FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Nobody would\u00a0have faulted\u00a0Shalrie Joseph\u00a0for packing\u00a0his boots and playing for Grenada\u00a0during CONCACAF Gold Cup competition this month, even in light of his club’s current struggles.<\/p>\n
And that’s exactly what Joseph was\u00a0prepared to do when he got the call\u00a0last week for the national team action. After all, when given the choice, players often opt for country over club when it comes to international tournaments.<\/p>\n
But\u00a0after weighing his priorities,\u00a0Joseph announced on Tuesday that\u00a0he would not be joining his\u00a0fellow Grenadian teammates\u00a0for the Gold Cup\u00a0so that he could\u00a0remain with the reeling Revolution during a crucial stretch of the\u00a0club’s\u00a0season.<\/p>\n
“It was a tough decision,”\u00a0Joseph told\u00a0revolutionsoccer.net’s <\/em>Jeff Lemieux after Wednesday morning’s\u00a0training. “In terms of priorities, I had to figure out what was more important to me.”<\/p>\n Initially, Joseph, a shoe-in for any call up to his native\u00a0Grenada given his MLS credentials, gladly\u00a0accepted the invitation when Gold Cup rosters were announced last week.<\/p>\n But\u00a0shortly after the announcement,\u00a0the situation in Foxborough changed drastically.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over the weekend,\u00a0fellow midfielder Benny Feilhaber\u00a0injured his right ankle\u00a0late in\u00a0Saturday’s match against the Galaxy. That, combined with the club’s lagging attack, likely influenced Joseph to do what he’s always done since putting on the captain’s armband:\u00a0\u00a0shoulder the burden and put the team ahead of himself.<\/p>\n “Being along with my (Revolution) teammates,” said Joseph.\u00a0“Is more imporant for me for the next couple of weeks than going back and representing my country.”<\/p>\n That\u00a0level of\u00a0dedication to his club – to bypass the honor of wearing his country’s colors\u00a0and stay behind with a club that’s\u00a0still searching for its attacking identity – was welcome news to his teammates, who will be embarking on a challenging, two-match road set begining this weekend against a pair of streaking MLS sides: FC Dallas and New York.<\/p>\n “It shows his commitment to this club,” said fellow midfielder Pat Phelan, who’s played alongside Joseph in the central midfield since 2008. “I think with Benny being gone, it’s still going to be a tough job. But without those two, we’d struggle for sure.”<\/p>\n While Feilhaber’s injury may have\u00a0played a role in\u00a0the skipper’s final\u00a0decision to stay, there’s little to suggest that Joseph wouldn’t have stuck around anway, especially after Saturday night’s 1-0 heartbreaker\u00a0against the Galaxy.<\/p>\n “He’ll do whatever he can to help this club,” said Phelan. “We’re struggling and we need him on the field.”<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the choice of club over country is often a complex, and ultimately, personal decision based upon\u00a0a player’s priorities.<\/p>\n And in light of his decision to stick around for when the going gets tough during these next two weeks, it’s\u00a0clear that helping his club climb back into contention was priority\u00a0number one\u00a0for the captain.<\/p>\n “The boys understand what I had to do,” said Joseph. “The decision was mine and I made it. I need to stay here and be the captain of this team and provide the leadership (that) this team needs.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By sticking with the Revs, Shalrie Joseph has shown his commitment to his club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/shalrie.jpg?fit=500%2C237&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4779"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4819,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779\/revisions\/4819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}