US coach Arena praises his nine men

KAISERSLAUTERN, June 17 (Reuters) US coach Bruce Arena praised his team for gaining a World Cup point today after playing most of the second half with nine men against Italy, who themselves had a player sent off.

''Two red cards in the spread of five minutes is pretty harsh and I respect the team for the way they dealt with it,'' he told reporters after the 1-1 draw in Group E.

''There is no way you can train a team to play 10 against nine for 30-something minutes. A lot of teams would use it as an excuse for losing on the day,'' added Arena.

''We are where we wanted to be going into the third round of matches, perhaps four points will be enough to get out of this group.'' Arena condemned Italian midfielder Daniele De Rossi for elbowing Brian McBride. De Rossi was sent off in the 28th minute for the foul.

''It was a vicious elbow and it could have broken his face,'' Arena told reporters. McBride needed three stitches to stem bleeding under his left eye.

FIRST RED ''Once the first red card was shown, sometimes you get the feeling that things will be evened up, but it came pretty quickly.'' Uruguayan referee Jorge Larrionda showed U.S. midfielder Pablo Mastroeni a straight red card for a late tackle in the 45th minute and team mate Eddie Pope was dismissed two minutes after halftime for his second yellow card.

Italy coach Marcello Lippi had little sympathy for De Rossi.

''I'm sorry because he's a really good kid but he's made the umpteenth stupid mistake,'' he told Italy's RAI TV.

Lippi criticised his team.

''I'm disappointed and angry. We didn't go into this match in the right frame of mind and we paid for that with the nervous way we played and with the mistakes we made,'' he said.

''We were unlucky when the ball bounced off (Cristian) Zaccardo to bring them level and then we didn't know how to take advantage of our numerical superiority later in the game.'' The Americans lost their first game 3-0 to the Czech Republic. Italy beat Ghana 2-0 in their opening match.

''We weren't brilliant. It just goes to show how you've got to keep your feet on the ground, even after winning your first match,'' said Italy midfielder Gennaro Gattuso.

Reuters PDS RAI0334