COLUMBUS, Ohio – As confetti rained down on the Portland Timbers in the center of the field, Kei Kamara and Wil Trapp watched from afar. Heartbroken, dejected, and devastated, the vision of the Timbers celebrating at Mapfre Stadium was a nightmare come to life, but, for so many reasons, the two Columbus Crew stars just couldn’t look away.

Trapp and Kamara were merely onlookers as the Timbers celebrated their MLS Cup victory following a 2-1 triumph on Sunday evening. Having come so close to winning the league’s ultimate prize, it felt as if there was nothing else they could do.

Kamara, in particular, sat dispirited and despondent and was the last of his teammates to head into the locker room. As his club’s home fans shouted his name, Kamara heard little more than his own thoughts telling him that there was nothing he could do but watch.

“I wanted to sit out there and I wanted to see what it feels like to lift up that trophy,” Kamara said. “That’s why I was sitting out there. Those are the things that keep you here, keep you going, and working harder and harder. …. To me, it’s not just about getting up and walking away. It’s about seeing other guys and how they feel and what that celebration is like. You want to have that and that was the feeling I was soaking in.

Added Trapp: “It was terrible, but at the same time, you look around and you see the support that we had. The fans were excellent tonight. I can’t say enough good things about them, but it hurts. It really hurts.”

A lot of that pain stems from the fact that the Crew are well aware that Sunday’s result was in large part down to their poor play. With mistakes aplenty, the defeat to the Timbers was the most painful kind of lesson.

After needing just nine seconds to open up the New York Red Bulls in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Crew saw themselves trailing within the first 27 seconds of Sunday’s bout. Following a misplayed touch from goalkeeper Steve Clark, Diego Valeri pounced to fire the Timbers ahead with an early goal.

“When I put us down a goal after one minute, thats a really challenging thing,” said Clark. “It’s not a great place to be as a team.”

Added head coach Gregg Berhalter: “I think you could see a little bit of nerves. Steve gets hundreds of balls, thousands of balls played to him during the course of the season and he rarely makes a mistake like that and you have to live with it. We support him and mistakes are part of the game. The start wasn’t good, the start was certainly not good.”

Just six minutes later, the Timbers were on the board again via a play that was possibly even more calamitous.

Following a misplaced pass out towards the sidelines, the Crew noticably switched off, confident that the ball trickled out of play. Their confidence was not misplaced, but the linesman controversially ruled to play on as the Crew struggled to grasp what was happening. 

Seconds later and with confusion just beginning to clear, Rodney Wallace was nodded home to double the Timbers’ advantage.

“It’s pathetic that the linesman didn’t make that call. I was right there. I saw it,” said Justin Meram. “But that’s part of the game. What can we do? We can’t blame the officials. He didn’t see it, but we have to be more in tune and play until we here the whistle. Essentially, it’s on us. It’s one of those things that we were just on the wrong end of it.”

Added Ethan Finlay: “Everyone says play to the whistle, but you sure as hell couldn’t here the whistle tonight because of the crowd. Things happen. It’s unfortunate. It wasn’t directly off of it. We still had the opportunity to defend the cross and there are other plays leading up to that.

“Everyone is responsible for that. It is what it is. They’re humans and they’re going to make mistakes. We make them all the time as well as players, so that’s not to blame for us losing this game.”

No matter the reasoning for the defeat, the Crew accept that it was just that, and one that ends their season on a sour note.

The Crew, however, insist that all is far from doom and gloom, especially since they’ve felt similarly before. Overrun by the New England Revolution in last season’s playoffs, the Crew took that humbling as a lesson, and ran with it all the way to an MLS Cup Final in 2015.

For the Crew, Sunday’s result was just another learning experience on the road to glory.

“You work on this and you look forward to what happens next,” Kamara said. “Last year, the team was all the way with New England and lost it, and because of that everyone was so much stronger to push this year to go farther. We’ve been all the way to this point, so hopefully next year, if we get to this point, we can keep our nerves.”

Added Finlay: “I think success is defined differently for everyone. This was a really positive step for me, for this group, but we still have unfinished business.”