New York Red Bulls manager Jesse Marsch called his team's 2-1 loss to the Montreal Impact a "weird game" as his team were eliminated from the MLS playoffs by a 3-1 aggregate final.
The Red Bulls came into the match needing a goal after losing 1-0 in the first leg in Montreal, but his team's red-hot home form and scoring prowess at Red Bull Arena had them feeling good about the chances of turning the tie on its head.
An early save on a Sacha Kljestan penalty kick by Evan Bush set the tone, and the U.S. international spent 12 minutes on the bench after an elbow to the nose left him bloodied and unable to return to the match.
Two second-half goals by Ignacio Piatti on either side of a Bradley Wright-Phillips' goal put an end to the season for Marsch's men, leaving the manager frustrated and searching for answers.
Marsch said: "Well, it's a weird game where we missed the penalty, then you had 12 minutes of playing a man down and waiting to get Sacha back on the field, and then pushing the game again in the second half, and then all of a sudden one mistake and then we're chasing in a big way.
"Weird night. One of the weirdest nights I've been a part of here at Red Bull Arena, that's for sure, and it just felt like we were fighting a lot of different things and weren't able to make our own history.
"Then again, I take responsibility. I feel a huge sense of disappointment. I'm gutted for this entire organization because there's so many good people here that have put their faith and trust in me to help lead this to somewhere new, and we're hopeful to get it there eventually, but I'm really disappointed for all these people."
Marsch felt his side deserved better on the night, having dominated both legs statistically in his estimation, but he wrote the end result off to the unpredictable nature of soccer and said he wouldn't change anything his team did in the postseason.
"It's a weird sport that way, where I don't know how many other sports there are where you can dominate so much and not be victorious, but that's what our sport is," Marsch said.
"Both games were under control, I thought. Obviously once it gets to be 1-0 here at home and now your aggregate is two and you're chasing the game with the road goal, then that whole thing goes haywire.
"But yeah, I felt good about our tactics. I felt good about our approach, and we just weren't good enough in the series to capitalize on our advantages, and we let -- if I go through the whole series and think of how many good chances we gave up until it became 2-0, there's certainly not many."
Marsch and the Red Bulls will now turn their attention to the 2017 MLS season and the CONCACAF Champions League, for which the team booked passage after winning Group F.
"You know, we're going to have to get over this and figure out a way because we've got CONCACAF next year. We're going to have a good team again next year," Marsch said. "It's just so hard when you put so much into it for a calendar season and come up empty. It makes it hard to digest at the moment. So time will heal, but it's hard for me to measure those things right now."