We know Steve Nicol stands to lose one quality player, who will it be? (Getty Images)

While the rest of the world is waiting for a couple World Cup qualifiers to finish up here we move forward here with our expansion draft coverage. Earlier in the day we discussed the LA Galaxy, now we take a gander at the New England Revolution.

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Shalrie Joseph lead the way for the Revs in 2009. (Getty Images)

Sometimes less is more, and in the case of the 2009 edition of the New England Revolution less nearly became a lot. If you would have told me that the Revs would have lacked both Steve Ralston and Taylor Twellman for the majority of the season and still made the playoffs this year I would have called you crazy.

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Eastern Conference Semifinals - First Leg
New England Revolution vs Chicago Fire
Sun., Nov. 1, Gillette Stadium (2 p.m. ET; FSC/FSE)

DF Chris Albright (L lateral meniscus tear); MF Steve Ralston (R ACL tear); FW Taylor Twellman (concussion)

That is pretty much the meats and bones of the team gone there.

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When I posted my expansion draft preview recently, the subject that stirred up the most debate was this one. Anyone who's followed MLS for a number of years knows that it's a bit of a mystery. When exactly do Generation Adidas players graduate, and what are the criteria?
Basically, players are supposed to graduate when they no longer need the roster protection that it provides. Click to continue reading...

Going into tonight's game Rev's should have a healthy roster, with the biggest question mark hanging over Edgar Jankauskus. From the Revs Blog

INJURY REPORT (As of Tuesday, September 1)

New England Revolution

PROBABLE: Brad Knighton (lumbar disc irritation), Kenny Mansally (L ankle sprain), Matt Reis (R leg contusion)

QUESTIONABLE: Edgaras Jankauskas (L adductor strain)

OUT: Chris Albright (L lateral meniscus tear/bone bruising), Taylor Twellman (Disabled List: concussion)

Kansas City Wizards

DOUBTFUL: Matt Marquess (knee strain)

OUT: Eric Kronberg (shoulder surgery), Kevin Souter (sports hernia surgery)

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MLS returns to the Northwest as the New England Revolution visit Qwest Field to face the Seattle Sounders tonight. The game will be carried live on ESPN2 at 10 p.m. EST, making it back-to-back nights that ESPN has carried an MLS match.

It's a vital matchup for both sides, as Seattle try to keep pace with the Galaxy side they soundly beat at the Home Depot Center last Saturday.

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Below is the link to an excerpt of the much-anticipated "The Beckham Experiment" by Grant Wahl-
The Morton's dinner was the first time Beckham had held center stage at a players-only meal, and he came out of his shell, answering questions and telling stories about his days with Manchester United, the English national team and Real Madrid. Click to continue reading...

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                                                                              Photo by ISIphotos.com

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By CARL SETTERLUND

The losses have stopped for the New England Revolution, at least for now, but victories are still proving extremely difficult to find for a short-handed Revs team lacking firepower.

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Despite scoring in the third minute, putting eight shots on goal and taking 10 corner kicks, the Colorado Rapids were held to a tie by the injury-riddled New England Revolution on Saturday at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass.

Steve Ralston's penalty kick 18 minutes into the game was enough for the Revs to salvage a tie.

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Big games in Europe this week for Michael Bradley and Oguchi Onyewu, quarterfinals in Mexico and a bunch of relegtaion places on the line over the weekend. MLS has a matchup of conference leaders on Fox Soccer Channel.
Friday Football Fare also wraps up the weekdays with a look at ongoing tournaments and the Tweets of the Week. Click to continue reading...

Miss anything this weekend? Fear not. Read up ...
MLS
- Toronto FC beats Chivas USA (1-0) for the first time; Chivas USA loses the first time this season, a victim of the USA TODAY jinx.
- Kansas City beats New York 1-0 on an early PK as Carlos Johnson picks up his second red card in quick succession. Click to continue reading...

