Brian McBride peers out of the window toward his new home and begins to chuckle.
Few American soccer exports have seen more than this 53-year-old. McBride lived in England and Germany, and across an international career that included four World Cups – three as a striker, one as General Manager of the USMNT – he hopped from one continent to the next.
But it has been eight months since he set up base in Brooklyn, and McBride is still yet to explore New York’s five boroughs. ‘I’ve been out to dinner maybe six times,’ McBride admits. ‘DoorDash is a friend of ours now… I have done nothing.’
That’s a bit unfair. He has been busy with one of the biggest challenges of his career: Last October, the ex-Everton, Fulham and USA striker joined Brooklyn FC.
The club was only founded in 2023 and, as sporting director, McBride’s role includes overseeing the women’s team and building a men’s team from scratch. When he arrived, they had no head coach or players.
So it has been a slow, quiet build – except for one decision in January that gave Brooklyn FC a cameo in a uniquely American story: McBride signed Peter Mangione, a promising midfielder and the cousin of accused murderer Luigi Mangione.
Brian McBride and his wife Dina Lundstrom acknowledge fans at a Crew Circle of Honor ceremony in Columbus, Ohio, in 2025
Brooklyn FC midfielder Peter Mangione, left, the cousin of Luigi Mangione, faces off against Braeden Backus of the New York Cosmos in April
Before joining Brooklyn, Peter played for amateur MLS NextPro team FC Cincinnati 2
Brooklyn FC plays its home games in a baseball stadium beside the boardwalk and bumper cars of Coney Island. Seven miles north, inside the Metropolitan Detention Center, Luigi awaits trial for murder in one of the most highly charged cases in modern history. How do you prepare someone for that?
‘That wasn’t even a part of the thought-process,’ McBride says. ‘Every individual is different.’ So they did their usual due-diligence – studying film and gathering references. Peter came highly recommended.
As it turned out, the midfielder comes from decent soccer stock – the Mangione family has deep roots in professional soccer that stretch back several generations. Peter was already known to Brooklyn head coach Marlon LeBlanc, too.
‘So the stuff off the field doesn’t factor into us liking a player or not… personality does, and Pete’s a great kid.’ But he is also a young kid. At 24, he needs protection.
‘The easiest part for us was we wanted to focus on what was on the field,’ McBride says. ‘And to be honest with you, we haven’t had any conversations [about the case]. That’s a family side of things. So we have to respect that, and if he needs support, we’ll give him support.’
Luigi has pleaded not guilty to murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and over the past 18 months, the 28-year-old has built a bizarre following of fanatical supporters. Some wondered whether his cousin may become a proxy in their fight.
When the Daily Mail headed down to Coney Island earlier this season, however, there were no ‘Mangionistas.’ Only a few hundred fans scattered around the stands of Maimonides Park.
It was a stark reminder of the task facing McBride and USMNT star Timothy Weah, who is part of the Brooklyn ownership group. Even in New York, or perhaps especially in New York, it can be difficult to turn heads.
‘To be honest with you, [this role] really wasn’t on my radar,’ McBride admits. ‘[But] the more I talked with ownership… the more information I got, it just seemed like a great opportunity.’
McBride celebrates after scoring during a World Cup qualifier in 2005. Now 53, he has represented the US at four World Cups
Peter plays his Brooklyn FC home games just seven miles away from where his cousin Luigi is detained
McBride suffers a face injury in 2006 playing against Italy. He has needed his face reconstructed several times due to various injuries
His goal is simple: ‘To really build something that lasts.’
Of course, he wants to win trophies, too. The issue? ‘We’re nowhere near where we want to be,’ he said.
When McBride arrived, the women’s team was in its second season in the USL Super League, while the men’s team was barely five months out from its debut campaign in America’s second tier.
His first task on his first morning in Brooklyn was straightforward enough: post a job advert. McBride needed a men’s head coach, and in December, he appointed LeBlanc. Then came the small task of constructing a roster. But where does one start?
