Houston hold off Columbus; take on slumping KC

Nate Jaqua saved the Dynamo off an 80th minute rebound as Houston drew Columbus 1-1. The Crew got a rare failure when trying to capture the title on the road. Former Dynamo striker A. Moreno got an early goal , his 2nd against his former club this season, but it was the only shot on goal for Columbus all game. In fact, there were only 13 total shots on goal, Houston only had 2 on goal and the first was the shot that rebounded to Jaqua for the equalizer.

Houston will now host the slumping KC Wizards. KC's last UMLSCC title was this fixture last year. J.Burciaga, Jr. got the game winner in the 90th minute. That KC win was the only time they have taken the title on the road against the Dynamo-Earthquake franchise. Houston(including in SJ) lead the home side of the series 3-1-2. Overall the series is all tied up at 4 wins each and the one draw.

KC will be looking for their 8th title. Of the active teams, KC is only ahead of RSL, TFC and Chivas. They trail DCU, Colorado and New England by 3 titles.

The same Saturday stats as last week are still in effect. But overall the highest occuring results are 1-1, 1-0 home win, 2-1 home win and 1-2 road win. The 1-1 result occurs 11.7% of the time.

As the home champion, Houston is 3-8-6; defend the title at a clip of 11 to 6. Kansas City is a 2-8-10 road challenger. Only New England and DCU are barely worse. Only NY has had more road challenger games. Houston is 13-15-11 at home overall while KC is 7-12-14 on the road overall.

Note: In the last nine games, the Title Holder has not been victorious in defense. The record is 15 games and was broken earlier this year when NY won as the title holder. The last holder that was vitorious was DC United 3-1 home win over Chicago on June 16th.