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Looking like a team that may have finally turned the corner with its win over Portland on Sunday, City SC found the brick wall that awaited just beyond the turn on Saturday night in Frisco, Texas. Nothing serves up reality to City SC quite like a road game: They have won just two over the past two seasons. Given the best chance the team may get this season to right itself, City SC did not grab the opportunity, falling 3-0 to Dallas at Toyota Stadium and moving one step closer to the end of the line.

“We inflicted this on ourselves,” said midfielder Eduard Lowen, who came off the bench and played the second half as he continues his personal rebuilding process. “It’s our fault.”

It’s pretty much all over but the counting when it comes to a playoff spot for City SC, which now is looking at having to win eight or nine of its final 11 games to have a shot at a playoff spot. But City SC isn’t even taking the chances presented for a finish that at least looks good.

In its past four games, City SC has faced three teams that were above it in the standings but below the playoff line, the kind of teams City SC has to catch before it can even think about contending a playoff spot. It lost to all of them.

City SC is two points ahead of the last-place Los Angeles Galaxy, six points back of the closest team ahead of it in the West and 11 points back of the last playoff team. With 11 games to play, while the math doesn’t rule out a playoff spot yet, common sense does. It had a chance to gain ground on the five teams immediately ahead of it in the standings but didn’t.

“It takes a toll, that’s for sure,” said interim coach David Critchley, whose eternal optimism looked tested after this loss, “especially in this one, because it’s two, three, four weeks later. So with every week that this club is in the position we’re in, we know the importance of the games. This one hurt a lot because I felt like we were going in such a good direction for a few weeks now, on the field and in training. We put in a great performance last week against Portland, and it was trying to build consistency and trying to build momentum. The first 10 minutes, we came out, we played sharp, but then we went flat and we put ourselves in a position where we didn’t want to press as aggressive as what we’ve been doing in the past. The quality on the ball, I felt like the rhythm wasn’t there today. So we’re going to have to look at this one and figure out how to how to get past it.”

Dallas came into he game four points ahead of City SC and having won just one game at home this season, but its low-block defense was too much for City SC to break. City SC had 15 shots in the game but only two required a save by the goalkeeper. Eight of them were blocked before they got that far as shots just went into a sea of bodies. When City SC attempted to go over the top and play balls into the box, the passes went too far and were untouchable.

“The coach prepared us for exactly that game, that Dallas wouldn’t press us,” Lowen said, “that Dallas would sit on a low block, and that’s exactly what they did. They went a low block, and they were just waiting for chances that we gave to them, losing the balls easily, transition moments. Just individual mistakes that we could have easily prevented but we didn’t, and we made them stronger today. We tried a lot of long balls, chip balls in behind, but Dallas was prepared for it in a low block. We just couldn’t manage to create enough chances. And the chances we had, we didn’t finish them off.”

“We were missing that spark, I think, today,” Critchley said. “Typically, you’ll always, even in defeat, find one player, two players that maybe has a good game. But today, I just felt like we couldn’t get across the line with anyone’s performance being very strong. ... The objective for us was to attack their back three before it became a back five, and we just missed on those moments today. When it became a back five, we just need that little bit of spark, a little bit of creativity and magic from some of the players, and we were missing that as well.”

The game turned on two moments in the first half. In the fourth minute, Marcel Hartel got free for a shot that hit the underside of the crossbar but bounced away, costing City SC an early lead.

“If that ball goes in, it’s probably a completely different game and result,” Critchley said, “just by how we feel and maybe how they feel. This is where the game is played in such fine margins, and when luck isn’t on our side, like that moment, we just have to find away to keep creating and limit the opponents. But we weren’t good enough today.”

In the 24th minute, Dallas’ Peter Musa, who had two goals and an assist in the game, held a ball in the box long enough for single-name midfielder Kaick to run between two City SC players and one-time a pass to make it 1-0. And when that goal went in, it seemed to take all of City SC’s hopes with it.

“That was the exact moment where the game changed,” Critchley said. “When the goal went in, the entire shift went to them and away from us. That’s something that this group and we as a club have to improve on.”

“How many times has that been this season now,” Lowen said. “where we play really well, have a lot of control of the game, we have a lot of chances and suddenly we concede? It was the same last week. Thankfully, we got it turned around and won the game, but today, that didn’t happen.”

City SC kept it a one-goal game but seldom looked like it was going to equalize, and then Dallas scored in the 79th minute, when Timo Baumgartl, playing his first game back from a knee injury and clearly tiring as the game went on, got beat and Musa came in alone on Roman Burki to score. Then Dallas scored again on a penalty kick after Jaziel Orozco tripped a Dallas player in the box.

If there was anything encouraging, it was that Lowen went 45 minutes, and the next stop is him returning to the starting lineup.

“I would say last week I felt probably a little better,” said Lowen, playing his first road game sincw May 3, “because of the weather and the circumstances traveling. It was a weird feeling because I haven’t been traveling in a long time. It was a very nice experience being back with the team, and I definitely enjoyed that a lot but I will need some more minutes and some more games under my belt to feel like I’m in my best shape again.”