McBride Is Giving a Bloody Good Effort

HAMBURG, June 20 -- "Roll over so the ref sees the blood," U.S. defender Carlos Bocanegra told Brian McBride, his dazed and confused teammate.

Practically everyone inside Kaiserslautern's Fritz Walter Stadium on Saturday night had seen Italian midfielder Daniele De Rossi's elbow plunge into McBride's left cheek midway through the first half -- yet another blow to the U.S. forward's battered head during his productive but painful career.

What was the damage this time? A fourth shattered cheekbone? A broken nose? A puffy eye? Would he need another round of plastic surgery and another titanium plate inserted into his face?

Actually it looked worse than it was -- blood streaming from a cut under the left eye that would later require three stitches -- but was bad enough to convince referee Jorge Larrionda that De Rossi had to go.

The medical staff patched him up, McBride returned and, after a pair of red cards to U.S. players left the team short-handed, he helped the gasping Americans withstand a flurry of Italian activity in the last 15 minutes to earn a 1-1 tie.

"The incident the other day was potentially dangerous, and I'm glad he came out of it," Coach Bruce Arena said Tuesday before the team (0-1-1) departed for Nuremberg to prepare for Thursday's crucial World Cup first-round finale against Ghana (1-1). "I'm happy that's all it was. He's courageous."

McBride, who turned 34 on Monday, has taken so many blows to the head that he says he no longer has much feeling in his cheeks.

"When you get hit there, your bones collapse on the nerve ends -- sometimes [the feeling] comes back completely, sometimes it doesn't," he said.

He then joked, "My lips feel fine, my tongue's good."

When De Rossi made contact, "You feel the pressure, but I didn't know if it was bleeding or swollen," he said. (Unrelated to his head injuries, McBride's career has also been marred by blood clots.)

He doesn't seem concerned about suffering more dizzying blows, saying: "If you ask anybody who is a defender or a target forward, you're going to get the odd elbow, you're going to get the odd head-on-head. You don't think about things like that. If you did, it's going to affect your game."

What affected McBride's game the most Saturday was the U.S. team's predicament. He usually remains well forward on the field, but the unusual nature of the match required him to retreat into the U.S. end and attempt to disrupt the Italian attack.