Let's face it: America just doesn't do soccer.

We just don't get it. The rest of world declares public holidays to watch matches and riots in the streets follow games for any number of reasons (wins, losses, poor refereeing, idiocy), but we here in the US of A are far more concerned with Big Ben's face.

And, yes, I do mean the quarterback, though I suppose you could parallel America's interest in what the rest of the world calls football to our collective interest in London's most notable landmark.

Our ambivalence to the world's most popular sport is probably best summed up by the fact that we decided to be the only blokes to refer to it as soccer and then name our favorite sport football. Why we did that is anybody's guess. Maybe we wanted to rebel. Maybe we wanted to fit in — "Hey, everybody else loves football. Now, so do we!" Who knows?

But, without question, we are about as successful as Tom is at catching Jerry when it comes to soccer.

After watching the World Cup, I'd like to think there is one more reason why. We aren't weenies.

Sadly — no, tragically — what will stick with me most from this World Cup is how the rest of the world plays soccer like our first-graders do. Falling all over the place, writhing in pain and crying for their mommies whenever another player so much as looks at the ball.

The worst is how half of them get carried off the field in a stretcher and come bouncing off the field inside of a minute — with no shame.

This is why we Americans are so bad at soccer.

If we want to compete with the rest of the world, what we should do is comprise a team solely of WWE professional wrestlers. Dennis Rodman can join the team, too. Oh, and so can Vlade Divac and Manu Ginobili if they are eligible.

Then we would be better equipped to play the game the way it was meant to be played, which means if you are going to get burned, fall down and act like the opposing player just knifed you.

It means making like the Hindenburg every time you have the ball stripped from you, and it means having to kick the ball out of bounds and allow the other team to set up and get back into position every time an opposing player goes down with a torn ACL — oops, wait a minute, it's just one of those 20-second cramps.

However, we in the U.S. have it all wrong. We have our best player dragged off the field for stitches after having an elbow open a geyser above his eyebrow, and then return to the pitch faster than most of the sallies being stretched off of it.

That is the American spirit. We like to be tough, rugged and generally just intimidating. And while that is the more honorable, respectable and reasonable way to play the game, it isn't going to net you many free kicks and penalty shots, or stop half as many soccer fast breaks (what do you call a fast break in soccer?).

No, what it leaves you with is four shots on goal, one measly point out of a possible nine and a first class ticket back to the States and humiliation.

I'm not exactly proud of the Team USA's performance. I mean, Landon Donovan was terrible and should not play internationally again, while Claudio Reyna showed his age and the team in general was very uninspiring, with the exception of Bryan McBride and Clint Dempsey.

But I am proud that Team USA didn't drop down to the level of our opponents and play like — cue the Governator — girlie men.

At the very least it gives some insight as to why our football hasn't taken the rest of the planet by storm just yet.

Could you imagine Patrick Surtain or Deion Sanders curling up in the fetal position in an attempt to draw a penalty every time they are burned on a deep route? Or how obnoxious it would be to have an entire offensive line fall to the ground feigning eye-pokes whenever Jason Taylor closed in for a sack?

It would be unmanly, unflattering and unabashedly shameful — just un-American, at least in the athletic, sporting sense.

Personally, I would be just fine being the Kansas City Royals of the soccer world, so long as our boys didn't resort to such tactics. Unless we really do let the Hulkster and the Macho Man play for us, because that would just be hilarious.