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Against a beatable Houston team that had come in having lost three games in a row, a team that is one of those that City SC will have to climb over if it is to make the playoffs, City SC instead reinforced the reality that for them, no team is beatable. The team didn’t come close to scoring, and while it did come close to keeping Houston from scoring, it gave up a goal that center back described with a one-word synonym for “not very good” and fell to the Dynamo 1-0 at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston.

“The Orlando loss was obviously difficult for us,” said interim coach David Critchley, “but this one feels a little harder to take because they’re in a similar position to us. These points, even though every game is three points, we feel a little bit more because we have to try close that gap to make sure we continue to play for something throughout the entire season. And we missed our opportunity today.”

City SC took only one shot that required a save all game, and that one came in the 96th minute, though thanks to another stalwart effort from Roman Burki in goal, the team still had a chance to get a tie if one could go in. Its expected goals total of 0.3 was the second-lowest of the season and came in sharp contrast to the team’s recent offensive success. It marked the ninth time the team has been shutout this season — meaning in almost half of its games — and came after a four-game run where it was averaging two goals a game, by far the best extended stretch it has had this season.

“We weren’t good enough with our buildup,” Critchley said. “If we’re going to be a team that tries to build and play through opponents or around opponents, the end objective is to always try to create the shot from it or at least create the ball into the final third. And that for us was the missing piece. We just couldn’t break down Houston’s block. We couldn’t find balls that were breaking lines in order to get players like (Klauss), and Simon (Becher), Célio (Pompeu), involved and into the attack.”

“I think we were a bit off it today, to be honest,” said Jake Girdwood-Riech, who played center back on a back line made entirely of youngsters, “just a bit slow in the build up and off the ball.”

The offense in absentia negated the benefits of City SC’s defense stopping its escalator-like defense, which had gone from allowing one goal to two to three to four over Critchley’s four games. Critchley made five changes to the starting lineup from Wednesday against Orlando, though the attack stayed mostly intact.

And while City SC’s offense and defense remain out of synch, never at their best at the same time, one thing remained consistent: Players will get hurt. For the second game in a row, Critchley had to sub out a player due to injury, this time midfielder Alfredo Morales, who fell heavily on his right shoulder after leaping for a high ball and came out after 15 minutes. Technically, he came out because of concussion protocols, but by the second half of the game, he was sitting on the bench with his right arm in a sling.

Meanwhile, Conrad Wallem, who was playing along side Morales in the midfield as both served as the link from the defenders to the attackers, had to come out at the half as the team takes it easy with his calf injury.

“That was always going to be hard to adjust to,” Critchley said.

City SC’s injury list would be going from critical to comical if only if it wasn’t so serious. With Henry Kessler, Timo Baumgartl, Eduard Lowen and Chris Durkin all injured, that wipes out the four players who would be playing directly in front of Burki most of the time. Those injuries, along with having played a game on Wednesday, led to Critchley going with Wentzel, Girdwood-Reich, Jayden Reid and Joey Zalensky, the four youngest field players on the team other than Homegrown players. Reid was the oldest player on the back line at 23.

And they held until the 66th minute, when City SC couldn’t stop a ball that was bouncing from Houston player to player in the box, finally caroming in off the shin of Ezequiel Ponce as he stood in front of the goal, finishing off the hard work of Felipe Andrade, who did the heaviest lifting on the goal with a highlight-reel volley.

“I felt like in the moment,” Wentzel said, “we actually had good numbers in the box. We have to be a little more man-orientated, in my opinion. And then when the ball is bouncing and bouncing, sometimes it’s just also a bit luck that the other team has, but you got to earn your luck, and maybe they earned it today. And maybe we can find a way to throw a body in and make a block and then it comes through the box again, and then, I don’t know — just trying with all your life to defend the goal, and that is very helpful in the box, but in that moment, we weren’t able to do that.”

So the struggles continue for City SC, which is eight points back of 10th-place Houston and 11 points back of the last team that would make the playoffs in the West. And with each loss, City SC has one fewer game to get even.

“I feel like it’s been a tough season so far,” said Wentzel, who made his first start of the season, “not only the last four games. It’s been all year where we really try to find momentum. I think it’s great that we were able to score more goals in the last couple of games, but now we also have to be just defensively ruthless, really try to not concede easy goals and then grinding out games. And once you get a result, things can start rolling and in this league, it’s very possible to win a couple of games in a row. We won’t be first after the year, but we can make the playoffs.”

Though that seems a stretch for a team that has won three games all season. This game started a stretch where three of four games are against a team City SC has to catch to get a playoff spot. Wins in those games would deny the opponent’s points, but instead, City SC is digging both a deeper hole to climb out of and a higher mountain to scale. But three of those four are also on the road, where City SC has won two games in the past two seasons.

“I know it may sound weird, to be honest,” Wentzel said, “after the season we had so far, but it’s not over yet and we know that and we will give everything until that last game.”