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David Marcus's post is one of the most doofus reactions I've seen yet. He puffs himself up as a fan of soccer. He then labors through his journey of disillusion, during which it slowly dawns on him that the top women soccer players aren't as fast as the top male soccer players.

I could have saved him the time and effort and told him that up front.

He then goes on to make the same criticism of MLS soccer in the U.S. The men's game in the U.S. isn't (yet) up to the top European standards.

I could have told him that up front as well.

So basically, Marcus is simply announcing that he is a soccer snob. He enjoys only the very elite play in the very best men's leagues. Ok, that's a reasonable viewing preference. But he's writing off 99.99 percent of soccer, and 100 percent of women's sports, as unworthy of his attention.

When he tries to turn this into a concrete criticism of the play in the Women's World Cup, he sounds foolish. He says he doesn't see the women play with the same blazing speed as the men? So what? In a game situation, speed is relative. The fastest women players have the same advantage over their peers in their games as do the fastest men in theirs. If he's never seen one of the top women strikers explode to the ball, split a seam, and score on a breakaway … well, he's not watched enough women's soccer to know what he's talking about.

I just hope we don't have to watch the French strikers doing this to the U.S. defense in a couple of weeks, because France has the speed to do it. But Marcus will miss it. He'll be too busy watching Messi reruns.

As to the lack of parity, as evidenced by the U.S.'s 13-0 win … I don't know what the record is in the men's World Cup; perhaps someone who knows his way around the stats can find that. A quick google search did turn up one game, during 2012 World Cup qualifying, in which Australia beat American Samoa 31-0, with Australia's top scorer, Archie Thompson, scoring 13 goals himself. That was in qualifying, not the tournament itself, but that's incidental.

The point here is striking a balance in a championship tournament between inclusiveness and competitive balance. The NCAA men's basketball tournament has grown too big for my liking; at this point, it would be better just to let everyone play in an open, unrestricted tournament. It would add a week to the tournament; just shorten the overgrown regular season by a week to compensate. (Get rid of the conference tournaments, which would no longer be relevant as a selection device for the NCAA's.) There would be some truly ugly first and second round massacres, but that's ok. I grew up in Indiana back before Indiana high school basketball was ruined by a class structure for the state tournament. The tournament used to be open, and the little schools enjoyed their crack at the big guys. They knew they weren't going to win … but there was always the Milan Miracle to remember, and every year, a couple of little rural schools would upset their big county seat rival, which made it all worthwhile.

In women's soccer, the dividing line is between countries and regions that have strong professional leagues vs. those who don't. The amateurs will rarely beat the pros. The very best young athletes can play college soccer somewhere, and the U.S. is a training ground through college for many of the rising stars in Latin America, Africa and Asia. (You might have noticed Alex Morgan consoling a young Thai player after the match; the Thai girl was, like Morgan, a Cal Berkley grad, so there was some alma mater stuff going on.) The good European and Asian countries have developed strong leagues. But elsewhere the strong players don't have anywhere to develop, or even to play regularly and stay in training, after college.

I don't have a problem with a tournament leaning towards inclusiveness, even though it will produce some mismatches. The Thailand soccer federation will go home with a very clear idea of the gap it faces, and they will know exactly what they have to do to make up ground. There's nothing wrong with that. And if you asked them if they want to participate next time around, or would rather stay home rather than risk getting blown out by the big guys … I think you know how they'd answer.