Kei Kamara said Columbus Crew SC is suffering from a lack of teamwork after a "horrible" 4-4 draw with the Monteal Impact on Saturday.
Columbus led 4-1 in the 53rd minute but allowed Montreal to come back and Dominic Oduro found an equalizer in stoppage time.
The dysfunction was apparent early in the second half when Kamara, who had already scored twice, wanted to take a penalty kick -- but so did Federico Higuain.
The teammates argued at some length before Higuain scored from the spot, but Kamara said the incident stayed with them as the team fell apart.
"We scored a lot of goals, but there was no team play," Kamara told local TV after the game. "And that completely explains the way me and Federico behaved on the penalty kick."
Crew SC has just two wins through its first nine games and is second to last in the Eastern Conference, a shocking change for a team that reached the MLS Cup final last season.
"A team who stays together will win games. A team that doesn't, not gonna win games," Kamara said.
"And that's horrible. We are home, we go up that much and to give that many, it's horrible."
Coach Gregg Berhalter took the blame for not specifying which player would take the penalty.
"What I would say is that we have two players that are designated to take penalty kicks and it's on me for not clarifying which one takes it in this game," he said. "So, I'll take full responsibility for that, that's my fault. Rest assured, that's not going to happen again."
Berhalter said dropping points in such a way was unlike his team.
"I categorize that as an immature performance. We're better than that and we didn't show it after the 4-1," he said. "Way too easy to concede particularly the second and the third goal.
"After that, we got back, we got stable. But, it was, obviously, the one-goal margin that hurt us in the end."