Before this season started, Jose Carrera-Garcia talked about how much pride he took in being the captain of the Chattanooga Red Wolves.
Little did the second-year midfielder know what all that would entail.
Entering a July 23 match, Chattanooga’s USL League One record was 6-8-2 despite having a plus-five goal differential for the season, meaning the Red Wolves’ best wasn’t a constant. And just the day before, the league announced it had suspended Jimmy Obleda, the club’s third-year head coach, so it would have been easy for the season to go off the rails.
Yet with one match remaining on USL League One’s 2022 calendar, there the Red Wolves are, one of the final two teams standing. The coaches can credit the players; the players can credit the coaching. It all mattered.
Since the Obleda suspension, the Red Wolves have gone 8-3-5 with a plus-10 goal differential, and they have made the plays that mattered in the postseason with consecutive 1-0 victories against fifth-seeded Union Omaha — at home in overtime on Oct. 22 — and the top-seeded Richmond Kickers last weekend in Virginia.