Soccer fans, rejoice: America has won the World Cup. Well, the robot World Cup.

In the finale of RoboCup 2011, two Virginia Tech robots took top honors in the adult-size and child-size categories. The full-size humanoid CHARLI-2, making its public debut at RoboCup, won the adult-size robot soccer match with a penalty kick, beating Robo Erectus of Singapore 1-0.

Dennis Hong’s RoMeLa team from Virginia Tech (which is located in America, so feel free to chant) suffered a few setbacks early on, including an accidental decapitation that required a trip to the robot ER and some super glue. But CHARLI quickly rebounded to beat Dutch Robotics 3-0, and tied with team JoiTech, 0-0. The RoMeLa team kept a blog of the weekend’s events here.

Punctuating its victory in the competition, CHARLI also won the coveted Best Humanoid Award, a.k.a Louis Vuitton Humanoid Cup, Hong said in an email. He said the award, considered the most prestigious honor for humanoid robots, will make its debut on U.S. soil. The crystal trophy was in Japan for seven years before going to Germany for two years. Now Team CHARLI has captured the honors for the US.

Apparently CHARLI did not play so well at first, kicking the ball out of bounds and ambling awkwardly, but ultimately it performed better than expected — in a match against Team Hephestus, CHARLI won 4-1, the highest-scoring humanoid robot ever.