As the Union, the top seed in the Eastern Conference, charge into Major League Soccer’s playoffs, there’s a moment right now to ponder the bigger picture.

Step back and ask yourself: Who is the most important player in the team’s history?

Longtime and casual fans alike might say Sébastien Le Toux, the team’s all-time goals and assists leader, and the first Union player to earn mainstream renown.

Others might say Alejandro Bedoya, the resolute captain since his arrival in 2016.

Perhaps it’s Ray Gaddis, the team’s all-time minutes played leader? Might it someday be Brenden Aaronson for having developed here before shooting to stardom abroad?

In fact, the correct answer is none of them.

Only one player in Union history has been utterly immovable since he first took the field here seven years ago.

Only one player has been the first name written into every starting lineup possible, even before Bedoya.

How can a team’s all-time icon be someone who’s still playing? ... [Blake] has been that profound.

And only one player has so much certainty about him when the ball comes his way that everyone, fans and opponents alike are confident in the best outcome possible.

Now ask yourself again: Who is the most important player in the team’s history?

If you didn’t know the answer yet, now you do.

It has to be Andre Blake.

How can a team’s all-time icon be someone who’s still playing? Philadelphia sports tradition dictates that an icon must be known only from the past.

But the impact of Blake’s time as the Union’s starting goalkeeper really has been that profound. To understand why, look back to how things were before he arrived.

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In the Union’s first six seasons, from 2010-15, they employed nine goalkeepers: Chris Seitz, Brad Knighton, Brian Perk, Zac MacMath, Bryan Sylvestre, John McCarthy, Faryd Mondragón, and the infamous Raïs M’Bolhi. Local fans accustomed to constant panic about Flyers goalies found this aspect of their new team a little too familiar.

Blake took over the starting job late in 2015. Since then, the Union have made five of their six all-time playoff appearances, including every postseason victory in team history. The conference semifinal win last year over Nashville that propelled the Union to their first conference final was punctuated by Blake making two saves in the decisive penalty kick shootout, after which his teammates carried him down the field on their shoulders.

He also steered the team to a U.S. Open Cup final, a Concacaf Champions League semifinal in the Union’s first run in the tournament, and the most regular-season standing points of any team in MLS over the last four years.

Blake has played 25 or more games in each of the last seven seasons, has been a three-time All-Star, and has won Goalkeeper of the Year twice. A third award is surely coming this season, and he might even be an MVP finalist.

Just as importantly, only four other players have stood in the Union’s net at any point during his tenure. And only one has played more than 10 games in a year: McCarthy in 2017 when Blake was injured.

» READ MORE: Andre Blake wrote another chapter in his Union legend with last year's playoff heroics

Most Union fans knew all of Blake’s top accomplishments already. Now here’s something they maybe didn’t know: how close Blake came to never playing here in the first place.

After one of this summer’s many sweltering practices in Chester, Blake sat down at a table inside the Union’s practice facility and reflected back to eight years ago.

On the morning of Jan. 16, 2014, the Union had the No. 2 pick in the first round of the draft. D.C. United was No. 1, and already had a goalkeeping stalwart in Bill Hamid. Blake had heard a little bit from the Union, but had heard a lot from the Vancouver Whitecaps, who held the No. 3 pick.

Because of that, Blake figured he was going to the Pacific Northwest — a long way from his home in Jamaica, his college at the University of Connecticut, and anywhere else he’d ever lived.

“I was probably 95% sure that I was going to Vancouver,” Blake recalled. “The goalkeeper coach [Marius Røvde] really liked me, the head coach Carl Robinson. … I spoke with them the entire [scouting] combine.”

Even when the Union surprised the hometown crowd by trading up to No. 1, Blake didn’t think he was coming here.

“Philly was, I wouldn’t say the last thing on my mind, but I would not have guessed that I’d end up in Philly.”

“When they said that the Union were trading up, at that point, I was like, ‘Wait …’ ” he said. “But I still didn’t know it was going to be me until they said ‘A member of Generation Adidas’ [a group of elite college prospects]. And I was like, ‘Wow.’ ”

The amount of interest the Union had shown Blake up to then, he said, was “little to none. … I felt like they talked to me just to talk to me.”

That was understandable to Blake and everyone else, because the team was well-stocked: a veteran in M’Bolhi, a solid youngster in MacMath, and a big-time prospect in their youth teams named Zack Steffen.

“Philly was, I wouldn’t say the last thing on my mind, but I would not have guessed that I’d end up in Philly,” Blake said.

