USMNT’s Gregg Berhalter lied about Gio Reyna injury

“With Gio Reyna out of the lineup right now, which has been a massive controversy within the team — even his own teammates want him on the field, and there seems to be some internal strife with the manager Gregg Berhalter,” Wynalda said.

“I don’t know how much I should comment on that, but I’ve been trying to console Gio’s father, Claudio, over the last couple of days with everything on. He was fit to play. Berhalter did lie to the media and say there was an injury. He asked the player to kind of go along with the story, which caused a rift between the two of them, and now he’s on the bench, which is really unfortunate. The situation should’ve been handled very differently.”

In explaining why Reyna didn’t play against Wales, Berhalter said, “It was trying to get him up to speed. There was some tightness we were guarding against. In the phase of the game we were at, we went with Jordan, who we felt could give us speed and power.”

However, Reyna claimed to have been at full strength.

“No, I feel great. I feel really good. I feel ready to go,” he said. “I felt good, I felt ready to go but it was just his [Berhalter’s] decision. He doesn’t have to tell me why he didn’t put me in or why he does. But I’m 100 percent. I’m good to go.”

The United States plays Iran in their final group stage match on Tuesday at 2 p.m. on FOX and need a win to advance to the knockout stage.