It has come to our attention at Journal Sports headquarters that there are somewhere between two and seven people left in the United States who do not have a wild case of summer soccer fever. They are choosing instead to be grouchy holdouts, despite a valiant performance by the U.S. men's national team in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, which has produced record domestic television ratings, as well as a revival of the lost art of drinking on weekday afternoons.

This soccer-loathing behavior is known as Irrational Soccer Crankiness, aka ISC, and its symptoms include mild mouth frothing, screaming at birds and mailboxes, agitated commentary on social-media platforms, uncontrollable night sobbing, fear of puppet shows, and, in a few cases, newspaper columns. But ISC is treatable. As the commercials go, if you know someone who is suffering, here's how to intervene, and build a happy, healthy soccer fan in time for Tuesday's U.S.-Belgium game.

Soccer complaint: Soccer is boring.

"Soccer is boring" is the "Stairway to Heaven" of the Irrational Soccer Crank's argument. Talk to a crank long enough, you're going to hear those familiar notes. But in this thrilling World Cup—with so many absurdly close and passionate contests—it sounds whiny, like complaining that this mac and cheese isn't the good mac and cheese. Can soccer be boring? Sure. So can a Liam Neeson movie! And let's not forget that seismic Journal story which revealed that an NFL game contains 11 minutes of action. That's right: A 3½-hour NFL game is mostly people standing around and talking. You'd have to watch almost nine NFL games to see all the action you see in a single soccer game. If you follow the New York Jets, you do not want to watch almost nine NFL games.

Soccer is not boring. You know what is boring? That destination wedding you have to go to at the end of this month. You're going to be sitting there listening to the sixth rehearsal dinner toast to the groom from an ex-college roommate, and you are going to wish you had some sweet delicious soccer to watch.