Only when then-manager John Hackworth asked Blake what size jersey he wore was there a hint of what would come. In the final minutes before the draft kicked off, the Union traded up to No. 1. Then they called Blake’s name, and MacMath famously left the draft hall in disgust.

But while Blake was a very good college prospect, being the top draft pick was no guarantee of success. He played only two games as a rookie, and midway through his second season, Hackworth was fired. Now Blake had to build a new relationship with a manager who’d been part of the team for a while but still wasn’t the one who drafted him.

Jim Curtin knew what he had, though. And when he put his foot down to end M’Bolhi’s disastrous time here, he turned to Blake.

» READ MORE: A look back at The Inquirer's coverage of the 2014 MLS draft

“Jim kind of said, ‘Listen, this is our guy,’ ” Blake recalled. “He gave me the job and he said, ‘You’ve waited your turn; you’ve earned it, and it’s yours to lose.’ He pretty much gave it to me and he’s like, ‘Seriously, take it, run with it.’ ”

In the years since, Blake’s bond with Curtin has become as tight as can be.

“He’s a quiet guy, I’m a quiet guy, but ... we trust each other, we believe in each other.”

“He’s a quiet guy, I’m a quiet guy, but I think we understand each other very well,” Blake said. “We trust each other, we believe in each other, and I feel like he would have seen me grow [into] the person I am on the field and off the field. For him to really believe in me and trust in me and really give me that confidence to say that ‘Listen, it’s yours,’ was big for me.”

The Union are the only professional club the 31-year-old Blake has played for in his entire career. Philadelphia is the only hometown his children have ever known. That is a rare feat not just in MLS, but soccer as a whole.

“I’m home,” he said. “It’s been a great ride. Maybe if we were still a club, back when I just got here, where we struggled to make the playoffs, and we were just OK with being in the league, then I probably would have not been OK, because I’m a winner; I want to win.”

He has seen the team’s culture change, from the Nick Sakiewicz era to Earnie Stewart and now Ernst Tanner, and he knows how much change there has been.

“I am comfortable in Philly, because the club’s at a point now where our ambitions have changed, the whole culture has changed, and we are a team now that — we want to win,” Blake said. “That’s what we’re about. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing against, we’re going to go out there and we’re going to be fearless. And it’s almost like these big names [of opponents] motivate us.”

He also knows the dangers in becoming too comfortable.

“That’s something I have to deal with: You know that job is yours, or you’ve been here for a while,” he said. “You have to be careful, because you can find yourself in a situation. So you have to almost create an environment where you’re like, ‘All right, I have to keep working and I have to keep getting better, and stay hungry when you’re full.’ ”

There have been enough moments of change and challenge to keep everything switched on. When Tanner replaced Stewart as sporting director, Blake had to make big changes to his game. Out went the Union’s possession-based playing style, in came a counter-pressing system that sped up the game but left Blake susceptible to counterattacks. His spike in goals allowed in 2020 was caused in part by a team built for the old playbook but using the new one.

Blake also had opportunities to become more of a leader. He is a key presence in the locker room and often wears the captain’s armband when Bedoya isn’t there.

“The Union family of fans, they’ve welcomed us since day one ... they deserve the [MLS] Cup.”

“I think Jim saw something in me that players around me respect me, and I respect players,” Blake said. “I try to have a positive impact on players wherever I go and I just embrace the role. I want to win and I want to motivate people around me to win, because it’s a team sport, and the better the people around you can do, the better your chances of winning.”

He said his younger son “can tell you everything, play by play, from warmups to the end of the games.” Both of his kids enjoy singing “Part of the Union,” the song by the English band the Strawbs that rings out on the Subaru Park PA system after wins.

» READ MORE: Andre Blake wins this year’s Wanamaker Award

“The Union family of fans, they’ve welcomed us since Day 1,” he said. “They’re all that we know. And for me, before I retire, you know, they deserve the [MLS] Cup.”

Blake has other goals to achieve, too — chief among them, getting Jamaica back to a men’s World Cup for the first time since 1998. The Reggae Boyz were a trendy pick to do it this year before qualifying kicked off, but a disastrous start to the campaign left them in a hole they could never climb out of.

“We weren’t pulling in the same directions for multiple reasons,” said Blake, the national team’s longtime captain. “We couldn’t identify our system, what system worked, to get the players that fit the system. It was too much. On paper, we had the names, but on the field, I would say the chemistry was maybe 20%.”

