Minnesota United goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair defends penalty kicks with skill, theatrics, trash talk

This inaugural Leagues Cup is proving all's fair in love and penalty kicks between MLS and Mexico's Liga MX teams.

Tigres UANL goalkeeper Nahuel Guzman mimicked a mime and made some magic during penalty kicks Friday that sent his team from a first knockout round and past Vancouver into Tuesday's round of 16 game against Monterrey.

That same night, Minnesota United's Dayne St. Clair awkwardly hugged former teammate Kevin Molino before stopping the Columbus Crew player for the first time in the fourth of six penalty kick rounds the Loons won 4-3.

That advanced them to Tuesday's game against Liga MX's high-scoring Toluca club at Allianz Field.

St. Clair called that hug friendship, saying Molino looked out for him when he was a rookie five years ago partly because, like Molino, St. Clair's father is from Trinidad.

"Me and Kevin go back a long time," St. Clair said. "We built a great relationship."

Not even a hint of gamesmanship?

"Probably a little bit," St. Clair said. "It was nothing but love for him, but at the same time it could affect him mentally and disrupt the flow of the penalty kicks. I'm willing to do anything in the lines of the game to give us a benefit."

The two teams tied 3-3 in regulation time and tied the first three of five scheduled penalty kick rounds until St. Clair guessed right and dove left, stopping Molino's low shot with two outstretched hands.

Each team missed its next two attempts until Loons centerback Micky Tapias won it after Columbus keeper Evan Bush guessed wrong on Tapias' left-footed, left-side strike.

"I didn't know that was coming," Loons coach Adrian Heath said about the hug. "Dayne has been a bit eccentric, shall we say? That's the best way of putting it the last couple weeks with the penalties. But he came up big when we needed him."

The Loons' two center backs — Tapias and veteran Michael Boxall — were as collected as any of their teammates who attempted a PK.

"There's a frustrated center-forward in there somewhere," Heath said about Boxall's converted PK.

Tapias said he had no doubt he wanted to take — and make — his penalty kick.

"I was sure," he said through a team interpreter. "I went with all the certainty in the world. I had the confidence to make that penalty. The confidence and certainty I had made me make that penalty."

Molino and St. Clair exchanged jerseys afterward, a soccer tradition.

When asked what Molino said, St. Clair answered: "Nothing really. I told him I felt bad that it was his shot I saved. Of course, I'm happy we went through. It would have been nice to have saved everyone else's. I have that one-up on him now. Now I can look at that jersey and think of that penalty moment."

St. Clair used a hug to disrupt Molino. In group play against Chicago Fire, he walked to the 12-yard, penalty-kick spot and touched the ball before Xherdan Shaqiri's attempt in the 70th minute of a 1-1 game the Loons lost 3-2.

St. Clair said Shaqiri told him not to touch the ball and then said he'd chip a shot over him. Camera coverage captured St. Clair saying Shaqiri didn't have the courage.

"Now everyone thinks I started it," St. Clair said. "Well, I did start it because I touched the ball. When the pressure comes, focus shifts. It's about creating little moments of doubt."

Leagues Cup rules call for five deciding rounds of penalty kicks if the score is tied after 90 minutes of regulation time. Penalty kicks have decided 18 of 62 games through Sunday's games.

St. Clair's attempts to create doubt are subtle compared to Tigres' 37-year-old keeper Guzman. He mimed blocking up his in one unsuccessful attempt to unnerve a Vancouver shooter. Another worked when he took time out, turned away from the referee and appeared to pull a multicolored ribbon out of his mouth.

"Thirty-seven and a mohawk, I guess anything is possible," St. Clair said of Guzman. "That was a little further than I'd be willing to go. That was like, `What did he just do?' Hey, anything in those moments."