Andre Blake’s groin injury is less serious than feared, a source says

Union goalkeeper Andre Blake had scans Monday on the groin injury he suffered in Saturday’s win over the Chicago Fire, and a source with knowledge of the results told The Inquirer that they showed a grade 1 adductor strain.

That is good news, the source said, and the science shows that’s right. Grade 1 means there’s no muscle tear. So Blake is likely out a few weeks, but not a few months. He did not practice Monday, and manager Jim Curtin confirmed in a late-morning news conference that Joe Bendik will start in net for Tuesday’s Concacaf Champions League game against Alianza at Subaru Park (8 p.m., Fox Soccer Plus, ViX+).

A Union spokesperson told The Inquirer to not expect any official word on Blake’s status until after the game.

» READ MORE: Union win against Chicago Fire, but lose Andre Blake to injury

Curtin met the press at the same time Blake was having those scans.

“With groins it’s always tricky — sometimes he might not feel something too painful, but then when you actually open up on the field and have to plant and kick a ball, it’s a different story,” Curtin said. “The old two-weeker would be nice, but we also have to prepare for if it’s four, if it’s six, if it’s eight [weeks]. Because it’s important to us, but we also want to be smart with him and not him back too soon, especially this early in the season.”

All Curtin knew up to then was what he heard from the medical staff on Saturday.

“It sounds a little bit positive,” he said. “He has strength in the groin. We’ll see, I don’t want to speculate too much.”

Since the first game of the Alianza series was 0-0, whichever team wins Tuesday will advance. But if the game ends tied with any goals scored, Alianza will advance because the main tiebreaker is goals scored on the road. If this game ends scoreless, the teams will go straight to penalty kicks.

That incentivizes the Union to push the attack and get an early lead.

» READ MORE: Andrés Perea shows the Union’s depth and street smarts in the Champions League

“We have to score and to try to make it comfortable — we want to score multiple goals,” Curtin said. “The tricky part is if you’re up 1-0, do you sit and bunker in yourself, [because] you can get yourself in trouble doing that too. So we want to be proactive; we want to play our way and not be conservative.”

He noted his displeasure with the Union’s inability to break down the Chicago Fire’s defense on Saturday despite being a man up from the 50th minute on, and two men up for the last three minutes of second-half stoppage time.

“We conceded three fouls to a team with two men less than us, and that’s a great warning shot,” Curtin said. “We saw the game out and we got three points, and it’s an important three points. But it’s a good reminder that if you don’t close things out in a smart, intelligent way — especially in [the] CONCACAF Champions League — teams will punish you. So we have to be really executing, really focused.”

The English-language TV broadcast of Tuesday’s game remains exclusively on Fox Soccer Plus. Online streaming on FoxSports.com is limited to people who have access to the channel, and Comcast doesn’t carry it in the Philadelphia area — even on premium tiers.

You can watch an hour for free on FoxSports.com without having to log in, but that’s it.

Univision’s only coverage in Spanish will be on ViX+, the network’s subscription streaming platform. There’s a lot of live soccer on there, including the UEFA Champions League and Concacaf youth national team competitions, but you still have to subscribe.

» READ MORE: How to watch the Union's regular-season games in the new Apple MLS Season Pass streaming package