Andre Blake begins his 13th season with the Union, still waiting for fate to finally smile on him

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Sometimes, you don’t have to hear Andre Blake speak to know what’s on his mind.

You can tell from looking at eyes that have seen more Union games than any other player. From hands that have stopped more shots than any goalkeeper should have to, and let more by than any goalkeeper would want to. From feet that have stood by nets across the United States, the continent, and beyond.

You also don’t have to be a Union fan or a Jamaica fan to share the question that resonates so deeply with the 35-year-old, as he begins his 13th season with the only professional team of his career.

Why has Blake been denied, time and again, the privilege of reaching the twin peaks he so deeply craves: winning an MLS Cup with his club and qualifying for the World Cup with his country?

The soccer gods can be cruel, and they have forced Blake to suffer. Yes, he has won two Supporters’ Shield titles, but all of his playoff runs — and his U.S. Open Cup runs, Leagues Cup runs, and Concacaf Champions Cup runs — have ended in defeat, often heartbreak, and most often out of his control.

With Jamaica, the pain cuts especially deep right now. If the failures of past World Cup qualifying campaigns, Gold Cups, and Concacaf Nations Leagues weren’t hard enough, this moment seems almost unfair.

» READ MORE: Quinn Sullivan ‘would love to be the face’ of the Union. When he returns from a torn ACL, he just might be.

The Reggae Boyz entered the last night of qualifying needing a win at home over Curaçao. But they were held to a scoreless tie, with Blake stuck at the other end of the field from his misfiring teammates. Curaçao took the berth and sent Jamaica to next month’s intercontinental playoffs.

Up the hill and knocked back down, again and again.

“I felt like we were so close again,” Blake said of the Union falling short last year. “We had it — had it where we wanted it to be. But that’s just soccer. Single-elimination games can go either way.”

How much does he let himself use that as fuel?

» READ MORE: Bradley Carnell opens up about what drives him and his tactics as Union manager

“I really thought that last year would have been it, knowing that MLS Cup would have been in Philly, but it didn’t happen,” Blake said. “But we just use that as motivation, as experience for us to know that we were that close. And just use that to give us confidence to know that hopefully this year we can go one or two steps closer and win the whole thing.”

Will the stars finally align this year? That’s not how this works, in either Chester or Kingston, and Blake knows as well as anyone. But he’s ready to go once more.

“Pretty simple for me: My personal goal is to be better than I was last year,” he said. “That’s always my challenge, to be a better version of myself. And for the team, it’s always the same as well: We need silverware. And the ultimate one is the MLS Cup, so that’s got to be the goal.”

Four years ago, the case was made in these pages that Blake is the most important player in Union history. The time since then has only proved it more. Look no further than last year’s playoffs, when he played a starring role in the first-round sweep of Chicago.

» READ MORE: MLS strikes a deal with prediction market Polymarket, says it’s about protecting the integrity of games

The present moment proves it again. With Jakob Glesnes, Kai Wagner, Mikael Uhre, and Tai Baribo gone, this Union team feels like the start of a new era. As captain, Blake must help set the tone as newcomers blend in with returnees.

“It feels new,” Blake said. “That’s the obvious [part]. But I’ve learned to control what I can control, which is my performance. And whoever is here, the goal is to get the best out of everybody.”

For now, he continued, his aim is to “just focus on the positives, and positives are whoever is in this room. That’s what we have, and that’s what we have to work with and make the most of.”

Considering Blake’s history of criticizing the Union for a lack of ambition, what he said next might please the highest-ups — especially as he goes into the last guaranteed year of his contract.

» READ MORE: Cavan Sullivan looks ahead to what should be his biggest year yet with the Union

“It’s a new season, everybody starts at zero,” he said. “So I think it’s only fair to judge the season after the season, and not before the season. We have what we have right now, we’re going to do our best, and at the end of the year, we’ll evaluate and see how it was.”

