Brazil starting Martinelli in left center midfield is a great option. When Cunha drops and receives central, they do lack runners, pace, in the channels through the half-spaces. Having runners would help them press and overwhelm when they lose the ball.

Cunha acts more like a second striker who will drop to receive and connect.

Subbing Martinelli on and playing him deeper in midfield is a great option off the bench to inject pace into the play when legs are tired due to the heat and humidity.

But when the opponent is a bit better at maintaining possession, having pace up the center of the pitch beyond Cunha is going to be important.

The one thing I’ve been missing when I watch Brazil in these group stage matches is that they’ve lacked that same intensity to completely overwhelm teams when they lose the ball in the opponent’s half.

You can take more risks when you are able to immediately win the ball back on the first pass. Not one pass, two passes, win the ball in the middle of the pitch. Lose the ball in the opponent’s half, win the ball on the first attempted pass out.

An immediate collapse on the ball, two players or more in on the tackle, and then you immediately unleash the three to four runners from the wings and half-spaces.

The issue is who would you drop for Martinelli, Casemiro or Lucas Paqueta? It would likely be Casemiro because Lucas Paqueta offers better passing and dribbling without losing the aggression or tackling ability.

Having Lucas Paqueta and Bruno Guimaraes at the base of your midfield can win you a World Cup. I feel like they have the best engine of any midfield duo. Both equally aggressive.

Having Casemiro anchoring those two out of possession does help because that allows Bruno Guimaraes and Lucas Paqueta to fully commit to getting forward and throwing their body into every challenge, but they need pace central in attack.

Martinelli is good off the left because not only does he offer pace central, he can swing left on the overlap behind Vinicius Junior when Vinicius moves inside and dribbles inside. Having that extra straight-line speed there will open up more space for Vinicius because one of the defenders will have to follow the overlap.

And then Martinelli can shift over to the right side of the pitch when Lucas Paqueta and the left-back Douglas Santos get forward. Now you have an overload on the left, a diagonal into the center, and a run in behind from the right-winger Rayan and Martinelli.

Without Raphinha they need someone else to distract from Vinicius.