Despite being 10 spots higher in the standings, San Diego FC’s players and coach weren’t 10 spots more talented than 11th-place Houston Dynamo Saturday night.

In talent, the teams appeared even, and in individual brilliance, the 11th-place club was better.

A German wing accelerated like a Tesla. An Argentine defender channeled countryman Messi for a few seconds. The outbursts netted two Dynamo goals, quieting an announced crowd of 28,231 in Mission Valley, as fans saw the 11th-place team wasn’t a bunch of stiffs.

So in addition to the 4-3 loss that nearly kicked them out of first place in the Western Conference, the San Diego newbies walked off with a renewed appreciation of what’s what in wacky MLS.

Scattered performances such as Saturday’s, they saw, will prevent them from going where they want to go. Unless the first-year club maintains the surprising cohesion that took it up the 15-team ladder, bigger successes won’t be coming.

Western Conference semifinalists two years ago who understand the league’s rhythms and that first-place in July means nothing, the Dynamo showed SDFC isn’t talented enough to freelance its way to a first-round playoff bye. Or, if it loses its grip on its teamwork, talented enough to get anywhere near the MLS Cup.

The lesson of the football match is the same team-sport truth that a legendary coach of American football harped on.

“The Team, The Team, The Team!” preached Michigan’s Bo Schembechler.

None of these realities — the league’s slim talent margins, the imperatives of teamwork, collective discipline and drive — were unknown to either SDFC coach Mikey Varas or his players before the defeat.

But they were hammered home in this nominal “11-vs.-1” match.

Allowing a season-high four goals, the last one due to a broad defensive lapse, was an affirmation of humility less than it was a humbling. Varas used that word — humility — four times in his postgame comments.

“If we want to do great things, unbelievable things, humility is the root of those things,” he said. “Humility is the root of greatness. And we have to be together in everything we do.

“It was too clearly not collective tonight.”

Within the long MLS season that’s interspersed with international windows and condensed stretches of travel, many teams’ aptitude can shift like the wind.

On this night, Houston got a high-end goal from a speedster, Lawrence Ennali, who was in his first start since his knee gave out last August. A go-ahead goal by Argentine defender Franco Escobar was so slick, coach Ben Olsen cracked he couldn’t “take credit for Franco beating two guys and shooting it off the bar.”

The two-goal night by Argentine striker Ezequiel Ponce and his goal in the prior match, the coach implied, was a long time coming.

“I know he’s been getting a lot of stick for not putting up the numbers that, you know, a big-money player does,” said Olsen, who also said: “It was our best performance to date.”

Varas couldn’t have been surprised by Houston’s Argentines accounting for three goals. Praising Argentina’s football culture before this season, the coach said it was a great gift to attend football practices in the country.

Varas, who questioned whether he’d prepared his players well, said SDFC achieved its team style for only about 15 or 20 of the 90 minutes Saturday.

Jeppe Tverskov, SDFC’s defensive midfielder and captain, bought that the two clubs were similar in talent. He agreed that SDFC won’t like the results if it repeats its disjointed approach. “We are good because we are good as a team. That’s one hundred percent correct. This is hopefully a one-off,” he said.

The answer will come Saturday in Chicago, when SDFC faces the Fire, who, as it happens, are ninth in the Eastern Conference.