Maxime Crepeau du Canada aborde la semaine des étoiles de la MLS avec une grande confiance après sa performance en Coupe du Monde.

Maxime Crépeau has arguably been the top goalkeeper in Major League Soccer since the World Cup, and is at his first MLS All-Star Game in red-hot form.

After making Canada’s net his own at the World Cup, keeping two clean sheets as Les Rouges made a run to the Round of 16, Crepeau has back-to-back shutouts since the MLS season resumed as well, his first two of the season. He looks back to his brilliant best — easily one of the league’s top shot-stoppers — as Orlando seem to have turned things around after leaking goals at an alarming rate to start of the year.

The summer arrival of French superstar Antoine Griezmann has given them a boost — albeit in a small sample size — and Crépeau has been a big reason why, making seven saves against the San Jose Earthquakes midweek and three more in a 1-0 win over league leaders Nashville SC a few days later on Saturday.

The World Cup seems to have given Crépeau a major confidence boost.

“It’s something that I take a lot of pride in because as a professional, you work your whole career to the apex of a moment, and the World Cup is that moment,” Crépeau said in an interview with Caleb Pongratz of Spotrac and Prost Soccer. “It’s the biggest tournament in the world, and we were lucky enough to experience it at home.

“Coming back from that experience, I just take those moments with me, and here with a lot of quality players in the league, just to enjoy the next two, three days and to have a good image of our league.”

After plenty of battles against each other for club and country, the MLS All-Star Game is bringing together familiar foes. All of MLS’ goalkeepers for the game against Liga MX stars are from the Eastern Conference, with Crépeau, Nashville’s Brian Schwake and New York City FC’s Matt Freese.

Freese was the starter for the U.S. at the World Cup and Schwake is one of the top young American keepers, so Concacaf is well-represented.

“I’ve talked a little bit with Matt before before coming briefly, and then with Brian,” Crépeau said. “I played with Brian two days ago, and they’re top guys. We always say there’s a goalkeeper union, and it’s a true thing. We have our own little position in the sport, so to be able to help one another in training, to have a good positive environment that you want to work with, it’s great.”

“Usually, you arrive, you compete, and you fly back home, or they fly back home, so it’s amazing to see the personalities. There’s families around the environment as well, so it’s good to see the personality and get to know them, talk about football, other than just get a whistle, compete, and come out.”

In addition to being the backup to Schwake in net, Crépeau will also take part in Tuesday night’s skills competition. Crépeau will take part in Goalie Wars — where two goalkeepers take turns throwing and kicking the ball at each other while defending their own net from their opponent.

MLS Next Pro goalkeepers Will Mackay (Huntsville City FC) and Pedro Cruz (Houston Dynamo 2) will square off in the play-in round for the chance to play Costa Rican legend Keylor Navas — who now plays in Liga MX with Pumas. The winner of that will take on the winner of Crépeau vs. Freese for the title.

Cruz is the defending champion.