Dan Karell

The Courier-Journal

After a season of firsts, Louisville City this week recorded another as Mark-Anthony Kaye became the team’s first international call-up.

Kaye was called into the Canadian Under-23 National Team’s training camp this week in Toronto ahead of two friendly matches against Caribbean opposition. Canada’s U-23s will face the full Guyana National Team on May 15 in Georgetown, Guyana, and then the full Grenada National Team on May 18 in St. George’s, Grenada. Grenada and Guyana are using these games as tests leading up to this summer’s Caribbean Cup, which determines qualification to the 2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup.

“For us we want to try and facilitate the players (leaving on international duty),” Louisville City head coach James O’Connor said in a phone interview. “It’s a good opportunity for Mark-Anthony. We’re happy for him to go and we wish him the very best of luck.”

Kaye, a 21-year-old winger who joined Louisville City this past offseason, has scored one goal and tallied one assist in six appearances, with four starts. The goal was a memorable one, coming in the 89th minute of a rough-and-tumble 3-2 victory on the road at the Harrisburg City Islanders on April 22.

After Louisville City’s 2-0 victory at Toronto FC II last Wednesday, the team returned to Louisville without Kaye, who stayed in Toronto to join up with the national team.

The Toronto native found out about the call-up during the team’s trip to Bethlehem, Penn., when Louisville City played the Bethlehem Steel to a scoreless draw on May 1.

In addition to being Louisville City’s first international call up, it’s also Kaye’s first official call-up to a Canadian national team at any level. Kaye was unable to accept an opportunity with the U-23 squad for the Pan-American games due to an injury.

With Canada not qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympic soccer tournament in Rio de Janeiro, this camp’s purpose for the players is to showcase their talents in the hopes of a future Canadian National Team call-up, as the national team plays international friendlies this June and World Cup qualifiers this September.

“I just hope to make a name for myself,” Kaye said of his goals in the training camp. “It’s kind of a late camp and I know they have players that they’ve seen already so it’s kind of big for me to go out there and show them that they’re not making the wrong decision by calling me. Also I just hope to have fun. It’s a good experience and I’m going to come back to Louisville with a little bit of national team experience and hopefully it gives me more confidence to do better on the field. I’m excited for that.”

While Kaye is expected to miss at least two games while on international duty - this Saturday at home against Saint Louis F.C. and then May 18 in the U.S. Open Cup, there likely won’t be much drop in quality on the field for O’Connor’s men.

O’Connor has rotated his squad through much of the early season, and fellow wingers Andrew Lubahn, Kadeem Dacres, George Davis IV have all seen plenty of game action.

“We believe tremendously that it’s not the starting 11 but that we’ve got a team of really strong players,” O’Connor said. “We feel that on any given day any of them can showcase their talents. For us, it was a case of Mark-Anthony given an opportunity like that, we certainly didn’t want to stand in his way ... but for us it’s such a good opportunity for him to showcase his talents and doing that creates an opportunity for someone here as well.”