placed on administrative leave while MLS reopens an investigation into allegations of racist and misogynistic comments<\/a>.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s a lot to corral and focus in on the task of New York City FC in Sunday\u2019s Eastern Conference semifinals. But Bradley Carnell is confident that his team is doing that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe players have been amazing,\u201d Carnell said Friday. \u201cOver the last three weeks, 20 days, whatever it\u2019s been, they have been incredible. And then obviously we were informed about the situation, but for the players on the ground and the day-to-day organizational operations, we haven\u2019t skipped a beat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carnell opened his press conference Friday with a statement on Tanner, saying that, \u201cOn a professional level, I want to say that I\u2019ve never personally experienced anything like what\u2019s been reported in my time with Ernst, but as an organization, we fully recognize the seriousness of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s leaned on veteran leaders to push the group through as close to business as usual.<\/p>\n
Carnell talked to all of his players coming back from international duty to reintegrate them into the mentality of the group. Blake, the team\u2019s on-field captain, wasn\u2019t the problem for Jamaica, allowing one goal in two games. But as captain of the national team, he carries a heavy weight from the failure to qualify.<\/p>\n
Coach Steve McClaren, the former England boss, stepped down this week, leaving the nation needing new leadership before March. Jamaica can still make it to the World Cup, but it will take two wins in the inter-confederation tournament in Mexico. Jamaica takes on Oceania representative New Caledonia on March 26 in Guadalajara. The winner plays the Democratic Republic of the Congo five days later, with the winner to the World Cup finals.<\/p>\n
Blake felt compelled to take to Instagram Thursday night to address \u201cthe people of Jamaica\u201d with an apology and a call to action.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you, the support was unreal we couldn\u2019t have asked for anything more,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAs the leader of this group we have failed to deliver and missed out on a massive opportunity to bring so much joy to the people of our nation and for that I am really sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blake celebrated his 35th birthday Friday, his teammates helping mark the occasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Dre carried Jamaica on his back,\u201d Carnell said. \u201cHe made some crucial saves. He kept them in the game. He made big, big plays. It\u2019s his birthday today, so we\u2019re celebrating his birthday and making sure he has all the mojo around him and the good feeling of being back around our group. I think he\u2019s excited to hopefully have a good experience on Sunday and lead his team to a win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s game (7:30, AppleTV+) will be 22 days since the Union last played, defeating Chicago, 3-0, in Game 2 to clinch their best-of-3 series.<\/p>\n
The team has trained through the three-week break, an effort that included a 70-minute scrimmage last weekend. The club had tried to get another team in, but instead broke up into two teams for a full-field scrimmage, with crowd noise and two sets of jerseys. Union II players filled in where needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe train is moving,\u201d Carnell said, \u201cand the players are engaged and excited about the prospect of playing on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHESTER \u2014 All of the Union\u2019s players are back from international duty this week and physically healthy. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,136,31651,154,31650],"class_list":{"0":"post-60258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arlington","8":"tag-arlington","9":"tag-arlington-headlines","10":"tag-arlington-news","11":"tag-mls","12":"tag-philadelphia-union","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-top-stories-dtd"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}