I'd be interested in some of the nuance of that. It's one thing moving the ball about sideways and backwards if you have some movement going on in front of you (or else you just end up lumping long anyway), if you are confident that you can retain the ball when doing so (or you end up putting your own goal in danger) and that having slowed the game down, you have the ability to 'move up through the gears' (as they say!) to put some pressure at pace on the opposition (or it makes it incredibly difficult to break down the opposition defence, who of course you have given time to do so).
I can't help thinking that the quality of players (i.e. the ones who can carry out the above successfully) at televised world cup games might be on average better than those who play in the lower leagues (and are therefore less likely to be able to). It does sometimes seem to me that managers at all levels like to follow fashions - so (for example) KR sets his team up to play in a similar fashion to Manchester City without necessarily having the resources to do so.