So the United States has been eliminated from World Cup soccer.

Whew! Now the nation can get back to investing its emotions into more worthy sporting ventures -- including the remainder of the NASCAR's three 2010 national touring series. It could be argued that there was more action in the opening laps of last Saturday's New England 200 Nationwide Series race than there was in the entire U.S.-Ghana World Cup debacle. At least Danica Patrick spun out, courtesy of Morgan Shepherd.

Then again, I'm no soccer guy. And don't call it football in my house. The only football I watch regularly -- at least with any degree of real understanding and passion -- is of the National Football League variety.

That doesn't mean I'm not patriotic or that I wasn't rooting for the U.S. last Saturday (even though I was playing closer attention to two other sports events playing out on separate television screens in my beloved Man Cave, including the aforementioned Nationwide race).

But here is why soccer has never caught on in America: We like our sports rough, and we like to be able to see tangible results immediately. A 0-0 draw doesn't do much to get the blood boiling, nor does a 2-1 overtime loss on the world stage in the "knockout" Round of 16 in the World Cup.

Give me Juan Montoya beating and banging against Jeff Gordon any day, or even Jeff Burton inadvertently taking out Kyle Busch. Both those incidents spiced up Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301, the Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway that came on the heels of Saturday's Nationwide event.

Why is NASCAR so popular in this country, especially amongst self-described average Americans who often, not by coincidence, shun soccer? Humpy Wheeler, the former long-time track president at Charlotte Motor Speedway, once insisted that it was for the same essential reasons that Americans long ago embraced their own brand of football over the rest of the world's. It's fast; it's violent or at least packs plenty of implied violence that could break out at any instant; it's frequently action-packed.

Sorry, but soccer strikes out on all three qualities by comparison. (Continued)