Amid a spate of injury and form concerns for Canada’s men nearing their World Cup opener on June 12, perhaps one question looms largest: Who will be the starting goalkeeper?
Last Saturday, the two contenders — Orlando City’s Maxime Crépeau and Inter Miami’s Dayne St. Clair — met in an MLS match that felt, at least for Canadian soccer fans, more like a contest between them than their clubs. The winner was Crépeau, even though he allowed three goals in the first 33 minutes.
Because St. Clair then allowed four.
Jesse Marsch, Canada’s head coach, has wrestled with his goalkeeping dilemma for more than a year, splitting starts almost evenly between his principals. Asked whether he’d made up his mind after the March international window, when St. Clair drew Iceland 2-2 and Crépeau held Tunisia scoreless in another draw, Marsch shook his head.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “It’s as close as it’s always been. I know I can’t make a wrong decision. That’s a beautiful thing to know.”
⚽️ Orlando City’s Tyrese Spicer exploits a gap behind the Inter Miami’s center-backs, latches onto a through pass, and finishes clinically through the legs of goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair to complete a stunning 4-3 come-from-behind victory. pic.twitter.com/bDWVjRLAqe
When Marsch joined the team in May 2024, Crépeau was the obvious first choice. He had backed up Milan Borjan heading into the 2022 World Cup, only to miss the tournament after he suffered a horrific broken leg with LAFC weeks before he was to arrive in Qatar.
He came back to perform heroically in the 2024 Copa America, reclaiming the inheritance that felt rightfully his.
But Marsch has a hard-wired preference for pure athletes, and St. Clair looks more like a goalkeeper. At 28, he’s three years younger, taller, rangier, leaner. Crépeau isn’t quite six feet tall, which makes him short by modern standards for the position, and sometimes he’s sported a bit of a belly. Marsch’s affections began to shift.
After an ill-fated move to Portland, Crépeau also conceded ground in his professional career. He lost his starting role to James Pantemis, who had been Canada’s third-choice goalkeeper. If Crépeau couldn’t win the job at his club over his former backup, why should he keep it with his country?
That’s when Marsch became more fully enamoured with St. Clair and his better trajectory. He was named the 2025 MLS Goalkeeper of the Year in his last season with Minnesota United, the only one in the league who allowed less than a goal a game with a save percentage of .750.
Now, weeks before the World Cup begins, the scales are being re-balanced again. “Each guy kind of keeps one-upping the other,” Marsch said.
Crépeau had his early struggles with his new side, including a red card for a handball outside the box during a brutal 5-0 defeat to NYCFC in March. Despite a much better record, St. Clair’s arrival at Inter Miami has proved even less auspicious, with a porous defence contributing to his own wobbly performances. He’s seemed increasingly uncertain of himself.
Saturday’s game marked a new height for an ever-intensifying debate. St. Clair didn’t play badly, exactly. His team was more at fault for its agonizing stumble than he was, and he made two saves that Marsch could use as supporting evidence in the case he has, until recently, seemed more likely to make.
But Crépeau was at his dramatic shot-stopping best, including a four-save sequence that began with a diving parry of a venomous Lionel Messi free kick.
He distinguished himself less with his physical self than his spirit, always his strength. Down 3-0, he played his guts out — he’s noticeably trimmer, by the way — keeping Orlando City’s late comeback a possibility before it became a reality. World Cup games are routinely decided by that sort of resolve.
“Every time I have the honour to put the jersey on, I leave everything out here,” he said before his game against Tunisia in March. “I do not take this for granted or lightly.”
Marsch would no doubt like to Frankenstein his goalkeepers: putting Crépeau’s steelier brain into St. Clair’s longer body would be some kind of monster. “My thoughts are always about, when I make a decision, the guy who doesn’t get the call,” the coach said. For now, he’ll have to keep watching and waiting for the moment that helps him make his final choice.
Coincidentally, both of his goalkeepers will return to Canada on Saturday, when Toronto FC hosts Inter Miami and Orlando City heads to Montreal. St. Clair is from Pickering, and Crépeau is from Longueuil — each man with so much to play for, and, for one high-stakes afternoon, both so close to home.
Their World Cup fates, along with Canada’s, will be in their hands.
Bayern Munich’s disappointment is Canada Soccer’s relief
The German giants lost their Champions League semifinal 6-5 on aggregate to Paris Saint-Germain after a 1-1 draw in Wednesday’s electric second leg in Munich. That means PSG will face Arsenal in the final on May 30, and Alphonso Davies will report for Canada’s World Cup training camp on time.
Davies did not start against PSG but excelled as a second-half substitute, picking up an assist on Harry Kane’s late equalizer.
Canada’s captain has not played for his country in more than a year, and a Champions League final appearance would have extended his absence at an unfortunate time: In addition to missing the camp, which will begin in earnest in Charlotte on May 24, he would have sat out the June 1 friendly against Uzbekistan in Edmonton, his hometown.
Instead, Davies, who hasn’t played for Canada since tearing his ACL in March 2025, will now finish his Bayern campaign in the DFB-Pokal final against VfB Stuttgart on May 23 before making his hopefully triumphant return to the national fold.
