If you're a Gio Reyna fan, you've seen this movie before.
Reyna's season started as most of his other games have started over recent years: on the bench. Borussia Dortmund's campaign began last weekend with a lopsided DFB-Pokal win over a lower-league team, and Reyna once again had a front-row seat to it all.
It didn't matter that Dortmund were cruising 4-1 against Phonix Lubeck with most of their starters on the field. Reyna sat on the sidelines as Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Julian Brandt and Karim Adeyemi started, and then as Julian Duranville and Donyell Malen came off the bench. The Dortmund attack is still crowded and, even when the club is smashing the opponent in their way, Reyna is still crowded out.
With just days, not weeks, left in the transfer window, that fact feels even more important. Reyna is at an important tipping point in his career, a moment in which he can no longer afford to waste time. Just being at one of the biggest clubs in the world isn't helpful anymore, not as much as, you know, actually playing.
For years, Reyna looked as if he would be Dortmund's next big thing, the up-and-coming talent who would follow the likes of friends Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham into superstardom.
That hasn't happened, at least not yet.
So what's Reyna to do? He may not ultimately control the answer, but for his sake, the solution better end in his playing real, tangible minutes at some point this season. His development and his career, in many ways, depend upon it.