt, Karim Adeyemi and others firing on all cylinders, Reyna’s lack of minutes has more to do with the successes of others rather than his own failures.
Speaking after the win over Gladbach, Terzić said that the USMNT attacker continues to push the players ahead of him.
“Gio in particular is not making it easy for me to always only be bringing him on [from the bench],” the coach said. “He pushes the others every day. We want to have that performance mindset in the team. Karim and Donny know that they need to keep stepping on the gas.”
Overall, Reyna has scored a career-high seven Bundesliga goals this season, despite starting just four games in the league.
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