In hindsight, I'm pretty fairly convinced that both club and Claudio understood that one of the reasons Reyna took the job was so he could oversee his son's development and not hand control over it at any step until he signed his first pro contract. Once the kid left, Claudio left, which wasn't necessarily his original plan, but it's obvious that a primary factor that drew him here and kept him here was gone and created an opening.
Meanwhile, the club I'm sure was fine with this because they wanted Claudio as Sporting Director, not just to be in charge of the First Team, but the entire development program, for which which Reyna had very solid credentials. If that meant they had to develop Gio, never sign him, and get nothing else out of Gio's presence, they were fine with that because they got a very fine Academy out of it, having Reyna in charge never hurt recruiting, and his knowledge of the US talent pool is always valuable in a US league.
Which makes me want to address a couple of points often raised about Reyna's time as Sporting Director. It is often stated that Kreis gets full blame for the 2015 squad and that, beyond 2015, our SD is little more than an administrator because Manchester calls all the shots. I think both are nonsense (including now with Lee as SD but I'll stick to Reyna). The idea that Reyna took the job as SD and then said, "sure Jason, you run the expansion draft and I'll just watch" is preposterous. Kreis obviously had major input, but it had to be a collaboration. I know there are a couple of quotes out there saying Kries was in charge and got everything he wanted, but taking that sort of interview fodder as absolute truth is silly. Reyna did not just take the SD title and then sit there. It's an insult to him to suggest he did so, no matter how much you want to hate on Kreis. Grabavoy with the first pick? Yeah, that's Kreis. But Wingert with the last pick? That's Reyna putting the brakes on Kreis and saying you don't get to pick another one of your guys until the last round, and if Orlando blocks it by picking someone else from RSL too bad. And I'm sure Reyna had input on picks in between as well, plus probably the Mix signing. They both were blindsided by the Lampard fiasco (I never said Manchester isn't involved at all).
Post-2015, again, I cannot believe Reyna took the title and salary and then just sat in his office, did whatever the CFG scouts told him to do, and spent most of his time watching academy film of his son. I doubt Austin would have hired him if he couldn't account for his activities better than that the last few years. I doubt Lee just takes orders also. I can believe our SDs have both resources and constraints that some other MLS SDs don't have. And everyone has budgets (both cap related and team imposed). But I don't think they're just signing papers at the instructions of some Mancunians.
