June 18, 2006
WHY NO THIRD SUB
Arena says McBride was doing well

Kaiserslautern, Germany -- After having two players ejected and playing almost half the match a man down and with only nine players, you would think U.S. national coach Bruce Arena would make all three allotted subsitutions in Saturday night's 1-1 Group E draw with Italy.

After all, the U.S. needed some fresh legs.

But he didn't.

If Arena had, it probably would have been for forward Brian McBride, he said. McBride was one tired soccer player in the waning moments of the epic battle.

"It would have been a striker," he said, "but Brian McBride did so much work defending on restarts, defending on the run of play and being our target. It would have been a difficult situation to bring in Brian Ching or Eddie Johnson."

Arena had brought on DaMarcus Beasley and defender Jimmy Conrad earlier in the match.

-- Michael Lewis