“We’re going through a bit of a tough phase at the moment. There’s a lot of physical fatigue and a bit of mental fatigue as well. It’s a long season and you have to expect some periods like the one we’re going through but we have to stay the course and play through them,” said Camara.

Coach Marco Schallibaum commented on his team’s performance in very positive terms after the match saying, “We came out like a fireworks display, especially in the first half. We could have had, four, five, or six goals but we didn’t get them and for that we have to congratulate Houston for that."

In a match that featured the eruption of Mount Schallibaum, the expulsion of Alessandro Nesta and a controversial officiating decision that led to a Kansas City goal, the Montreal Impact did what its done since the beginning of the season. The team found a way to win, its 2-1 victory placing it atop the MLS Eastern Conference ladder.

Two of the three goals came in added time — one in the first half and another in the second — with Thierry Henry notching both the home side’s tallies while Marco Di Vaio got one (and very nearly two) back for the visitors.

“We worked throughout the week to prepare the team as a staff and today it was my job to be on the sideline to encourage the team and to manage the rhythm,” Biello said to open his postgame comments. “Obviously we would have loved to win the game but, unfortunately, it didn’t happen. Overall I think there were a lot of positives from that game.”

Completely dominated in the opening half, Montreal gave up the first goal only five minutes after play got underway.

The Montreal Impact finished its initial MLS season with a meagre harvest of nine points on the road. The team returns home after this season’s first two matches on the west coast with six points in pocket, having already matched 2012’s total of a pair of wins on enemy turf.

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.

And, the Impact scored early and often as it overwhelmed the reigning NASL champion Tampa Bay Rowdies 4-1 at the Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic in Orlando, while Toronto FC overcame a terrible start in a torrential first-hald downpour to overcome USL-Pro’s Orlando City 2-0.

Bernier: “We’re a little disappointed because we had four games to play and we knew we had to win them all to have a chance at the playoffs. We didn’t have the same energy in the first half as we did in the second and you can’t play that way against a team that knows exactly what it has to do and then goes out and does it. We came up with too little too late and now we have three games left in the season.”