Dayne St. Clair lifts Minnesota United in ways both obvious and subtle

MINNESOTA UNITED | ANALYSIS

North American soccer fans have gone a lifetime without seeing a goalkeeping performance like Dayne St. Clair’s.

St. Clair set a Minnesota United and Leagues Cup record Tuesday against Necaxa, making 16 saves in a shutout. Technically, he didn’t tie the MLS record for saves in a game because it wasn’t a league game, but at least he won —Maxime Crepeau set the MLS record in a game his Vancouver Whitecaps lost.

And it wasn’t just a matter of making routine catches on long, hopeless shots. St. Clair saved headers, he saved long-range blasts, he made saves to his right and his left and over his head. All 10 fingertips played a role in the game, as St. Clair tipped countless shots just around the post or over the crossbar. Three of his saves involved somehow diving, impossibly, backward into his own goal to scoop the ball out.

Even in Tim Howard’s famous performance against Belgium in the 2014 World Cup, the American keeper made only 15 saves.

St. Clair gave a pair of gloves to a young fan after the game — but, crucially, not the gloves he used in this game. “I’ll be using them the next game, for sure,” he said.

Manager Eric Ramsay said he saw something like this coming at halftime.

“I didn’t want to jinx it by thinking it too much in the second half, but the way he spoke at halftime, the level of conviction, you felt like something like that was coming, and we really needed it,” he said.

Because Michael Boxall is at the Olympics with the New Zealand national team, St. Clair has been the team’s captain in the two Leagues Cup games. Ramsay indicated it’s not just his shot-stopping that’s important for Minnesota, it’s his leadership.

“He’s very vocal, very engaged, really proactive, and that’s before you get to what he gives you on the pitch,” Ramsay said. “He gives the team a lot of energy and conviction in the way he speaks. It’s something our group’s really, really needed, and for various reasons we lacked a lot of that during the difficult run we had. We’ve really felt that since he’s been back, he’s crucial to the way the dressing room feels — and also crucial to how we feel as a team when we’re parked in front of our goal.”

St. Clair has gotten a lot of practice over the past two games, working with nine players in front of him instead of 10 at times because of penalties.

“I think it actually kind of helps me sometimes, because everyone knows it’s going to be kind of a defensive performance, especially when you go up 1-nil. So it’s about protecting the lead in that moment versus kind of having to chase the game,” he said. “It’s nice that you know that basically all 10 guys are really going to help to defend. So sometimes it’s a little beneficial, in terms of the mindset.”

The goalkeeper made so many saves that he got in-game congratulations from Necaxa striker Diber Cambindo.

“He was speaking in Spanish, so I didn’t understand too much,” St. Clair said. “A little bit was just to kind of distract me, so I just tried to just say thank you but also stay focused on the next ball.”

Fans have grown used to the way things are in the CONCACAF region. In any international game, whether for club or country, there will be gamesmanship, there will be arguing, there will trash-talking and incitement; no player, and crucially no referee, is ever safe.

Sometimes, though, it takes a fresh pair of eyes to see what things are really like — and Ramsay wasn’t too pleased with his first game against a team from Liga MX.

“I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I felt like it was not easy to watch, that first half — in terms of how the referee was treated, and some of the instances saw a lot of players around our players, on the floor, getting treatment from our athletic trainers,” he said. “I think it’s very difficult to watch that, particularly if it’s a competition that really wants to take itself seriously and move forward. It’s certainly not what you want to see, and it’s not something that we’re used to seeing.”

Loons striker Tani Oluwaseyi went down injured in the second half after pulling his hamstring, and could be seen on the TV broadcast profanely refusing help from the Necaxa players who were not-so-kindly attempting to get the Minnesota forward off the pitch.

“I think to anyone that watches this region, CONCACAF, you kind of expect some of these moments to get a little bit chippy,” said St. Clair, who has played with the Canadian national team. “I think that’s just how the CONCACAF games go. I kind of tried to prepare the guys because I knew it was going to be something like that.”