When we do not follow a winning team very closely we tend to idealise their play and to remember more their good days when they vean an exceptional opponent than the days when the underdog gave them a lot of trouble.
I watched nearly all of the games in the 2010 World Cup. I managed to watch all the Spain and Netherlands games, which comes in handy as they made it to the final. Did Spain back then have an impressive way to move the ball around? Yes, of course. But they also had David Villa up front, a man renowned for scoring nearly all of the chances a game could give him. They had two excellent defensive midfielders like Xabi Alonso and Sergio Busquets and two even better centre backs at their prime. Spain was a joy to watch on the attack, but they did know how to retain possession, how to score on the counter, and how to close the gates so tight that they only conceded two goals in the tournament. By the way, nobody remembers the day when all-mighty Paraguay nearly kicked them out in the QFs, but I do. Praised be Gerardo Martino for his coaching of Paraguay.
The Netherlands came in close to becoming world champions and that was by far the ugliest play they had produced in years. But it was so very effective for reasons similar to Spain’s defensive prowess. They had van Bommel hitting hard when needed, which is a good ingredient in a winning team. They just couldn’t stop Spain, but this team was no more beautiful for the sight than Germany, yet they were more successful.
Same goes for Germany in 2014. They were by far more fun to watch back in 2010, but in 2014 they were more solid and managed to lift the trophy… reasons are again similar.
Tl;dr everyone builds a national team to lift a trophy. For that you need to concede as fewer goals as possible, so you better have clean sheets quite often. That’s why all of them play very solid, there’s no other way to succeed at international football. Time will make us remember the spectacular moments of their path to glory… and forget the stones they found in their journey.