‘No, we didn’t post on LinkedIn,’ McBride says with a laugh. ‘Actually, it’s pretty easy to find players… as soon as people got hold of my phone number or my new email, agents reached out constantly.’
Then it was just about ‘sifting through’ the options. ‘I can’t tell you how many hundreds of players’ video that we watched,’ McBride says.
By March, Brooklyn had found enough players to begin life in the USL Championship. That turned out to be the simple part. Easier, certainly, than winning games, building a fanbase or finding somewhere suitable to train in this concrete jungle – LeBlanc’s team currently practices across the water on Staten Island.
The early results aren’t too pretty. The men’s side is currently second to last in the USL Championship Eastern Conference. After the women failed to make the playoffs, McBride removed the GM, head coach and assistant coach.
Thankfully, he learned the value of tough conversations from ex-USA coach Bruce Arena. And the importance of hard work from Everton boss David Moyes. They first met in 2000, when McBride went on loan to Preston North End FC in England’s second tier.
McBride scores on a header against Portuguese goalkeeper Vitor Baia in the 2002 FIFA World Cup
‘Moysey was running our warm-ups before games,’ he recalls with a laugh. ‘David Moyes was the first coach to pull me aside when I was leaving.’ The Scot wanted to learn more about US soccer and the American mentality.
‘I was taken aback by that… from there on out, it was easy to have conversations with all our coaches,’ McBride recalls.
They briefly worked together again in 2003, when the striker joined Everton on loan. Between 1994 and 2010, he also had spells at Wolfsburg, Columbus Crew, Chicago Fire and the now-defunct Milwaukee Rampage.
He played 154 times for Fulham, who made him captain and renamed a bar in his honor. Back home, he is a Hall of Famer after a long MLS career and 95 appearances for the US.
One day, he hopes to secure Brooklyn its own stadium, youth setup, training base and identity. Before then, though, the World Cup is coming back stateside.
McBride was a player in 1998, 2002 and 2006. In 2022, he was GM of the team led by Gregg Berhalter.
So McBride is better placed than most to assess head coach Mauricio Pochettino’s team, which kicked off its World Cup campaign with a stirring 4-1 win against Paraguay on Friday night. He sees a lot of promise, but he also has ‘one concern.’
‘[This group] haven’t been together a very long time,’ McBride says. ‘If they come together during this camp, they’re talented enough to make some waves.’
McBride celebrates while playing for Premier League team Fulham in 2007
Among the criticisms aimed at this USMNT – particularly from former players – is that they lack the fight of past American teams.
McBride knows many of the current crop along with what it was like back when he player – his face was reconstructed twice due to war wounds suffered on the field.
The 53-year-old believes improvements in youth development mean the USMNT ‘misses out on some of those players that are still improving, but have had to have grit and fight to get to where they are.’
He still sees ‘plenty of players with bite,’ though. Particularly midfielder Weston McKennie. McBride used to sit up in the stands and think, ‘I hope someone kicks Weston early, because then the fire comes out.’
‘I don’t think we’ll go very far [at the World Cup] if we don’t have that bite and desire,’ he continues. ‘But I think it’s there.’
He is not too fussed that Pochettino’s World Cup rejects learned their fate by email. Or that the coach had talks with AC Milan ahead of the tournament.
‘That is normal,’ he says. ‘What is abnormal is for your sporting director [Matt Crocker] to leave two months before the World Cup. That shocked me.’
Crocker left to take a similar role with Saudi Arabia.
At its core, meanwhile, McBride’s job in Brooklyn isn’t too different from his own work with the USMNT. Except, these days, he isn’t restricted to selecting players from American shores – and Brooklyn’s budget is much tighter.
‘We want to build this to where everybody in Brooklyn and even outside of Brooklyn… know who we are,’ McBride says. ‘And right now I don’t think that’s a true statement.’
