For the past 24 hours, the American soccer landscape has seen the twists and turns that would rival any soap opera on TV, and chances are it will keep going for a while.
After USMNT manager Gregg Berhalter admitted to a domestic violence incident in 1991 where he kicked his future wife and alleged someone was blackmailing him into resigning from the national team, it came out that Claudio and Danielle Reyna went to U.S. Soccer about what happened. Claudio and Danielle are the parents of Giovanni Reyna, the 20-year-old USMNT and Borussia Dortmund star who was benched for the majority of the World Cup due to a “lack of effort.”
Gio apologized to his teammates and his coaches. However, the story still came out largely thanks to Berhalter sharing a story (assumed to be off the record) at an event about an unnamed player who was almost sent home from Qatar early. Once that came out, Gio took to Instagram to say he was disappointed with his lack of playing time and apologized to his teammates, as well as being “disappointed” about the continuous coverage and the highly fictionalized versions of what happened.
Danielle and Claudio shared statements about their involvement in this, admitting that this process started on December 11, the same day reports came out about Gio’s effort.
Danielle’s statement consisted of her going to U.S. Soccer sporting director Earnie Stewart to express her outrage that “Gio had been put in such a terrible position,” largely because of someone who was a close personal friend of the Reyna family. In that conversation, she made note of the domestic violence incident to show how unfair it was that Gio keeps getting criticism for what he did, while Berhalter was forgiven for what he did at Gio’s age when that was a far worse act.
Claudio’s statement had him supporting Danielle, and he too went to Stewart that same day, but both denied threatening or blackmailing anyone.
Danielle isn’t wrong, and domestic violence is worse than showing a lack of effort in a soccer tournament. However, I have to take issue with a few things both she and Claudio have said and done that currently have them viewed worse than a man who kicked his future wife, which is very difficult to do.
1) The reason why Berhalter was forgiven for what he did is that it happened over 30 years ago, while Gio’s happened two months ago. Gregg said it was over seven months until his wife Rosalind sought him out to talk things through and get back together. And Danielle herself said that it “took a long time” for her to “forgive and accept Gregg afterward.”
Sure, what Gio did is nowhere close to what Berhalter did, but at the same time, I would hope people are willing to forgive Gio in a lot less time than people did for Berhalter back in 1991. Gio just hasn’t had enough time for people to forgive him yet, which might not happen now because of this.
2) Speaking of Gio, his path has suddenly gotten more difficult. Maybe it was in bad form that Berhalter all but outed Gio for his immaturity at the World Cup, but what his parents did wasn’t much better for his reputation.
For all we know, Gio had nothing to do with this. But if Berhalter remains manager, there will be a cloud over Gio’s head over the next four years. It’s possible that Gio’s international career is done, or at the very least on hiatus. Even if the player and coach can patch things up, the drama of Gio being on the national team given all this, it might just be for the best that he’s not involved for the time being.
And if Gio’s parents were worried about the endless criticism and lack of forgiveness Gio received based on what happened at the World Cup, them fighting his battle for him, regardless if he knew about this, will not help the situation. Both from the fans and from the clubs who may have wanted to sign him.
3) What exactly was Danielle’s endgame? At one point in her statement, she commended U.S. Soccer for how they addressed the abuse of women’s soccer players, but yet thought that her conversation with the sporting director of U.S. Soccer would somehow remain “in confidence.” That’s either a load of hogwash or Danielle is very naive that even though she felt U.S. Soccer did a great job addressing abuse, she also somehow thought that U.S. Soccer wouldn’t act on her telling a top exec that their men’s head coach abused his future wife.
4) While this was all done to protect their son, Claudio and Danielle knew what happened for 30-plus years, and at no point did they report what Berhalter did until they did so in an act of revenge. In fact, Claudio publicly praised Berhalter when he was hired as USMNT manager back in 2018. Claudio said, “As a friend, colleague and teammate, it was no surprise that he transitioned into being a good coach.”
Maybe Claudio and Danielle weren’t expecting things to snowball into this. And for the sake of argument, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt that they didn’t blackmail anyone. It doesn’t change the fact that they said what they said when they said it, not because they felt it was right to do, but to get revenge on someone for what they felt was a terrible act done to their son.
5) Last, but not least, what all this has done is put Gregg’s wife, Rosalind, in a difficult position. She’s not a public figure and has already had to deal with being abused back when it happened. If that wasn’t bad enough, now she has to re-live this again in front of the entire public. A public where a good portion of people hate her husband and want him to lose his job. Whatever issue Claudio and Danielle had with Gregg is between them, but by bringing Rosalind into this showed that they only thought of themselves instead of the people who would potentially be hurt.
To her credit, Danielle apologized for her “role in something that could reopen wounds from the past,” but the damage has already been done and, like what Gregg did so many years ago, you can’t undo your past mistakes. And it might be a while before the Berhalter’s learn to forgive Danielle.
Claudio and Danielle Reyna exhibited the worst of those parents who are over-invested in their children being in sports. The helicopter parents who feel it’s on them to fight their child’s battles against the coach, the officials, the league, etc. We might be talking about a 20-year-old who is playing with the senior team, but this is a metaphor of how parents can go off thinking they’re doing the right thing but wind up making things worse.
Hopefully, Gio Reyna’s career is unaffected by this, but if it is, he’ll have two people to blame for that. The people who tried to protect him.