This team doesn’t seem to have the firepower to beat MLS’s best — Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami, Son Heung-Min’s Los Angeles FC, and Thomas Müller’s Vancouver Whitecaps — in the games that matter most. But it has made substantive moves to replace the players it cast off, signing center backs Japhet Sery Larsen and Geiner Martínez and forwards Ezekiel Alladoh and Agustín Anello.

Sery Larsen could be especially impactful for Blake because of his track record of leadership at past clubs.

“The most important thing coming into a new team is just the willingness to learn and to adapt, and to listen,” Blake said. “I think he came in with an open mind. He wants to learn, he’s willing to do the work.”

The new group must build chemistry fast. The MLS season starts at D.C. United on Saturday (7:30 p.m., Apple TV), and the overall campaign starts Wednesday in the Concacaf Champions Cup at Defence Force FC in Trinidad.

» READ MORE: Japhet Sery Larsen got an assist from Mikael Uhre as he decided to join the Union

“The Champions Cup is always a different challenge,” Blake said. “Obviously, it’s a reward to be playing in that tournament. And yeah, the first game against Defence Force — for me, these days, there’s no easy game in soccer. You have to be ready to play, mentally and physically.”

If the Union win the two-game series against Defence Force as they should, the climb will get steep fast. Not only will they face Mexican superpower Club América next, but they’ll face playing nine games from Feb. 18-March 21.

“Not looking past that game, but after that it gets pretty tough,” Blake said. “We’ll prepare accordingly, and we’ll approach every game in a professional manner.”

Now to the subject Blake rarely enjoys discussing, but he knows he must.

» READ MORE: Everything you need to know about the World Cup coming to Philadelphia

The intercontinental playoffs are five weeks from now. Jamaica will play New Caledonia in the semifinal, then the winner will play the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Both games will be at Guadalajara’s Estadio Akron, a World Cup venue this summer.

That task is not fully on Blake’s mind yet with so much to do before then. But it is still a presence, along with emotions from last fall that still simmer.

“It’s been very tough for me these last couple months,” Blake said. “When you kind of invest so much into something and it doesn’t go the way you want it to go, it can get you, and that’s just kind of the phase I’m in right now as it relates to the national team.”

The words came mixed with stretches of silence that were equally piercing.

» READ MORE: What’s the secret sauce at the Union’s youth academy? Here’s a taste of it.

“It’s just trying to still process what really happened,” Blake said. “But when the time is right, I’ll do whatever I have to do, and I’ll be ready to go again.”

He will play for the seventh manager of his national team tenure, Rudolph Speid, as famed veteran Steve McClaren resigned after the Curaçao game. The players have not changed, though, including big names like Leon Bailey and Michail Antonio.

It’s on them to deliver.

“I haven’t spoken to anyone [since] after we left camp, so I don’t know what the vibe [is],” Blake said. “I know I’m very angry. I can only speak for myself, because I feel like we had an opportunity — a big, big opportunity — and we let ourselves down as players, And yeah, that’s just how I feel. I feel like it should have never gone that way.”

He ran through a series of questions he asks himself about preparation, execution, effort, and controlling the controllable. They brought him back to a repeated answer.

» READ MORE: The Union weave Philly history into the design of their latest jersey, ahead of the World Cup and America 250

“I just feel like as players we let ourselves down,” he said, “and that’s what made me so angry.”

The Reggae Boyz haven’t made a World Cup since 1998, and ending the drought in North America would be even sweeter. It cheers him up to know how many people are rooting for him in Philadelphia, across MLS, and worldwide.

“I believe so,” he said. “At the end of the day I can still hold my head high. You can lose a game, you can not accomplish something, but it’s just how, if you give it your all — you did all you could, you left no stones unturned — and then you lose a game, then you can accept that, you know?”

It’s a message he takes home to a family that enjoys calling Philadelphia home, and that four months ago welcomed a third child — a first daughter.

“For me, whenever I go out there, I always try to make, my family, my fans, myself proud by leaving it all on the field,” he said. “So even if you don’t really accomplish what you want, it’s not going to feel good, but you can still be proud.”

At that point, two more questions remained. Will this finally be his year? And if not now, will it ever?

They felt best asked toward the heavens.