The Revs will be without their experienced defender for at least six weeks The New England Revolution have announced that defender Chris Albright has undergone successful surgery on the lateral meniscus in his left knee. The procedure was performed this morning by head team physician Dr. Bertram Zarins at Massachusetts General Hospital.

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The injury New England defender Chris Albright suffered in training in the run-up to last Saturday's game with DC United required surgery. Albright underwent a successful operation earlier today to repair the lateral meniscus in his left knee. After appearing in the Revolution's home opener, Albright has missed the rest of the club's games. Click to continue reading...

Some highlights you have to see:
- Donovan Ricketts saves and Landon Donovan crosses to salvage a draw for Los Angeles.
- Kevin Goldthwaite, following up a witty performance in SI's Pop Culture grid, clears the ball in spectacular fashion for the Red Bulls. Click to continue reading...

The rash fouls and referee rants started early in MLS this year.

There were seven sending offs this past weekend in relatively unimportant MLS match-ups. In the contest between the hapless Galaxy and Chivas USA, the referee red-carded LA's US international star Gregg Berhalter in his MLS debut for hauling down a player with a clear goal-scoring opportunity, and ejected the Galaxy's Alan Gordon (dissent) and Chivas' Paulo Nagamura with two yellow cards apiece.

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I'm not sure what's going on in revs land but it all seems to be about food as of late. The other day TT, Albright & a few others were getting all Emril on us and making mustard crusted rack of lamb served with goat cheese stacked potatoes and pink peppercorn au jus, which sounds infinitely better than the stadium dog & soggy nachos they serve at Gillette. Click to continue reading...

Even with a few key returning players from injury, the Revs still didn't fare any better Saturday in Columbus.

Taylor Twellman was back up top and Michael Parkhurst and Chris Albright returned to the midfield, but it wasn't enough to stop the Crew from winning, 4-0 – matching the Revs 4-0 Champions League loss on Tuesday -- and moving five points ahead of New England in the standings.

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Chivas USA 1, Tauro FC (Panama) 1 - Tauro advance 3-1 on aggregate

That score from last night is an attention-grabber, isn't it? MLS has invested a lot of effort in playing up a rivalry with Mexico as the best league in this part of the world, so a loss to a team from Panama -- which ranks somewhere below Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador in terms of international achievement -- isn't at all what the league would want.

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The New England Revolution fell 4-0 to Joe Public F.C. on Tuesday completing a 6-1 aggregate defeat at the hands of their Trinidadian opponents.
The loss marks the first time an MLS team has been eliminated from CONCACAF competition by a Caribbean opponent and it is also the first time an MLS team has give up three or more goals to Caribbean opposition. Click to continue reading...

Or at least they are tied with the 2006 team as the worst ever.

By running their winless streak to 10 games with a 2-2 tie Saturday against the New England Revolution, the Galaxy tied the mark for the longest winless stretch in club history, first set in 2006 when the Galaxy went 0-8-2 from May 6 until June 24.

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*While I've been columnizing much of the day, plenty of other stuff is going on in the soccer world with one highlight being former Galaxy defender Chris Albright slamming departed Galaxy Coach Ruud Gullit at SI.com:

"My thought was that he'd be gone by midway through this year - I thought that two days after meeting him," said the 29-year-old defender, who was part of the Galaxy squad that made preseason trips to Australia and New Zealand.

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The New England Revolution lost their third straight game falling 4-0 to the last place San Jose Earthquakes Saturday night, in a game starting goalkeeper Matt Reis left due to injury.

Averaging just .75 goals per game entering the match, the Earthquakes put up their best offensive performance of the year and matched the Revs worst loss of the season.

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Those that said that last night's SuperLiga final would be a glorified friendly had no idea what they were talking about. At Gillette Stadium, New England and Houston put on a thrilling, intense, physical, advertisement for American soccer that ended in the eighth round of penalty kicks when the Dynamo's Corey Ashe hit the crossbar with his attempt, giving the Revs the SuperLiga title. Click to continue reading...

