Arsenal’s Martinelli scores for Brazil against Japan | OneFootball

Arsenal’s Brazilian players came out unscathed despite defeat to Japan on Tuesday, with Gabriel Martinelli scoring and Gabriel Magalhaes getting a rest.

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Brazil played their second game of the October international break on Tuesday, facing Japan in a friendly match having already qualified for next summer’s World Cup.

The low-stakes nature of the clash meant manager Carlo Ancelotti could afford to make some changes, and one positive alteration from an Arsenal point of view was that Gabriel Magalhaes dropped to the bench.

Gabriel has appeared in all 10 of Arsenal’s 10 games this season, and he’d also started and played 90 minutes in the first friendly of the international break – a 5-0 win over South Korea. So it’s good to see him getting a break.

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Another change was the inclusion of Gabriel Martinelli, which was also good to see for the opposite reason. Though Martinelli has played nine times for Arsenal, his minutes are far lower, totalling 356 to Gabriel’s 814.

The winger had also been left on the bench for the South Korea friendly, so he arguably needed the game time.

On top of the benefits of simply being on the pitch, Martinelli went on to score the second goal of the game, giving Brazil a 2-0 lead. He latched onto a clever lobbed pass from Lucas Paqueta before firing into the net with his left foot.

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Martinelli came off in the 57th minute at 2-1, with no suggestion of an injury. Brazil made a triple change at the time, with Bruno Guimaraes and Vinicius Junior also coming off.

Brazil went on to blow their lead, conceding twice in the next 15 minutes to lose the game 3-2. But if anything, that only raises the stock of the two Arsenal players who were watching from the bench by then.