Before I get to the Groups G and H final games preview, let me go all Bruce Lee smackdown on this piece of crap article from MarketWatch. Read it first and then come back for my dismantlement.

The author is obviously a casual soccer fan at best. The very first paragraph contains a mistake so glaring as to make the rest of the article meaningless. "...the brave hope of seeing the world's most expensive athletes perform what their huge contracts are meant to deliver: great soccer." What the author seems to fail to realize or is deliberately overlooking is that those huge contracts that some of the players have are with their club teams not their national federations. Yes, the federations do pay bonuses and I assume that all of them do that but there are no actual contracts. The players are still owned by their clubs.

The second paragraph doubles down on the stupidity. His assertion is that fans are not getting their money's worth because the games are low-scoring, specifically 8 goals in 7 games. But his sample size is from the first 3 days of a month long tournament, the first seven games of a 64 game tournament. That's a pretty small sample. And anyone who knows anything about tournament soccer knows that teams are generally very conservative at the beginning. No one can afford to lose their first game. For example, had the USA lost their first game to England and all the rest of the results in the group had stayed the same, the US would have been out of the tournament. A couple more points, in those 7 games, there were 4 winners. So, more than a goal a game and more wins than ties. Finally, had he waited until the end of the first round the numbers would look like this: 25 goals in 16 games, 10 winners and 6 ties.

The third paragraph takes the stupidity to another level. The cannon fodder argument, this is a favorite of Eurosnobs. The idea is that teams are in the final 32 just to round out the numbers and the 32nd team has no chance against the 1st ranked team. And yes, it's true, I'd rather play Honduras than Germany, but once you're down to 32 teams out of an initial 204 there aren't any easy games... at least not with the globalization of soccer, which we'll get to soon. There is always an underdog and the reason you play the games is because sometimes the underdog wins or plays better than you would expect. Most people who use this argument would say New Zealand was cannon fodder, yet they tied Slovakia, Italy and Paraguay. Yeah, North Korea got destroyed by Portugal 7-0 but it was 1-0 at halftime and they only lost to mighty Brazil 2-1. On any given Sunday, my friend, on any given Sunday.

This just cracked me up: "The cup's diminishing quality is already 26 years old. The five tourneys since 1986" Uh, dude, 1986 was 24 years ago.

Then he goes on to point out high scoring finals of the past and compares that to the lower scoring finals of recent years. If you want to blame someone for that blame Italy, that's what they f*ing do. Oh, look, "...in the entire 2006 tournament, champion Italy scored a measly 12 goals...". Again, blame Italy, but also, how about this, in today's game England would have won the 1966 final 3-2 not 4-2 (they didn't use the golden goal rule then) and would have scored 10 for the whole tournament instead of 11. Or look at the 1962 tournament, Brazil scored 15 for the whole tournament but only 4 in group play, hey that's how many the USA has scored in group play in this tournament. If anything, those earlier scores prove that the cannon fodder argument is a thing of the past. Who wants to watch a 9-0 blowout like the Hungary-South Korea group play game of 1954 compared to the 1-0 USA-Algeria "breathtakingly exciting" game of this tournament, other than Hungarians? So teams have learned how to play defense and even the lower ranked teams in the tournament can get a result. Dude, your arguments are contradicting each other.

"Ultimately, if the game's fertility crisis is not treated, team owners will find that TV-broadcast rights, which currently earn even mediocre European clubs an annual $50 million, will dwindle. So will sponsorship and ad revenue and stadium attendances that currently yield ticket sales of $5 million and more per game.

What, then, is the cause of soccer's emerging decline..." Decline, what decline? The premise is that low-scoring games are causing "even mediocre European clubs [to earn] an annual $50 million"? I don't understand the math. There is no evidence presented to indicate that low-scoring games are cutting into club profits or that it is going to anytime in the future. Not to mention that, once again, club teams are not national teams.

What follows next is a lame, vomit-inducing, nearly xenophobic 500 words or so about how great everything was when most national team players played in their local leagues.

"The goals scored in soccer's golden age were not only numerous but also beautiful because teammates knew each other as closely as spouses and read each other as naturally as musicians in philharmonic orchestras.

Such players were well-acquainted because they played together regularly, and even when they were on opposing teams they still were parts of the same sporting ecosystem."

Ugh, puke. Seriously dude, that's just embarrassing. You really think Gattuso (AC Milan) and Criscito (Genoa) don't have to do some serious mental gymnastics not to kill each other because they are "parts of the same sporting ecosystem."? The author obviously has no idea of the rivalry between AC Milan and Genoa (not to say I know a whole lot either, I know it's a big rivalry but I don't really know well Gattuso or Criscito do or do not get along). I would say that not knowing your national team teammates may be more of an advantage in building team unity than overcoming local team rivalries and that time your new midfield partner broke your club teammate's ankle.

And finally we get to the solutions to a problem that not only does not exist but even if it did hasn't been proven or even adequately defined by the preceding drivel.

"FIFA, soccer's ultraconservative ruling body, may not be able to ban foreign ownership, but it can limit the number of foreign players allowed to play on a football club, and it can cap salaries and limit trades"

No, no it can't. FIFA has no control, whatsoever, over the business dealings of local leagues. And that's what those things are, business issues. The sentence doesn't even make sense on its own. If FIFA could limit the number of foreign players in each league and institute salary caps and limit trades why wouldn't it be able to ban foreign ownership? There may be a reason in the author's head but without telling us what it is the sentence just doesn't make sense.

"Proposals include enlarging the goal..." Has the author stood in a goal and tried to stop a shot? That thing is huge.

"...reducing the number of players on the pitch..." I want to watch a soccer game not a marathon.

"...limiting the number of defenders allowed in the area in front of their own goal..." I don't even know what to say about this idea. Seriously, what, why? I don't get it. How would that be enforced? Would it be a penalty kick or a free kick outside the box? Just idiotic.

And then, finally, we get to the usual argument of the uninitiated soccer viewer, get rid of the offside rule. Here's what that would do. Create an even more defensive low-scoring game. Teams would play with 6 or 7 defenders to counter the 1 or 2 offensive players standing next to the goal. Midfield play would be virtually non-existent, own goals would increase dramatically since there would be so many players in the box to bounce shots off of and most legitimate goals would be headers. It would have the opposite effect on opening up the game.

"If soccer's rules are not changed soon, private enterprise will eventually set up new-rules leagues, and those will begin to steal players, fans, advertisers and broadcasts from the once bewitching game..." Those new-rules leagues should definitely ask the USFL and XFL how they were so successful.

End tirade.