CHESTER — Union manager Bradley Carnell didn’t take the question head on, but his answer from an angle was even more illuminating.

Tuesday night, after his team was eliminated from the U.S. Open Cup semifinals with a 3-1 loss in Nashville, Carnell said the rest of the week would entail “massaging the bodies and the brains.” The recovery would be as much from 180 minutes on the legs in four days as the mental toll those games inflicted, a 7-0 loss in Vancouver followed by the Cup ouster.

The challenge moving forward is just as much mental as tactical.

“If you live in fear, you’re going to fail,” Carnell said Thursday in his pre-match press conference. “And there’s nothing to fear.”

For months, the first-place Union (17-7-6, 57 points) have played with nothing to fear. But then everythin

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