As Gio Reyna’s curling shot bulged the net and he began sprinting toward the corner flag in the World Cup opening victory against Paraguay, one of the first U.S. players to jubilantly chase after him and leap on his back was Sebastian Berhalter.

It was a redemptive, cathartic moment for U.S. Soccer, ending maybe not the darkest chapter in federation history (there was, let’s not forget, the 40-year absence between World Cup appearances) but certainly its most pathetic and puerile, a cap on a leaky well spewing oil on pristine beaches, unpinning dirty laundry airing in the front yard.

The Reynas and Berhalters, who grew up together and were in each other’s weddings, still might not be exchanging pleasantries or Christmas cards. But there their sons were, in the U.S. midfield together at SoFi Stadium against Paraguay and again last Friday against Australia in Seattle, smiling, celebrating, moving on.

“It’s not a story between me and him,” Berhalter said. “We’re on the same team, and for us it’s just about winning games for our national team. He scored an incredible goal, he’s an incredible player.

“We want to make each other better. We’re fighting for the common goal to win games for our country.”

It’s a story, though, as much as the federation wants to pretend it never happened and the five-part HBO documentary series it sanctioned about the team’s buildup to 2026 conveniently neglected to include the family feud beyond a passing mention.

In the months after the 2022 World Cup, it was THE story.

“I hear something,” coach Mauricio Pochettino said after calling both players to a national-team camp last November.

Uh, yeah, about that …

Their fathers, Claudio Reyna and Gregg Berhalter, were born 12 days apart in neighboring towns in New Jersey in 1973 and became best friends at age 12. They were teammates in high school and at the 2002 and 2006 World Cups. Their wives, Danielle and Rosalind, were best friends, teammates and roommates at the University of North Carolina. Claudio was the best man in Gregg and Roz’s wedding. They both had sons who became elite soccer players and best friends.

The problems began in November 2021, when Major League Soccer club Austin FC declined to exercise the loan option on Sebastian and sent him back to the Columbus Crew. Austin’s sporting director: Claudio.

A year later in Qatar, Gregg, now the U.S. national team’s coach, told Gio he would have a “very limited” role in the World Cup. He pouted in training so much that Gregg and his staff privately contemplated sending him home early.

Greg admitted as much at a leadership conference in New York shortly after their World Cup exit. He didn’t name the player, but people quickly connected the dots, and soon the Reynas —first Gio, then his mother — were releasing scathing statements that included salacious allegations about Gregg physically abusing his future wife 31 years earlier in a drunken incident outside a bar while they were freshmen at UNC.

Wrote Danielle: “I thought it was especially unfair that Gio, who had apologized for acting immaturely about his playing time, was still being dragged through the mud when Gregg had asked for and received forgiveness for doing something so much worse at the same age.”

U.S. Soccer commissioned an outside law firm to conduct an investigation and made public its 40-page report in March 2023 that, through extensive interviews with the Berhalters, confirmed Gregg shoved Roz to the ground and kicked her twice before a bystander tackled him outside a Chapel Hill bar called Players. They reconciled seven months later and have been married for 29 years.

Aside from a pair of brief phone calls with Danielle, the Reynas declined to participate in the probe. The report largely disparages them, citing a history of inappropriate outreach from Claudio to federation officials “to advocate for his children.”

In one text about a female referee assigned to one of Gio’s youth games, Claudio said (grammar not corrected): “In all honest, can we get real have male refs for a game like this. Its embarrassing guys.”

During the under-17 World Cup in 2019, he grumbled about Gio’s lack of playing time and not flying business class.

After Gio didn’t play in the 2022 World Cup opener, Claudio sent another nasty-gram straight out of a pay-to-play youth system where parents, who are writing the checks, feel their children are entitled to playing time. “What a complete and utter (expletive) joke,” he texted Stewart. “Our family is disgusted in case you are wondering. Disgusted at how a coach is allowed to never be challenged and do whatever he wants.”

Instead of washing its hands of the whole, sordid affair, the federation doubled down on Gregg — whose brother, Jay, was its longtime Chief Commercial Officer and had a say in key hires — and retained him as national coach. That lasted 13 months, until the U.S. crashed out of the 2024 Copa America in the first round and Greg was fired.

Pochettino was hired, and the easy solution in the name of locker room chemistry would have been to leave both Gio and Sebastian off the 26-man World Cup roster, since including one but not the other could be interpreted as taking sides.

No one would have faulted him. Neither projected as a starter. Sebastian plays in MLS and has struggled with the pace of the international game at its highest levels. Gio plays in the more respected German Bundesliga but struggled to find the field this season, logging only four starts and a mere 510 total minutes for 12th-place Borussia Monchengladbach.

Pochettino took both.

“For me, it’s not important,” Pochettino said. “And if we believe that Sebastian and Gio are important for us — and because I think these two guys are really intelligent and very clever — if something happened, for sure, they are mature enough to deal with that.”

Like every move the Argentine has made so far in this World Cup, it has worked spectacularly.

It’s been a long 3 1/2 years for Gio, whose promising career has been derailed by a string of injuries, bouts of immaturity and an aborted loan deal to England’s Nottingham Forest. His raw talent is undeniable, but his demeanor has been questioned, and late in the Paraguay game he tangled with an opposing player as the U.S. built an attack.

Here we go again …

Midfielder Tyler Adams intervened and shoved Gio away. Moments later, he sublimely curled a shot with the outside of his right boot into the Paraguay net and was sprinting toward the corner flag, with Sebastian in tow.

Gio covered his ears with his hands, a celebration he said was “just something between me and my friends that I’ll keep between us” but wasn’t hard to decipher. He was blocking out the noise.

After breaking free of his mobbing teammates, Gio ran to the sideline and locked in an emotional embrace with Pochettino, the coach who gave him a second chance, who blocked out the noise as well.

“That wasn’t on my mind at all,” Gio said of past transgressions. “I’m just enjoying the moment with this team and with all our families here. The energy that we all feel, we believe we can do something great as a team.

“This team is the first team I’ve been on that really, really everybody loves each other. I think that transmits to the field, and you can see that. It’s great.”

A coach, allowed to do whatever he wants.

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