DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) — After more than a year, Gio Reyna has finally started a game for Borussia Dortmund again.
A lot has changed for the team and for the American attacking midfielder, who could be a valuable player for the United States at its home World Cup in 2026. Reyna's starting role in Wednesday's 3-2 loss to Barcelona was a sign he has a future with Dortmund, too.
Reyna didn't make a big impact in his 73 minutes on the field against Barcelona but he didn't seem out of place, either. And despite the repeated injuries that have held back Reyna's club career, he seemed fit enough to keep up.
“It was great. Just really, really happy to be back on the field. It’s obviously when I’m happiest," Reyna said in a video interview released by the club early Thursday.
“(Coach Nuri Sahin) really just wanted me to play my game and use my ability on the ball and talents to find the ball in areas and get other guys involved, and I feel like I did a good job of that,” Reyna added. “Really just happy to be back out there today. I just have to take it and fight for more opportunities and look to really improve now.”
Since Reyna last started a Dortmund game on Nov. 1, 2023, he's had a largely disappointing loan at Nottingham Forest — while Dortmund reached the Champions League final without him — and a groin strain which ruled him out of the first four U.S. games under new coach Mauricio Pochettino.
Reyna could now get more opportunities for Dortmund in place of an injured Julian Brandt, starting with Sunday's game against Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga.
Alongside Reyna in a young Dortmund attack on Wednesday were the 20-year-old English winger Jamie Gittens — a standout with nine goals this season — and the 18-year-old Julien Duranville, who was impressive in his first start of the season.
The problem for Dortmund is at the other end of the field.
Nico Schlotterbeck's severe-looking ankle injury in the last seconds of the game left Dortmund without any fit central defenders. Losing Schlotterbeck would be a “total meltdown,” coach Sahin told broadcaster DAZN on Wednesday.
Schlotterbeck was already being partnered with midfielder Emre Can in defense because Niklas Süle is ruled out for months and Waldemar Anton's return from a muscle injury remains unclear.
Schlotterbeck suffered ligament damage but the club didn’t give a timeframe on Thursday for his recovery, saying only it was “questionable” he’d play again before the new year.
The one positive for Dortmund could be that the team has only two games until the 19-day winter break, which will begin after playing Wolfsburg on Dec. 22.
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Dortmund's Giovanni Reyna fights for the ball against Barcelona's Marc Casado and Lamine Yamal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Borussia Dortmund and FC Barcelona at the Signal-Iduna Park in Dortmund, Germany, Wednesday Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
BANGKOK (AP) — There has been a slight drop in the production of opium in Myanmar, the world’s biggest source of the illicit drug from which heroin is derived, experts from the United Nations said Thursday, while warning of strong prospects for future expansion of the deadly trade.
The Myanmar Opium Survey 2024 issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says that after three consecutive years of growth, the area where opium is cultivated fell by 4% to 45,200 hectares (111,700 acres) and production decreased by 8% to 995 metric tons due to a 4% decline in opium yield.
UNODC announced last year that Myanmar had overtaken Afghanistan to become the world’s top opium producer, saying a ban imposed by the ruling Taliban after its 2021 takeover led to a 95% drop there in opium cultivation. Opium, the base from which morphine and heroin are produced, is harvested from poppy flowers.
Meanwhile, Myanmar registered growth in cultivation and production from 2021 through 2023, which UNODC attributed largely to
fostered by the crisis that arose after its army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. Resistance to the takeover has led to what is now a civil war.
Many farmers who had left opium behind during the period of relative stability before the military takeover returned to growing opium, Masood Karimipour, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said at a press briefing about the survey, which utilized both on-the-ground investigations and satellite surveillance.
The consequences of the supply shakeup remain unclear, UNODC experts said.
“We believe that at the moment the global supply chain for heroin has not been fully adjusted,” said Inshik Sim, a UNODC Research Officer, “And there is an implication that because there is a lack of heroin at the global level, somebody has to fill the markets and that may push the Myanmar opium poppy farmers to increasingly engage in opium poppy cultivation.”
In 2024, however, UNODC says the fighting at the heart of the instability intensified so much that it may have constrained production, due to factors including displacement and restrictions on movement, as appears to be the case in the opium-producing regions of Shan and Kachin in eastern and northern Myanmar.
That does not necessarily mean production has plateaued, said the U.N. experts.
“Troublingly, we are seeing indicators that the expanding and intensifying conflict in Myanmar is also a growing concern,” said Karimipour. ”So as the situation in Myanmar remains volatile and as the governance and humanitarian crises there continue, we may again see more people pushed into opium cultivation.”
“And we also note that the farmers have reported to us that their number one reason is just to put food on the table and that economic need will continue to intensify and worsen. So we don’t predict an alleviation in the motivation to continue to grow opium.”
"It’s very important for the international community to do what it can to support farming communities, to build resilience outside the opium economy, as the push factors that we’ve just discussed will continue," Karimipour said, adding that, “and it’s important to continue monitoring the situation in both Myanmar and Afghanistan as it relates to the global heroin supply chains.”
Northeastern Myanmar is part of the infamous “Golden Triangle,” where the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet. The production of opium and heroin historically flourished there, largely because of the lawlessness in border areas where Myanmar’s central government has been able to exercise only minimum control over various ethnic minority militias, some of them partners in the drug trade.
In recent decades, after the region’s opium production had dropped, methamphetamine in the form of tablets and crystal meth supplanted it. It’s easier to make on an industrial scale than the labor-intensive cultivation of opium, and gets distributed by land, sea and air around Asia and the Pacific.
In this undated photo made available Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), workers collect opium gum in a poppy field in Shan State, Myanmar. (UNODC via AP)
In this undated photo made available Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), workers collect opium gum in a poppy field in Shan State, Myanmar. (UNODC via AP)
