I really like SkizzoPat's 4-4-2 setup here. Their team is excellent going forward with so much variety and creativity in their game. Hierro-Baraja is a very energetic midfielder with lots of tenacity and aggression in there, and both as central midfielders were still good at winning the ball there. My only issue is that Hierro doesn't have a more defensive-minded midfielder to let him play his goalscoring game like he did under Antic. In that time, he had Milla supporting him, when before he moved into a more goalscoring role, he was the primary defensive-minded midfielder. Still, though, having said that, Baraja is still very good at covering for his midfield partner, and I'm sure Hierro wasn't lacking that much discipline that he'd always go forward. Hierro always picked his moments and entered the box when the moment presented itself. The same went for Baraja, and that will cause EAP's team lots of problems defensively.
Helguera playing this sweeper role looks strange. He was always at his best closing down players, winning the ball, and being gritty and aggressive in his game. In this sweeper role, he'll be prone to being dragged around by the movement of Möller, Klinsmann, and Bebeto, and without a proper covering defender, EAP's team looks weaker at the back. Boateng is good at marking players and taking the ball off of the players' feet with his aggression and timing of tackles, but facing pace has always been his weakness, and there's quite a bit of it here with Klinsi and Bebeto around. de Boer is not a bad defender, but again, the lack of pace is telling, and he'll struggle to cover for so much himself. Sagnol and Lizarazu will be very good at stopping wide threats, with Lizarazu being quite capable of shutting down Basler, but Sagnol will be outnumbered with Möller and Ziege overloading that area with Klinsi drifting around. Hierro and Baraja making late runs into the box will cause even more problems.
Having said that, though, EAP's midfield is still quite solid with Cambiasso and Simeone matching the energy and tenacity of Hierro and Baraja. However, given that EAP's team doesn't have much of a creative threat other than Deco, it'll be quite an issue for them. Every good team needs at least two creative threats. When AC Milan played their diamond, they had Kaká/Rivaldo/Seedorf and Pirlo. When Real Madrid played a back 3, they had the likes of Guti, Figo, Zidane, Raúl, and Macca to call upon. EAP only really has Deco and maybe Vieri as a good link-up forward, but a link-up forward isn't enough to make a second creative threat. Cambiasso and Simeone were both good at supplementing + supporting attacks from central midfield, with Cambiasso being good at making late runs whilst his attacking teammates took away the attention of the opposition. Here, though, there's too much focus on Deco to do things, and he can't do it all by himself. At Barcelona, he had Ronaldinho and Iniesta around to help him out, but here, who's going to be around to provide some more creative threat? The wing backs? Crossing to Vieri? That's it?
If EAP had one more creative attacking player, I'd have voted for him hands down. However, SkizzoPat has too much of an attacking threat to not be able to score, especially against EAP's lopsided central defensive setup.
):
