Andre Blake appeared to suffer a groin injury on an attempted goal kick, forcing the Jamaican international off early in the second half of the Philadelphia Union's match against the Montreal Impact Saturday afternoon at Talen Energy Stadium.
Matt Freese, the Union’s 10th Homegrown player, replaced the injured Blake, who made just one save from Montreal's lone shot on target in his 54 minutes.
The Union, who ended up 3-0 winners vs. Montreal, later confirmed that Blake had suffered a right groin injury:
After the game, Union head coach Jim Curtin declined to speculate on a timeline for Blake's recovery, but admitted that it would "probably be some time" and that he was unlikely to feature when Philadelphia visit Vancouver on April 27.
“When a goalkeeper feels something like that, they know their body pretty well. Something was off with it so he had to step out,” Curtin told reporters after the game. “It’s not even a situation where you can have Jack [Elliott] take goal kicks. He [Andre] felt something wrong enough that he had to leave the game.
“We’ll have an update and we’ll get some scans for sure. Andre is a huge piece to our team, so it’s a big loss, but we believe in Carlos [Miguel Coronel]. We believe in Matt Freese. They’re going to probably have opportunities in the coming weeks.”
Blake has been among the most consistent goalkeepers in MLS since being selected No. 1 overall in the 2014 MLS SuperDraft. He was named the MLS Goalkeeper of the Year in 2016 and has 104 career regular season starts for the Union.
It was the first MLS appearance for the 20-year old Freese, who has previously trained with the US U-19 team in 2017. In addition to Freese, Curtin can also call upon Carlos Miguel Coronel, the 22-year-old Brazilian signed on loan from Red Bull Salzburg over the offseason. Coronel started when Blake was away on international duty, posting a clean sheet in a 3-0 win over Columbus on March 23.
