Unlike most other sports, particularly sports many US folks follow, soccer is rarely "high scoring". What this means then is that each goal is important, and every goal can greatly change the complexion of a match. The same concept applies to why every college football game is important, yet the pro-basketball or pro-baseball regular seasons are basically meaningless.
In soccer, you have folks running at speed, trying to kick a ball to someone else running at speed, all the while having other bastards chasing their *** (ie ghey portugal players). In american football, one person throws the ball (the quarterback, for those ole miss folks reading at home) -- and people are generally happy with a 65% completion percentage, whereas in soccer everyone is passing and every defender can intercept passes.
There's a lot of skill on display, if you know what you are looking for. The fact that they occasionally make things look easy is the same as Peyton Manning tossing a 50yard pass to a receiver in stride -- and armchair quarterbacks everywhere who can't throw more than 10 feet say, "what an easy pitch and catch".
Finally, with regards to scoring, if it makes you feel any better, just count each goal as a touchdown, and ignore extra points, safeties and field goals. So USA 7 England 7 in a conservative match. USA 14 Slovenia 14 in a tale of two halves.
Cheers.
Ps. I didn't go in to the endurance required to run for 90 minutes, as opposed to "american professional athletes" who get commercial breaks every couple of minutes. That's why conditioning is important towards the end of matches. If you watched, you could SEE Slovenia tiring and getting out of position in the 2nd half. They were worn down.