T&T se­nior na­tion­al foot­ball team tar­get, Min­neso­ta Unit­ed FC goal­keep­er Dayne St Clair, missed out on claim­ing the Cana­di­an’s Men’s Youth In­ter­na­tion­al "Play­er of the Year".

St Clair was short­list­ed among the five nom­i­nees along with Ka­mal Miller (Or­lan­do City SC), Al­is­tair John­ston (Nashville SC), Michael Bal­d­is­i­mo (Van­cou­ver White­caps) and New Eng­land Rev­o­lu­tion’s Tajon Buchanan, the lat­ter of whom was the even­tu­al win­ner when the an­nounce­ment was made on Tues­day.

The Cana­di­an Youth In­ter­na­tion­al "Play­ers of the Year" Award cel­e­brates Cana­da’s top two youth men's and women's play­ers. Due to the lack of in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions caused by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the list of men’s nom­i­nees was com­prised of Cana­di­an Un­der-23 play­ers.

While St Clair has rep­re­sent­ed Cana­da and all youth lev­els, he has not don their se­nior men’s team colours and could be set to be caught in a T&T/Cana­da tug-of-war bat­tle for the rights to his in­ter­na­tion­al ser­vice.

His fa­ther, Fabi­an Wayne St Clair, who like his son, was a goal­keep­er, grew up in San­gre Grande, T&T be­fore mi­grat­ing to Cana­da while his moth­er Julie, is Cana­da-born.

The 23-year-old Toron­to-born Pick­er­ing res­i­dent, St Clair has fea­tured in 13 match­es so far this sea­son for the Loons, win­ning six, draw­ing five and suf­fer­ing two de­feats while ac­cu­mu­lat­ing six clean sheets, and con­ced­ing 12 goals.

St Clair was se­lect­ed sev­enth in the 2019 MLS Su­per Draft and joined the Loons from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land, where he led the Ter­rap­ins to the 2018 NCAA Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onship.

He went on loan to Min­neso­ta’s Unit­ed Soc­cer League (USL) af­fil­i­ate For­ward Madi­son where he made five ap­pear­ances in 2019.

His on­ly ap­pear­ances for the Loons came in in­ter­na­tion­al friend­lies dur­ing 2019, play­ing against Hertha Berlin, As­ton Vil­la and CF Pachu­ca.

He was ex­pect­ed to be loaned to San An­to­nio FC in the USL for this sea­son but was re­called and af­ter a few in­juries in the goal­keep­ing de­part­ment for the Loons re­placed fel­low Cana­di­an-born, Gre­go­ry Ran­jits­ingh in goal.

Dur­ing his col­le­giate ca­reer, St Clair did not al­low a goal in the fi­nal 500 min­utes of the last sea­son and at Mary­land worked with coach Sasho Cirovs­ki, who is known for his work with cur­rent USA men's na­tion­al team goal­keep­er Za­ck Stef­fen.