Canadian goalkeeper Crépeau's focus is always to accumulate small wins and greatness will follow

In 2021, in snow-swept Edmonton, Maxime Crépeau dove across his goal during a training session for the men's national soccer team, came an inch short of stopping a high, hard shot, and began turning the cold air blue before he hit the ground.

"I'm laughing," he said when he was reminded of the moment, not long before he and his teammates departed for the first leg of their Nations League quarterfinal against Suriname on Friday (6 p.m. ET). "That sounds like me."

At the time, Crépeau was Milan Borjan's backup. Today, at 30, he is Canada's presumptive, occasionally profane starting goalkeeper. The fire he showed during an otherwise ordinary shooting drill in Edmonton has lit his way.

"When I suit up, my mindset goes to a place where everything is about competitiveness," he said. "I see everything as a one versus one. It's one guy taking on another guy, one action at a time, one ball at a time. My mentality is, I am not losing one challenge."

That's not a unique approach for athletes. Sometimes the big picture is too overwhelming to contemplate. Win the small contest in front of you, and accumulate enough of those wins in succession, and greatness will follow.

What separates Crépeau is the relentlessness with which he applies the tactic.

He began goalkeeping as a 10-year-old outside Montreal. A clarity came to him the moment he saw the field from that singular point of view.

"Goalkeeping is not for everybody," he said. "My brain was fitted to the position. But you also need experience in difficult times for you to develop this feeling, this one-versus-one mentality. 

"I think you need a bit of adversity to develop that. I'm only 30 years old, but I carry a lot of baggage with me."

Missed World Cup with shattered right leg

In extra time in the 2022 MLS Cup final, Crépeau, playing for LAFC, was caught short by a bad pass back. He charged out of his goal but knew he was going to be late — knew he was going to lose a one-versus-one challenge to Philadelphia's Cory Burke.

He couldn't begin to know how badly. Crépeau shattered his right leg. LAFC went on to win the cup on penalties, but the national team soon flew to Qatar without him. He missed out on the first men's World Cup for Canada in 36 years.

After making an inspiring comeback in 2023, Crépeau was let go by LAFC. He moved to the Portland Timbers, where he's had to split time with fellow Canadian James Pantemis, once again one man away from the place he wanted to be.

He's learned to see his goalkeeping associates as partners rather than rivals, each benefiting from the passion and like-mindedness of the other.

"I've come across a lot of goalkeepers over my career," Crépeau said, "and I took with me that if you have a good relationship with the human being first, the football is going to take care of itself. I'm a big believer in that."

He saw his faith rewarded when Jesse Marsch, Canada's new head coach, gave him the starting role at last summer's Copa America. The larger losses he suffered made him fearless when he resumed the one-versus-one challenges that define his approach, as though hardship had put the finishing touches on decades of brainwork.

Crépeau's increasingly ferocious play

Canada finished a surprise fourth in part because of Crépeau's increasingly ferocious play.

"Good seas don't make good sailors," he said. "The last several months, I don't think I've ever been so aggressive off my line, but it's working. I'm not the tallest. I'm not the biggest. But I know how to judge a ball through, I know how to judge a cross, I know how to judge a cutback."

He also knows, a little too well, that soccer is a game of short memories.

Last month, Marsch sat down with Crépeau and reserve Dayne St. Clair to remind his goalkeepers that no one owns the starting spot. It might be Crépeau's today. Tomorrow is unclaimed. Which brought Crépeau back to the present, back to the fight in front of him.

"This week, we'll be locked in on Suriname," he said.

If he plays and plays well — one action, one ball at a time — then he'll play another game. Then another. And then another. 

And then in 2026 he'll win the biggest prize of all: he'll step onto the grass at BMO Field, basking in the summer heat and the noise of thousands of flag-waving fans, the first Canadian man in history to start in goal at a home World Cup. 

Crépeau was asked if he could see it. He shook his head. 

"I don't think about that picture," he said. "I think my subconscious is doing that job."

Right now, the rest of his remarkable brain has its next battle to win.