MONTREAL—Kei Kamara went from celebrating a two-goal first half to watching the Montreal Impact celebrate taking three points at home.
The New England Revolution's veteran striker scored his 13th MLS brace to give New England a 2-0 lead after 33 minutes on Saturday at Stade Saputo, but his first goals in six league games with the Revolution (after being acquired from Columbus in a May 12 trade) failed to hold up as the Impact surged back with three unanswered scores for a 3-2 victory.
"I want my goals to count as goals that are going to help the team with a point or three points, and so it's really tough to just say you scored goals and nothing really came from it," Kamara said. "But the positive to take from it, we were able to score goals, and knowing the fact that we were able to create some stuff and things we work on in the training ground and put it out on the field."
Still, the inability to hold that early lead stung.
"Yeah, it's a tough one, so tough when you can hear a pin drop when you come back into our locker room," Kamara said. "That's definitely not one of the moments you want after a game. Montreal's a good team, we respected them a lot going into this game. And obviously going up was good but you can't let them get back into it."
Kamara already knew that a brace against the Impact was no guarantee of victory. On May 7, in his last game for Columbus, he scored two of the Crew's four goals against Montreal, but the Impact erased a three-goal deficit for a 4-4 draw.
"They're a good team," Kamara said. "Some teams start well and some teams know how to finish, and they seem to be that team, the smart team that after you score a couple of goals on them they know how to just bounce back and get back into it. So yeah, a few times I've actually played them, even here or anywhere, they've always been able to come back from it and come back well."
Even though Kamara had failed to get on the scoresheet in his first five MLS games with New England, Revolution coach Jay Heaps has had no problem with his offensive contributions to date.
"He's been helping us score goals. Tonight, he scored two of them," Heaps said. "He's been dangerous for us and he's a handful and he definitely makes teams play a little differently against us. And I feel like we're getting more goals, but on the defensive side we're just not good enough right now. We're giving away, in my mind, poor goals, and for different reasons, you know, a mistake here, team defending there, shape in different areas, and we just have to get better."
