Not sure who to vote for in game 1. Something feels oddly lacklustre in Samie's team. Maybe I've just seen him pick these players too many times now! But I think maybe it's a formation thing. 442 diamond doesn't feel like a great fit for the personnel. A 433 might have worked better with Prosinecki pushed further forward, and Gullit in front of Jugovic at CM and Rijkaard at DM. Orlando sticks out too, of course. But then Sheer has his own problems there with some lesser known players in his ranks. Can't fault Sheer's attack though and maybe that's what is swinging this for me. Will decide later.
Game 2 is a close one. Similar to Lobo, something feels a bit off with DS's set up. I recall his plan getting knocked majorly off course towards the end, so I imagine this wasn't the intended set up. As I said before, Iniesta and Zidane are very difficult to see in the same side as they occupy very similar pockets of space, even if their play styles were very different. I'm not sure putting Iniesta at CM solves that when you already have the ultimate midfield playmaker in Modric there. The side seems to miss a more physical presence at CM. Having said that, there's an argument that the 3 man backline of destroyer type players makes up for the lack of those in the middle. Normally you'd want to see one ball playing CB in a sweeper role for this formation to work, but this is something different and it's not uninteresting. I could see an argument for that defence nullifying Hazell's attack. Conversely who wouldn't want to see VVD vs Ronaldo. It's a close one and I'm far from 100% here, but Hazell just about gets the nod from me. Peak Salah (with a lovely fat contract
), Lewa & Mane would be terrifying IMO and considering only one of DS' CBs has experience playing in a back three, I think they could be got at and left in positional no man's land with the interplay between those three + Thiago's passing (with no DM to restrict the space and block him out).
Poll