He knew from the Union’s success that focusing on chemistry could have taken Jamaica further.

“Coming from a club like here, where we know that a group of hardworking individuals can beat talent on any given day, I know that too well to know that we having the talent alone was not enough,” he said. “When we [would] come against teams that had been together, well-oiled teams, we struggled. And it’s not because we didn’t have quality, but it’s because we didn’t have time to really figure it out.”

Blake will get one more shot to play on soccer’s biggest stage, and it will be perhaps the biggest of all time. He’ll be 35 years old when the United States, Canada, and Mexico cohost the 2026 men’s World Cup, with the field expanded to 48 teams.

“[Blake] has seen and experienced everything there is to see on the field. ... When Andre talks, people listen.”

“If it’s not then, then it’s never,” he said. “If we don’t make it then, I don’t think we will ever make it. But what I’ll also say is, if they don’t fix the problems that need to be fixed, the hard truth is we are not going to make it.”

That was a reference to governance problems in the Jamaican Football Federation. Blake has been outspoken on the subject for years, and when he speaks, the nation listens. In fact, his voice matters so much that the JFF initially kept him out of last month’s high-profile exhibition against Lionel Messi’s Argentina before reversing course a few days later.

Naturally, the day after he was welcomed back, Blake turned in another star performance to help the Union clinch a berth in next year’s Concacaf Champions League. And while Messi scored on him twice, Blake also made two saves on the world’s greatest player.

» READ MORE: Andre Blake relishes dueling with Lionel Messi

New Jamaica manager Heimir Hallgrimsson seems to have helped clear the air. Hopefully it will stay that way.

“[Blake] has seen and experienced everything there is to see on the field,” said Union goalkeeper coach Phil Weddon, who has watched Blake for a long time in jobs with the Union and U.S. Soccer Federation. “When Andre talks, people listen.”

What else is left for Blake to do in his career? Many people would say move to Europe — especially those who are surprised he never has.

Only once in his career, as great as it has been, has he been substantively linked with a move abroad. It was in 2017, when England’s Crystal Palace and Brighton & Hove Albion reportedly made multimillion-dollar bids. But neither came to anything, in part because Jamaica’s FIFA ranking at the time was too low for Blake to easily get an English work permit.

“Maybe when I retire I can really open up and say what I think.”

There was a widespread expectation that Blake would keep having suitors. But to everyone’s surprise, there’s been barely a whisper.

“Maybe when I retire I can really open up and say what I think,” Blake said. “For now, while I’m still playing I’ll just say I don’t know. I know what happened in 2017, but after that, nobody came. … For whatever reason, I don’t know. All I know about for sure is 2017.”

It helps that the Union pay Blake well, around $869,000 this year. The number will keep growing in future seasons, as his current contract guarantees him through 2024.

» READ MORE: A look back at the transfer rumors about Andre Blake in 2017

“You could go to Europe, but where in Europe? … and are you going to go to Europe for less money than you’re making in MLS at your age?” Blake asked. “It just wasn’t adding up. And then maybe the teams that you would have expected to make a push, didn’t make a push — again, for whatever reason.”

He didn’t mind elaborating.

“A couple clubs in Germany [were] like ‘Ah, we don’t know if he’s going to be able to adjust to the new culture and the language barrier,’” Blake said. “That’s all BS. I know that if a club wants you, they want you regardless — and if they don’t, no matter how good you are, they don’t.”

“My approach right now is to bloom wherever you’re planted.”

Then came an inevitable question. If he ends up spending his whole career in Philadelphia, will he be happy?

“My approach right now is to bloom wherever you’re planted,” he answered. “I want to go [to Europe]. I’ve always wanted to go and for me, again, it just never happened for whatever reason.”

Until then …

“If this is where I’m going to play out all my years, then I’ll make the most of it,” he said. “Philly’s going to continue to get everything from me, and I’ll be content. … Fans love me, I love the fans, and I’m good. But if I should ever leave, it’s got to be England, Germany — one of those top leagues — because I know I can go there.”

For now, and likely for a while, it will remain an “if.” Not least because of all the challenges Blake still has in front of him, including a big one this fall.

“We need to win a championship,” Blake said. “I’d give up all my Goalkeeper of the Year [awards], all my Golden Gloves, I’d give up everything for MLS Cup. … I have a lot of individual accolades, but the team ones, man, there’s a different feeling with those ones.”

Then he concluded, with the same strength he puts into of one of his heroic diving saves: “I want that Cup.”