This isn’t the first time the Impact have been censured for the team’s behaviour in a playoff ouster. After a 2010 USSF-Div. 2 playoff loss to Carolina, in which an Impact goal was disallowed — and Montreal also claimed one of Carolina’s goals was offside — the team charged the match officials.

He would not be the only Impact player sent off. Montreal would have only eight men left when the final whistle blew.

“I come to MLS to stay in MLS, not to go back to Europe because I think MLS is going to be amazing and in a few years it will be a top league,” Lopez Rodriguez said. “I’m looking forward to staying here and to belong to that period to become one of the best leagues in the world.”

“We’ll be playing one of the best teams in MLS (Seattle) and there’ll be 50,000 people cheering against us but we’ve done everything we can. We showed during the matches in Florida that we were a good team but Saturday is another story.”

“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.”

And there’s a wisdom that exists about injury-prone players. They have a tendency to remain injury-prone. Hence the use of the word, “prone.”

The Impact pressed the host Fire early, and took a 1-0 lead thanks to some guile from striker Marco Di Vaio, but the Impact’s experience in the defence was outweighed by its lack of movement, as it surrendered three unanswered goals.

Renteria was left wide open in the penalty area to direct Higuain's cross over Impact keeper Troy Perkins in the 92nd minute. And Higuain was given acres of space down the left side in which to engineer a cross, as veteran Alessandro Nesta inexplicably decided to lay off rather than take away the Argentine's space on the wing. It

The MLS Disciplinary Committee announced Thursday that it had added two more games to Rivas’ suspension for headbutting Philadelphia’s Antoine Hoppenot. That’s in addition to the automatic one-game suspension he earned for the straight red.

Andrew Wenger, playing up top in place of Marco Di Vaio, presently in Italy facing questions in that country’s most recent game-fixing scandal, gave the Impact a one-goal lead moments before the interval.