Are Henry and Abily the first choice double six in the French mid-field now? I agree with you when you suggest that there are other mid-field double acts who can easily sit alongside the likes of Goeßling and Keßler. And in truth, I've always felt that Goeßling and Keßler wouldn't be Germany's first choice without timely injury's occurring to others anyway, which still leaves me thinking they may not be the first choice partnership for Germany when the WWC kicks of either...
If we talk about who are the best pairings as double 6, or 6 and 6,5, or 6 and 8 (-5, which is not a 7,5 ), I'd rather say Henry and Bussaglia, alongside Goeßling and Keßler, and I could add — even if it hadn't been tested for a while for differents reasons — Sawa and Utsugi.
@Gromit06 Well, I would have thought Henry and Bussaglia were France's best CM pairing too, but..? Goeßling and Keßler honestly surprised me last year, mainly because I didn't believe they could find the correct balance between attack and defence, necessary to help their club, or national team, do anything major on the European scene; boy was I wrong lol, but I still feel that Silvia Neid is searching for a true replacement to losing Kulig. Sawa and Sakaguchi on the other hand, looked like becoming the best CM tandem in the world around 4 years ago, but I wouldn't say they were using a double six system to fuel the engine room of their successful WC run, as I'm sure Sakaguchi was definitely playing a holding mid fielders role behind Sawa during the WC; but would the introduction of Utsugi change this though... probably, yes. I thought Sweden's WC team had an excellent double six partnership with Seger and Dahlkvist, but that was broken up for the teams most important WC match (which they lost), and since then has been dropped all together within Sundhage's odd 4-1-5/4-1-1-4 formation... So in the small world of double 6's, I can't think of that many nations who 1. use the system, and 2. use it well enough to be put into a bracket of elite right now either, but as time goes on, I'm sure a few more mid-field duo's will make themselves known.
I have a tendency to refuse the idea of a "double 6" if you are a good team, I mean a team who plays its own role in the game with an offensive mind. Two DM is one too much for me. I prefer one DM and one box-to-box (what was formerly the #8 in good old 4-2-4... I wonder why Man Utd doesn't play with a triple 6... After all, they're called the Red Devils, aren't they ?
I'm sure other nations may use different names to describe it, but I think it's called double 6 in Germany to simply highlight the fact two players take it in turns to both defend and attack... But just so it relates to you better, why not think of the early millennium's generation of French mnt's using Petit and Veira as the centre two, and you may see what I'm talking about in the attacking and defensive potential of the German wnt's use of a double 6 system. I mean back in the '07 WWC, Germany used Lingor and Laudher in the double 6 roles, with neither of them being defensive heavyweights, but managed to combine together to create a solid base for the team to not concede goals, and still create plenty going the other way. Plus it even seems the French wnt have very similar thoughts on this kind of CM approach too, playing the likes of Necib and Abily in CM roles, in a similar fashion to Germany using a Marozsan and Kessler CM combo...; all very counter-intuitive to the belief of a double 6 system being designed for defensive mid-fielders...