I'm going to go ahead and admit to being a huge "Twilight" fan.

The books, not the movies.

On Wednesday, the third installment of the movie series came out, and I'm sure I'll see "Eclipse" once the Team Edward and Team Jacob loving tweens, teens and their moms settle down a bit.

But honestly, I approach the whole thing feeling resignation tinged with hope. The books were not fantastic literature. They were fun reads. But the movies have been awful, mostly cringe-worthy, so bad they're good kind of experiences with small, promising moments.

I'm relating all this to the surge of hope and optimism and maybe-this-will-finally-be-the-year sentiment that I see every four years from U.S. soccer fans, international soccer fans living in the U.S. and sports broadcasters filling the time between matches.

So, was this the year?

On Saturday, both ABC and Univision got huge ratings for the U.S. vs. Ghana match, according to Entertainment Weekly, with a combined 19.4 million viewers. That's the most-watched soccer game ever in this country.

By comparison, this year's Super Bowl was the most-watched program in TV history, with 106.5 million viewers. Game six of last year's World Series had 22.3 million viewers, and this year's game seven of the NBA finals had an average of 28.2 million viewers.

So the most-watched soccer game did only slightly better than the average viewership of this year's Master's, at 16.7 million viewers? Ouch.

Regardless of who was watching, the U.S. lost; Landon Donovan's already returned home amid rumors of having a baby momma in England, and I'm sensing that same let-down of expectations that I think I'll feel after watching Bella waver for more than two hours between the vampire and the werewolf.

This was not the year.

There are many well-known theories on why the U.S. isn't mad for soccer.

On Forbes.com, Patrick Rishe, an associate professor of economics at Webster University and director of Sportsimpacts, points to economic reasons. They range from the TV and corporate money going to other sports that could, if going to soccer instead, help build and attract top players here, to socioeconomic differences between the U.S. and other countries. Here, playing a sport that costs a lot to outfit isn't necessarily a problem. Soccer's simplicity (really, all you need is a ball) makes it the option in other countries, however.

Stephan Schindler, a professor at Washington University, mentioned a few others in an article on the school's website, from the few statistics available to a few local teams and players for young fans grow up with.

But my favorite theory comes from a book I got for my husband a few years ago for a birthday or anniversary or something memorable like that. In the forward to "The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer," author David Goldblatt mentions a few reasons, including that soccer is considered both too working-class and too "European." (So both beneath us and above us?) But it's his other argument that makes the most sense to me.

Soccer doesn't mesh with American sports culture.

"The private and mysterious timekeeping of the referee in soccer is contrasted with the open, public and democratic clock in American football, basketball and hockey," Goldblatt writes. "The draw is considered nonsense at best, an outrage at worst."

There aren't enough goals scored, and not really even enough opportunities, he goes on, which may feel tedious and gives chance a huge role in the outcome of the games. "...It is the same distaste for unaccountability and chance that finds the diving, faking, gamesmanship and chicanery of soccer unbearable," Goldblatt writes.

Those are the reasons soccer hasn't come to dominate here, but as I've watched the games and international fans around St. Louis, I have also wondered about something else.

What would it mean to soccer if the U.S. did become as engaged as the rest of the world?

I'm really not sure.

Would we feel the need to dominate it with our own culture? To slow play down with instant replays? To remake the beautiful game into something corporate? The Golden Boot award, given to the player with the most goals at the end of the World Cup, loses a bit of its shine as the Wal-Mart Golden Boot.

Maybe we'd be good for soccer. Maybe it would be good for us.

But like my experience with a certain cheesy young adult series of books and their thus-far disappointing movies, there is something to be said for always hoping for better the next time around.

Twilight fans only get two more chances with the final two movies.

Lucky for soccer lovers, though, there's no big finale that marks the forever end of the World Cup. Also, no undead, supernatural creatures or moody teen girls to worry about.

That should definitely count for something.