A couple of defensive mistakes from the New England forced them to come from behind in both regulation and extra time, but the Revs fought back both times and eventually took the match to penalty kicks. Once there the team fell behind again, but this time came back and after 8 rounds emerged victorious 6-5 to claim the SuperLiga Championship. Click to continue reading...

What was supposed to have been a battle for the right to play for the SuperLiga final instead turned into, well, a battle.
Atlante vs. New England in a battle royale. Vilar versus Heaps. Atlante assistant versus Albright. Disgrace versus Revolution.
The match itself was not the greatest display of soccer. Click to continue reading...

New England earned a shot at the 2008 SuperLiga million dollar prize Wednesday night with a victory over Atlante.
A Shalrie Joseph header was the only difference in the win over the Mexican league side, setting up an all American final against MLS rivals Houston Dynamo, but the result took a back seat to the final minutes and subsequent post game melee. Click to continue reading...

Here we go, with the game to decide the second finalist of the SuperLiga. The telenovela is ending, and Paloma's heart has been broken because she has just returned (from a kidnapping?) to find the love of her life has married. Or maybe it's a lie, but too late, the game is starting.
The announcers focus on the midfield, saying Shalrie Joseph is key for the Revs. Click to continue reading...

Horrible field (and you thought Home Depot Center was bad), horrible half.

It would be an understatement to say scoring chances were few and far between - they were virtually non-existent.

The best scoring chance came just before half time, Jesse Marsch blasting a shot from about 20 yards that required the hands of a diving Matt Reis to push around the post.

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Welcome to the beautiful Titan Stadium for tonight's SuperLiga (and I use the word beautiful loosely). I tried to get pictures of both teams before the match but only New England gathered for a team shot. Perhaps Chivas players were too focused on the game...
Here are the starting lineups:
Chivas: Dan Kennedy; Carey Talley, Claudio Suarez, Bobby Burling, Francisco Mendoza; Sacha Kljestan, Daniel Paladini, Jesse Marsch, Jonathan Bornstein; Ante Razov, Roberto Nurse. Click to continue reading...

Five changes to the Chivas USA starting lineup from the team that faced Santos Laguna Wednesday (or as one press box observer said, the A team is back).

Dan Kennedy is in goal, while Claudio Suarez and Bobby Burling return in central defense, Cary Talley is at right back and Pancho Mendoza at left back (although he and left half Jonathan Bornstein have been switching off in recent games and presumably could again).

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"So I grabbed him by both shoulders and shook him real hard ya know, like a you were mixing drinks for the hot tub. Then I told him "Don't struggle, I need this. Every since I got traded from Beckham's team it hasn't been the same. I just want to feel like I am someboday again...dammit, I want to be a hero to somebody again! Click to continue reading...

"So I grabbed him by both shoulders and shook him real hard ya know, like a you were mixing drinks for the hot tub. Then I told him "Don't struggle, I need this. Every since I got traded from Beckham's team it hasn't been the same. I just want to feel like I am someboday again...dammit, I want to be a hero to somebody again! Click to continue reading...

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- A depleted New England Revolution squad exchanged chances with Pachuca for 90 minutes without either side finding the back of the net, before Khano Smith buried a penalty kick deep into stoppage time to give the Revs a 1-0 win in their second SuperLiga game on Wednesday.

The Revs all but ensured they will advance to the SuperLiga Semifinals, but all the positives of the night were overshadowed by Pat Phelan, who was knocked unconscious and taken off the field on a stretcher before heading to the hospital.

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The Eastern Conference (and MLS) leading Revolution (9-4-3) visit the Western Conference leading Galaxy (6-5-3) tonight seeking to extend their undefeated streak over L.A. to eight regular season games, a record that dates back to April 2004.

The Galaxy haven't lost an Independence Day game since 2001, however, so it appears something has to give.

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*The U.S. Women's National Team is playing Norway right now. The truly fanatical can follow along on MatchTracker here.

*The Revolution plays the Galaxy Friday marking the first time former Los Angeles defender Chris Albright has played his old team since his trade to New England.

"I was kind of hurt by it.

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