I don't agree with everything you said but some has some merit. Let's dissect...
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I've said it before and gotten blasted here, but if you want to see why soccer isn't as popular in the US as many think it should be, look no further than tonight.
Two hours of play and they mustered three goals.
First was a brilliant goal but off a soft penalty.
Second was an own goal.
Third and deciding goal was a joke.
So zero good goals in the run of play in two hours, Denmark bunkered in for the last 45 minutes basically making it like watching paint dry, players acting like they were trying out to play JFK in a Zapruder film remake when they were so much as touched, and again, had the awful call not been made, it would have been decided on 10 one on one plays that involve one tenth of the skill of the game. And this in a tournament where there have already been 11 own goals.
Part of the reason here is that we are discussing A) an international tourney and B) one of significance to those involved. In international play, because the players generally get limited time together (exception being the teams that pull most of their players from 2-3 clubs) so tactics tend to be a bit simplified and teams all tend to play a little more defensively (ALOT of 3/5 at the back this year). Add in the fact that the Euro's are more significant to these teams than anything other than a World Cup and you get a number of players/teams that are playing to avoid bad mistakes. On top of that you are making your assessment based on a team that is punching above it's talent (Denmark got that far on emotion) and a team that can't pull the trigger in the final 3rd (England has more touches per shot than any team in the tourney).
For me the OG number is interesting but for the most part a non-factor. Many (like the one from Den/Eng) would have been scored by the offensive player had the defender not been in position. There are always mistakes but it is hard to fault a CB/FB that accidently deflects the ball in the net when he is busting his butt to make sure a forward doesn't get it first.
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First have a review of every game for dives to be completed within 24 hours. If someone is found to have dived, yellow for mediocre offense, red for a bad one, Stuff would end tomorrow. It's the worst part of the game.
Get your sentiment but an after the fact review does no good. If VAR and/or assistant refs aren't reviewing for dives then there is no point. The solution to curbing dives is to make the penalty more harsh. Right now refs won't pull out a card unless the dive is very egregious or a player does it multiple times in a game. There needs to be some sort of penalty EVERY time a player dives, especially when someone acts like their leg is broken but the jump up 30 sec later like nothing happened.
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While it didn't help much this year, keep the allowance of additional subs.
I have no issue keeping the additional subs. Understand the strategy associated with 3 subs but I agree that sticking with 5 subs could help maintain a similar strategy while allowing more excitement (fresh legs) in games.
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Allow indirect free kicks in the box on those plays at the discretion of the ref.
No clue what you are referring to here.
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Get rid of the offsides rule. If a guy is sitting back cherry picking, that's still him and a defender miles from the play, which opens up the field.
I've played and watched soccer for 30+ yrs. While I tend to side with those that lean towards tradition, offsides is one of the few rules of soccer that I would have no issue getting rid of. It is by far the most complicated rule to explain to anyone and it is very difficult to call correctly for a line judge. As I see it, I would be ok with one of 2 options...
Option 1 - Do away with offsides completely. Make the entire field a free for all. The positives is that the games will be more open and should create more goals. The biggest negative is that defenders and defensive strategy as we know it would be significantly changed/marginalized.
Option 2 - Change to a hockey style fixed offsides line. Basically, as an offensive player you are not allowed to cross the line until the ball has crossed the line. You could use the current "ball is played" concept but that maintains some of the current "fuzziness" of whether a player is offsides or not.
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Accurately capture extra time, which would seriously curtail time wasting. I saw a study that the average game has 14 minutes, and only about five are added.
I'm back and forth on this. When I was in high school in TX for UIL events, we always played in football stadiums with a scoreboard. In those games the refs worked with the scoreboard guy and would stop the clock during a defined stoppage. Typically the ref would signal him to stop/start the clock. When the clock eventually hit zero, the half was over. While it's not perfect, everyone (players, fans, coaches) knows where the time stands and there is not argument with the ref's discretion about when to blow the final whistle.
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Put in a rule for red card offenses that they can be seen off for 20 minutes or some other number depending on the severity of the offense, Because deciding the game on one call ruins it. Ask Sweden. If it's in the first half, the best you can hope for is 70 minutes of "heroic" bunkering, with the team with 11 winning something like 90 percent of the time.
The dude from Sweden deserved the red that was a very dangerous play. That said, I think there is an argument to be made to change the way cards are handled. Best idea I've heard is to change to a 3 card (yellow, red, blue) system. The general concept is that physical fouls that are currently yellow or red would stay as such and professional (pulling jersey to stop a breakaway) and unprofessional (diving) would get the "blue" card. Those that receive a blue card have to leave the field for X min (hockey style) while their team plays a man down. If a player receives multiple blue cards per game the length of penalty time increases until they have received so many that they earn a red.
