I've got a friend team that I played many seasons in the old cup format and it took me ages to crack a way to beat 4-1-4-1 and that was to throw the kitchen sink at the formation by playing a very aggressive 3W-4-3 against it, It seems like the 4-1-4-1 doesn't like it if you try to hammer it with an aggressive formation, but I don't know if I goot lucky that day or not because it was against a team 8 quality higher than me and I probably wont face such strong opposition like that again that plays the 4-1-4-1.