McBride Is Giving a Bloody Good Effort

By Steven Goff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 21, 2006

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.

"It takes a special kind of player to deal with that," Arena said. "There wasn't a second in that half that we had to get Brian's attention and ask him to do more and understand what had to be done."

Besides the elbowing incident, McBride was also engaged in a controversial sequence in the 65th minute when DaMarcus Beasley appeared to give the United States a 2-1 lead.

McBride had made a near-post run in hopes of receiving the ball deep in the box. Instead, the ball went to Beasley on the left and, before McBride could get back onside, the ball was heading toward him. McBride lifted his foot and turned in time to watch the shot skip into the far side of the net.

He knew right away, though, that he not only had remained offside, but he had obstructed goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon's view.

McBride's principal role has always been to serve as a target man on the front line and score goals. He began his international career 13 years ago and scored the first of his 30 goals three years later against Guatemala at RFK Stadium.

With four more goals, he will equal the U.S. career record held by Eric Wynalda, and with a goal in this tournament, he will become the only American to score in three consecutive World Cups (he had one in 1998 and two in 2002).

Reflecting on his World Cup experiences, McBride said: "I've hopefully grown as a player. My first World Cup start was probably 90 percent adrenaline and 10 percent thought. . . . The adrenaline is still there -- I still get the chills all the time during the national anthem and butterflies -- but now, when things aren't going well, I try to figure out where I need to put myself to help the team."

McBride scored in the U.S. team's final tuneup this year, a 1-0 victory over Latvia, but through two World Cup games, he -- as well as his teammates -- have been silent.

In the opener against the Czech Republic, McBride didn't receive much service from the midfield and, when he did get the ball, he wasn't in position to do much. Against Italy, with the Americans in a defensive posture most of the second half, McBride's role changed. Still, he squandered a 63rd-minute opportunity by missing badly to the short side.

The goals will come against Ghana, he believes.

On Monday, "the first goal Ukraine scored [against Saudi Arabia] was off a knee and we were sitting there saying, 'I'll take one of those,' " McBride joked. "It doesn't matter how it comes."