Challenging to the very end, Montreal’s last attempt came on a set play in the third of four minutes of added time. Romero’s cross sailed into the six-metre box and was met by Matteo Ferrari. The Italian central defender headed it towards the inside of the near post, picking a spot that was defended by five-foot-eight, 146-pound Rolfe rather than Johnson, a six-foot-three, 217-pounder.

The Swiss defender, although not the only man to contribute to the loss, turned in a performance that will have fans and critics asking why local products Maxim Tissot and Karl Ouimette are not seeing more minutes.

“When you dominate the whole match the way we did and you don’t win it hurts a bit,” he admitted. “But our level of performance was very high tonight Justin and Sanna were on fire all game and I think both wingers are pretty tired tonight because they were going for the goal all game long."

“You get punished in this league for a mistake and we certainly did,” Brovsky declared. “It’s not one guy on the team, it’s the collective 11. We lost it ourselves. We beat ourselves. It’s something we can learn from and we’re not going to do it again.”

“I felt all day that we were going to have a good result,” said head coach Marco Schallibaum. “I also felt it yesterday in training and during my pregame speech tonight. The guys were pumped.

Asked if the change in formation was something that would be repeated in the future, coach Schallibaum, replied, “As a coach you have to be flexible and able to put something fresh into the game. Today it worked well with everyone playing well together. Paponi did well, for his first time, getting a goal."

“It wasn’t the kind of second half we wanted to have,” admitted captain Davy Arnaud.” If we’re going to be honest with ourselves, we weren’t in the second half, it was our worst half of the year, I would say, but we still came out with three points and in MLS you have to grind out results sometimes. That’s just the way it is. At the end of the day we leave with another win.

The Montreal Impact walked onto the pitch at Seattle’s Century Link Field and, in front of almost 39,000 of the most rabid fans in MLS, handed their hosts a 1-0 defeat, signalling to the rest of the league that the sophomore version of the club might bear very little resemblance to last season’s inaugural edition.

“We do not want to be close to the playoffs, we want to be in the playoffs. We want to reach our season-ticket subscription objective. We do not want to experience a dip in attendance like we had in our first game at Saputo Stadium. We do not want to leave points on the pitch by allowing so many late-game goals.”

The New England Revolution came to town looking to salvage a bit of pride and avoid being swept by a first-year team in their season series, but the Impact had something more tangible to play for: The top spot among Canadian pro teams and along with it the right to face FC Edmonton in the opening round of next year’s Amway Canadian Championship.