Brian McBride will come out of international retirement to lead the USA’s Olympic soccer challenge as the veteran striker was named in Peter Nowak’s 18-man squad on Thursday.
McBride, 36, is out of a contract after leaving English Premiership club Fulham over the summer.
He was expected to return to Major League Soccer but, after his plan of signing with his hometown Chicago Fire hit a snag, he will instead spend next month in Beijing.
McBride, who scored 30 goals in 95 appearances for the US, announced his retirement from international soccer after the 2006 World Cup.
He said his return for Olympic duty came about after some innocent joking around with West Ham defender Jonathan Spector and US Under-23 coach Lubos Kubik during the Premier League season.
“Jonathan, as a joke, goes, ‘Lubos, you know that Brian wants to play in the Olympics,’” McBride told USSoccer.com.
“Lubos says, ‘That’d be great’. After a few more jokes I told him, you know, ‘Don’t joke around. I’d seriously consider it if you’re serious,’” he said.
Kubik got the message back to Nowak and McBride is now Beijing-bound.
He will head a squad that also features new Villarreal signing Jozy Altidore, Benfica teenager Freddy Adu and Heerenveen’s free-scoring midfielder Michael Bradley as well as a string of MLS stars.
Aston Villa-bound goalkeeper Brad Guzan is included along with the likes of Robbie Rogers of Columbus Crew, New England’s Michael Parkhurst and Toronto’s Maurice Edu.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS