Inclusion in this year’s MLS All-Star Game means more to Loons goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair then his first time on the exclusive team in 2022.
When the showcase was held at Allianz Field three years ago, St. Clair benefitted from some home cooking in being picked for the 26-player squad by then-MNUFC manager Adrian Heath, who also coached that MLS squad that August.
In the exhibition, St. Clair came off the bench, made four saved in a half-hour shift, basked in “DSC!” chants from the homespun crowd and won MVP honors in St. Paul.
But for Wednesday’s exhibition, St. Clair and teammate Michael Boxall were among 12 players voted onto the MLS roster via combined votes from fans, players and media members.
“To be voted in by the fans is a new experience and something that I’m proud to be a part of,” St. Clair said earlier this month. “To be seen around, maybe not just by the commissioner or the coach, but the group, collective pick is nice. I’m extremely happy to go and represent a second time.”
St. Clair’s stats back up his spot. In his seventh season with Minnesota, the 28-year-old has eight cleansheets and only 18 total goals allowed across 20 league matches.
MLS will play all-stars from Mexico’s Liga MX at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Q2 Stadium in Austin, Texas. It will be the fourth matchup against stars in Liga MX in the last five years, with St. Clair and Emanuel Reynoso contributing to MLS’ 2-1 win over Liga MX in 2022.
But St. Clair would be a fan of a different format in the future.
“Is any All-Star Game an actual rivalry?” St. Clair asked. “I think it’d be cool if the MLS are doing East versus West, and kind of put something on it, because I think we have a lot of quality players that unfortunately didn’t make the team just because of the limited amount of picks.”
St. Clair is looking forward to seeing how the ASG is held in a new city and wants to hang out with fellow goalkeepers Austin’s Brad Stuver and Vancouver’s Yohei Takaoka — both selections from Austin/MLS coach Nico Estevez. St. Clair is also holding out hope to meet a certain international superstar.
“Everyone wants to meet (Lionel) Messi, but in games like this, it’s things happen so quickly that you’re not really spending time with a lot of the guys because you have your own media duties and things like that,” St. Clair said. “So it’s not like a normal team environment.”
MNUFC shared the All-Star news in unique ways to Boxall and St. Clair. Boxall works with Athletes Committed to Educating Students (ACES) and and a group of them came out to a Loons training session in Blaine to tell the veteran defender in-person.
St. Clair, however, was away with the Canadian men’s national team for the CONCACAF Gold Cup during the unveiling, so members of his charity, Big Brothers Big Sisters Twin Cities, made a video for him to watch.
“To have them be the ones to announce it was a cool thing because I wasn’t sure where it was going because I have an event upcoming with them, so I thought it might have been about that,” St. Clair said. “But to incorporate that and shed some light on them as well … is was something special.”
