Martinelli gave Carlo Ancelotti’s Brazil an agonizing, but deserved, pass to the round of 16. The brave Japan made life very difficult for the five-time world champion when they took the lead after half an hour of play. Brazil had to sweat to turn the score around and they did it on the back of an inexhaustible Casemiro and the dribbling efforts of Vinicius. Both led a victory that will face Norway or Ivory Coast in the round of 16. Japan paid for its excess of conservatism, a country that wanted to grow by imitating the beautiful game Brazilian has converted to a stingy proposal that gets him out of the World Cup. It was a tough test for Brazil to have to deal with a comeback tinged with epic and suffering. Elimination would have unleashed another one of those ball injuries (ball trauma) that has generated so much literature in the country of soccer.
