Americans Abroad

McBride nets another pair; Fulham draws 3-3 with Aston Villa.

Brian McBride has three goal in two games since Monday, but Fulham has only a tie and loss to show for it. -- Fulham web site photo --

By Robert Wagman (in Washington, D.C.)
SoccerTimes

(Wednesday, December 28, 2005) -- Severe winter weather hit England today, but the tricky footing didn't slow down United States striker Brian McBride who scored a pair of goals for Fulham which drew 3-3 with Aston Villa in an English Premier League meeting at Craven Cottage.

All 20 EPL teams were scheduled to play today, but the winter freeze caused three of the 10 matches to be postponed because of icy field conditions. Two of those games -- Sunderland's trip to Blackburn Rovers and Charlton Athletic's visit to Newcastle United -- would have involved Americans. American Brad Friedel is a stalwart in goal for Rovers, while Jonathan Spector plays defense for Charlton.

All EPL teams are required to have under-soil heating systems, league spokesperson Dan Johnson said. In all, 17 matches were cancelled in England four top divisions.

Those games that went on were mostly played in difficult conditions, but that did not deter McBride from turning in a second straight impressive performance. His goals in the 13th and 61st minutes gave Fulham 1-0 and 3-2 leads. A second goal by Liam Ridgewell in the 76th minute gave Villa the 3-3 draw.

McBride opened the scoring when Luis Boa Morte fed the ball into the path of Tomasz Radzinski, who chipped it into the middle of the penalty area. The pass was too high for a leaping Heidar Helguson, but McBride was there to nod it home.

After Helguson put Fulham up 2-1 with a penalty kick, he and McBride nearly combined at the end of the first half to expand the advantage. Helguson flicked a header to McBride who missed the net by inches.

With McBride and Helguson keeping the Villa back-line busy, the Fulham midfielders were emboldened to become more involved in the attack.

American Carlos Bocanegra, who sat out Monday's 3-2 loss at league-leading Chelsea, started on defense in place of injured Aliam Goma. Bocanegra's miscommunication with Niclas Jensen in the 60th minute allowed Ridgewell to run between them, receive a pass and score to pull Villa even 2-2.

A minute later, McBride notched his second tally, again with his head, burying Boa Morte's cross to make it 3-2. However, Villa (5-8-6, 21 points) gained the upper hand after that, leading to Ridgewell's equalizer.

Despite McBride netting three goals and forcing a penalty kick that led to another tally in two games since Monday, Fulham picked up only one point in the standings. The Cottagers are 5-9-5 with 20 points, tied for 14th place with Middlesbrough (5-8-5), which owns a game in hand

U.S. midfielder Claudio Reyna did not dress for Manchester City's in a 1-0 setback to Chelsea because of an unspecified injury. On Saturday, he did not look like himself is a 4-3 loss to Wigan and he came out in the 65th minute.

City is in eighth place at 8-8-3 with 27 points.

U.S. keeper Tim Howard did not play for Manchester United which could do no better than a 2-2 draw with relegation-threatened Birmingham City (3-11-4, 13). Second-place United (12-2-5, 41), which has been upwardly mobile in recent times, lost two points in the standings to Chelsea (17-1-1, 52)

Blackburn did not call off its game at Ewood Park until 6 p.m. local time when its underground heating system failed. "We have never lost a home Premier League fixture to frost and we can only offer our sincere apologies to all supporters, especially those who traveled down from the northeast," Blackburn managing director Tom Finn said. "We now intend to carry out a full investigation of the heating system in an effort to ensure that the situation does not happen again in the future."

Robert Wagman is a SoccerTimes senior correspondent. E-mail Robert Wagman.