SEATTLE — With a heavily rotated lineup, FC Dallas nearly achieved its goal of getting out of Seattle with a point, but a Nicolas Lodeiro penalty kick in the 39th minute was the difference as the Seattle Sounders secured a 1-0 win over FCD at Lumen Field.

The result snaps a bit of good momentum FCD had generated with consecutive victories in the last two weeks.

FCD manager Nico Estévez made a number of changes with the quick turnaround from Saturday’s contest, and got good performances from a number of young players, but the team wasn’t able to stop the Sounders, the Concacaf Champions League winners who are still sputtering in league play, from securing a seventh home win of the season.

Estévez’s men remain in fourth place in the Western Conference, though they’ve also played more games than any other team in playoff contention.

Here are a few takeaways from tonight’s FCD loss in the first of two games in the Pacific Northwest:

Lumen Field midweek never was going to be easy

With only a pair of days between Saturday’s win over the LA Galaxy and Tuesday night’s contest, FCD was always going to have a big challenge getting any points from Seattle. That’s even more true when you consider FCD’s abysmal record at Lumen Field, where it is now winless in the last 16 matches.

Estévez made five changes from Saturday’s team and likely will rotate more when the team visits the Portland Timbers on Saturday. But he still approached the game in a cagey way, effectively ending the game with something resembling his typical starting XI, getting key players like forward Jesus Ferreira and winger Paul Arriola rest while also having them run at the Sounders for the latter portion of the game.

But the Sounders were able to counter with their own impressive firepower as star forward Raul Ruidiaz made his return from injury in the 65th minute to occupy FCD’s back line.

Ferreira’s 86th-minute header had the makings of an equalizer, but Stefan Frei was able to get to it and make an impressive stop, keeping the clean sheet and helping the Sounders to three points.

It’s a result that still will sting for FCD, but one perhaps fans saw coming from a glance at the fixture list before the season.

You take the bad with the good with a confident goalkeeper

Maarten Paes was feeling himself heading into Tuesday’s game. The FCD starting goalkeeper was coming off consecutive clean sheets, the most recent of which he protected with a penalty save against the LA Galaxy.

But he didn’t want to be standing on his line facing another penalty just days later, especially not with a penalty of his own making. In the 36th minute, the Sounders played a ball they’d been trying in the first half-hour with Nico Lodeiro seeking out the head of Jordan Morris at the edge of the 18-yard area. This one had just the effect the Sounders were looking for with Paes caught coming out for the ball as Morris beat the defender to it.

The Dutchman had two choices: Take Morris out or retreat, make himself as big as possible and hope Morris erred with the shot.

He went for the former and conceded an obvious penalty. After giving kick-taker Lodeiro a fist-bump and squaring up to try and make the stop, Paes dove to his left as the Uruguayan sent the shot to the right for the game’s only goal.

He came up big in the 85th minute as Nouhou broke away from his left-back position and had a clean shot on goal. He also saved a dangerous free kick shortly after conceding to make sure FCD still had a chance to get back into the game in the second 45 minutes.

You’d rather have a confident goalkeeper than one who is struggling to be decisive, even if it leads to a goal or two being conceded. Paes will look at the tape from this one and feel he could’ve had a better game, but FCD won’t doubt they have security at the back.

Velasco must seize future chances to dominate matches

In the 77th minute, FCD winger Alan Velasco progressed the ball down the wing and slipped in between a pair of defenders to put in a cross. But the final ball was to no one, cleared easily by the Sounders at the back post.

That was far too frequently a feature of Velasco’s match Tuesday night.

Velasco, who last week celebrated his 20th birthday, is still adjusting to MLS. He’s hardly a bust at this point, and he’s done more small things right than wrong.

Yet, there are expectations that come with being a designated player and the team’s record signing. With Arriola and Ferreira sitting, this was the type of game FCD needed the Argentine to take control of, especially starting alongside friend and countryman Franco Jara.

Instead, Velasco failed to link up cleanly with the forward and connected only three wing to wing passes with Jader Obrian.

He’s now played more than 1,500 MLS minutes. Velasco needs to have the confidence to go into his bag of tricks and pull out something special like he did with his debut goal. It could just be the spark FCD needs to turn games like Tuesday’s into unexpected victories.

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