Whenever Inter Miami plays this season, and cameras peer down the stadium tunnel and lock onto to the incomparable figure of Lionel Messi, standing right behind him will be Pickering, Ont.’s Dayne St. Clair, the new starting goalkeeper of the defending MLS Cup Champions.
The attention orbiting the world’s most recognizable player, which pulls in everyone and everything surrounding the burgeoning global soccer brand that is Inter Miami CF, is exactly the pressurized environment St. Clair wanted when he moved from Minnesota United to South Florida this off-season.
“I knew I signed up for this and I knew that [increased attention and expectation] is what came with it,” St. Clair said Wednesday as Inter Miami prepared for its league opener this Saturday against LAFC inside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
It’s not just where St. Clair stands in Miami’s pre-match lineup, but also the troves of fans waiting outside the team bus at every game and every event – especially during Inter Miami’s recent preseason South American tour – that showed him the heighted atmosphere surrounding his new club.
“I’m prepared for it. And of course, I know some days are going to be harder than others, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not making progress,” St. Clair said.
Progress, however, cannot be a gradual thing for St. Clair in 2026.
Although the outsized demands on Inter Miami will never rest solely on his shoulders, St. Clair is acutely aware of what is on the line for him as the new MLS season begins, while the gigantic possibilities and pressures of a home World Cup only grow as the summer approaches.
And Canadian head coach Jesse Marsch still has not chosen his starting goalkeeper.
“I think everything, trophies, a [starting] spot [with club and country], playing a home World Cup, representing my country [is one the line],” St. Clair said. “There’s everything.”
As a two-time MLS All-Star and the reigning MLS Goalkeeper of the Year, St. Clair has built his own reputation off his own merits.
But he now enters a locker room not only saturated with Messi’s unparalleled presence, but also punctuated by the high demands that come with playing with World Cup winner and Argentine international midfielder Rodrigo De Paul, ageless Uruguayan marksman Luis Suarez, and head coach Javier Mascherano, who has translated his club success as an indefatigable midfielder into being a championship-winning head coach.
St. Clair has already observed and digested how much the small details matter to the best players on the best team in MLS; players who, like St. Clair, are preparing for another World Cup summer.
“The amount of work that’s put on a daily basis, whether it’s on the field or taking care of your body [off the field] are some of the things I’ve seen,” St. Clair said.
“It’s all the small details that matter on a daily basis that allows you the preparation to show up on game day or to show up at the World Cup. It’s all the things that nobody sees on a daily basis that I’ve been able to kind of have a little bit of access to.”
Inter Miami will begin its league season with five-straight road games, while also awaiting its first opponent in an all-important Concacaf Champions Cup campaign later in March, a competition St. Clair referenced as a motivating factor for him choosing to move to South Florida.
But it will be Miami’s second league game on March 1 that will garner plenty of attention, especially among the Canadian soccer community, when St. Clair will face fellow Canadian national goalkeeper, and expected Orlando City starter, Maxime Crépeau.
Marsch has so far given little indication about when he will decide to pick Canada’s starting goalkeeper. Since taking the job in May 2024, Canada’s head coach has opted to split international friendlies and tournaments between Crépeau and St. Clair. The two goalkeepers have a friendly relationship and St. Clair said they spoke over the off-season as both goalkeepers moved to different clubs.
But as the new season approaches, and with only four more international friendlies before Canada’s home World Cup begins, St. Clair says he and Crépeau are still rooting for each other, although focused intently on their own games.
“Since [the beginning of the off-season], we haven’t really spoke, but I know that if I was to need something or [Crépeau] needs something, we’re always a text or a call away and that we have that mutual respect,” St. Clair said.
“I know there will be a lot of eyes and people on the outside would probably make the [game on March 1] a lot bigger than it is, and the battle between us a lot bigger than it is, but [St. Clair and Crépeau] still have that respect for each other. And we know that we’ll show that and probably joke around after the game. But we know when both of us – the way that we play - when we step across that white line, there are no friends.”
St. Clair has long been known for his proud, self-confident, and at times brash, presence in the net, and that certainly won’t diminish now that he plays with the best player and, now arguably, the biggest club in Major League Soccer.
But this season, St. Clair has the club platform and international tournament to elevate himself to the status of North American soccer’s premier goalkeeper.
But an opportunity like that also comes with no margin for error.
“I play for a huge club,” St. Clair said. “I think I’ve always said you always want to be able to test yourself and to be able to push yourself to play at the highest level, or club, that you think you can and have success.”
