McBride conquers England

Brian McBride, world traveler and seasoned professional, prides himself on adjusting smoothly to new environments. That includes driving on the wrong side of the road.

“It’s easy when you’re in traffic and there are cars around you to remind you where you’re supposed to be,” McBride said from his hotel room in downtown Liverpool, England. “You just go with the flow.

“The only problem I’ve ever had is in empty parking garages. You come around a corner and all of a sudden someone’s coming right at you. I’ve done that a few times.”

With other players from the Everton side around him on the field this month, the Arlington Heights native has had no trouble remembering where he belongs–in front of the goal mouth.

It took him a mere 10 minutes to get acclimated in his first match with Everton, as he took a run-and-gun past Tottenham goalkeeper Kasey Keller, McBride’s U.S. team roommate at last summer’s World Cup. Tottenham eventually prevailed 4-3.

McBride scored both goals in Everton’s next match, a 2-1 home victory over Sunderland that stopped the Toffees’ six-game winless streak. The first goal, a scissors kick described by one British scribe as “extravagant,” appeared to deflect off a defender.

Upon further review, the Football Association’s Dubious Goals Panel–feel free to borrow the name for the governmental bureaucracy of your choosing–determined it was a legitimate score for McBride.

Jolly good show, hip hip and all that. The crowd at Goodison Park gave McBride a throaty standing O when he exited, exhausted, in the 75th minute. The nation’s headline writers joined in the next day with raves like “Best Man McBride” (The News of the World), “Sunderland stunned by American Beauty” (The Sunday Telegraph) and “Bri’s a Yankee Doodle Dandy” (The People).

Yes, more than a dozen years after John Harkes initiated a reverse British invasion, it still seems to be a big deal when a newly arrived American distinguishes himself on the pitch.

This despite the established track record of goalkeepers Keller and Brad Friedel and a one-man assault by forward Joe-Max Moore, when he parachuted into the same Everton club in early 2000 and punched six goals through in seven games. Claudio Reyna would be starting for Sunderland if he weren’t injured, and Jovan Kirovski has scored twice for Birmingham City.

Truth be told, this early success is also a big deal for McBride, who is on loan from Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew through March. This is his second stint in England and first in the Premier League.

Three years ago, during a similar MLS sabbatical, he had to leave First Division club Preston North End after three matches because of a blood clot in his arm. He returned to play eight more times and scored once.

Everton manager David Moyes, formerly of Preston North End, solicited McBride’s services for both English teams. “He’s a great lad to have around the place,” Moyes confided in The Independent on Sunday.

Everton is currently fifth in the 20-team Premiership with 11 wins, 6 draws and 7 losses, it and faces Bolton on Tuesday night.

The ever-modest McBride said he has “a long way to go with my first touch and foot speed,” and was pleasantly self-deprecating on the subject of his goal against Tottenham. “How often do I score on a breakaway?” asked McBride, who generally lurks up top, positioning himself to receive the ball rather than taking it there himself.

The one hardship of his Everton loan has been the temporary separation from his wife, Dina, and her daughter, Ashley, who will join him in England next month. Brian and Dina are expecting their first child this summer.

“She wanted me to do it,” McBride said of his extended business trip. “She’s always been so supportive.”

McBride, 30, shouldn’t have anything to prove internationally, having scored in the last two World Cups.

But for him, as for all top American soccer players, a career is still naggingly incomplete if it doesn’t include an overseas interlude.

The first overall pick in the inaugural MLS draft seven years ago, McBride literally embodies the Columbus franchise and the league is understandably reluctant to let him go. He just signed a multiyear contract extension with the Crew that ties him up at least through 2005 and begs the question of whether he’ll ever get the chance to be more than a visitor in the Premier League.

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McBride won’t elaborate too specifically on his hopes. Much depends on family issues. “This is something I’ve always wanted to do, but my first priority is to make sure we’re happy and together,” he said.

If he keeps up this pace, however, Everton may not want to end the tea party.