The problem soccer has in Canada/USA is that the biggest games (ie the latter stages of knockout tournaments) are usually very cagey affairs because the easiest way to score is shortly after a turnover in possession. So a lot of people's first experience with watching it is watching a 0-0 or 1-0 type game where both teams are essentially playing for set pieces (this also involves a fair amount of flopping around). It's like chess in a way in that at very high levels of play aggression gets punished by an evenly matched opponent.