Can you honestly say you expected the Yanks to win this one? Well, after the 5-1 hammering dealt to Scotland perhaps US fans had good reason to. Reality check friends...Brazil is way better than Scotland. Let us mow through some random thoughts together about the team and the game!

Defense: Timid on the ball, dynamic outside

Oguchi Onyewu's size may no longer offset his liability.

This week is all about returning to winning ways for the New England Revolution as they prepare to welcome the Chicago Fire to the friendly confines of Gillette Stadium on Saturday night. New England followed up a tough 3-2 loss to DC last Saturday with an unthinkable loss to the Harrisburg City Islanders on penalty kicks at midweek.

We at The Bent Musket haven't had a chance to address this, so I will use this space. On behalf of everyone who writes with me here, our thoughts and prayers go out to Jay Heaps and his family after the tragedy of losing his mother last week. I can't even fathom how he has had the strength and fortitude to do what work he has been able to do during this time, including being on the sidelines for last weekend's match against DC.

Today we try to return to your regularly scheduled morning dose of Musket Rounds. Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of Revolution news out there, other than stuff pertaining to Tuesday night's Open Cup debacle, which we are finally ready to talk about, I guess. Oh, and there was some kind of soccer game in Maryland last night, too.

Jeremiah Oshan penned this for dot-com recently. It took a lot of work that no one is going to properly appreciate for him to come up with these stats and figures, and then analyze, so I wanted to share it with all of you.

The first promise I made to myself when I decided to take my writing a little more seriously was to always remain objective at even the most difficult of times. While writing with emotion may always be the best course of action in my music career, it's not a good path to take in sports journalism.

After every match this season, the staff here at The Bent Musket will be putting together player ratings. Ratings are on a 1-10 scale, with 5 representing a thoroughly average performance, and 6 a decent/capable showing. The final ratings will be averages of individual ratings from Steve Stoehr, Corey Major, Matty Jollie, Abram Chamberlain, and Brendan Schimmel.

If Jay Heaps was "flipping mad" last week over set pieces, I wonder how he's feeling after this one. Before long, teams are really going to get smart to the fact that we are totally incapable of defending on set pieces, if they haven't already. That and also the fact that Saer Sene cannot use his right foot in the box.

Believe it or not, the New England Revolution and the Harrisburg City Islanders have a history of playing each other. While not a rivalry by any stretch of the imagination, the City Islanders are 1-1 all time against New England in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, having lost to the Revs 1-2 in 2008 and then beaten them 2-1 in 2009.

On a hot and sticky night in the nation's capitol the New England Revolution fell to heated Eastern Conference rival D.C. United 3-2 after surrendering two woeful set-piece goals in the first half.

Saer Sene and A.J. Soares both found the scoresheet for New England in a wildly entertaining second half, but it was once again poor positioning and overall team defending that denied the Revs an important result on the road.

The New England Revolution are prepared to take on D.C. United at crumbling old RFK Stadium tonight. The Revs are trying to avenge their only home loss of the season, which came at the hands of D.C. about a month ago. United, meanwhile, are looking to continue a good run of form that has seen them leap to second place in the Eastern Conference.

The New England Revolution have made the time-honored trip down the interstate to the Nation's Capital to take on D.C. United Saturday night at RFK Stadium. The Revs are looking to avenge their only home loss of the season, which came at the hands of D.C., while United is looking to continue a recent streak of good form that has propelled them into second place in the Eastern Conference.

The New England Revolution will have to put last week's disappointing home draw with Houston far behind them as they travel to the nation's capital to take on D.C. United at RFK Stadium. Despite the Houston draw, New England is in decent form, having recently beaten Colorado and Vancouver before the Dynamo draw.

It's the day before matchday, folks! The New England Revolution are likely already in DC preparing to return the favor of a home loss to United after Chris Pontius stole a point from the Revs a few weeks ago at Gillette. Meanwhile, in the world of soccer, there have been some interesting developments.

While most MLS fans and pundits have watched the advancement of the MLS development academy system with an eye toward grooming players for promotion to their respective professional teams, one important side-effect to a well-run academy system has often been overlooked: youth players who leave academies for opportunities overseas rather than staying local.