Matheus Cunha’s time at Wolverhampton Wanderers may be coming to an end but the Brazilian forward will never forget his time with the club. He says he was reborn and “recovered his joy” there after two difficult years and the frustration of not being selected for the 2022 World Cup.
With 13 goals this season, Cunha is three away from scoring the most by a Brazilian in a single Premier League campaign. The record of 15 is jointly held by Roberto Firmino (for Liverpool in 2017-18) and Gabriel Martinelli (for Arsenal in 2022-23). Clearly Cunha has left behind the sadness of his time at Atlético Madrid and the 25-year-old speaks warmly about the new life he has found in a new country and the gratitude that has comes with that.
“Sometimes all we want in life is affection,” Cunha says. “People think we have everything, but we’re human beings, too. We need a bit of understanding – we have our difficulties. Wolves gave me that joy back. The fans [have given] me a lot. The status I have today, the player I am now and the happiness I’m feeling, it’s because of them. I’m really grateful to Wolves.”
Cunha was signed in 2023 under Julen Lopetegui but he did not make a promising start under the Spaniard, playing 20 games without establishing himself as a starter, and scoring only two goals. But with the arrival of Gary O’Neil as manager, the situation changed. “Gary understood me completely,” Cunha says. “He came in and said: ‘Man, I think you’re an incredible person, but you need affection. And I’m going to give you affection. I’m going to complain when I need to complain, but I’m almost going to be family for you.’
“When someone sees something in you beyond the player, it touches you. These conversations and these lessons were of great importance in my life.”
After winning Olympic football gold with Brazil at the Tokyo Games in 2021, Cunha left RB Leipzig to join Atlético Madrid, believing the move would help him closer to his dream of playing in a World Cup. But with only 11 starts in two seasons, he was not called up for the tournament in Qatar and endured the most difficult years of his life.
“I felt bad, really bad,” Cunha says. “I suffered a lot. I felt a lot not to have played the World Cup and I felt even worse because I didn’t go to the World Cup because I wasn’t playing for my club. I had the feeling that I just wanted an opportunity to show my football and be able to fight for a place on a more equal footing.”
Cunha’s sadness had much to do with his passion for football. Since he was eight, when he left João Pessoa to play in Recife, he has spent his life connected to the sport, travelling from Brazil to Switzerland, Germany and Spain before arriving in England, all with the desire to do what he loves most. In Madrid he also felt a need to take a break and reflect on his life on and off the pitch.
“I started working with a psychologist,” he says. “Psychology helped me a lot. We live in a world of social media and information all the time. It’s a big burden that you carry for leaving home so young, for being the provider of so many things in your life so young. I needed to give it all up for a while.
“I needed to be with my friends and remember where I came from. Look at what I’ve achieved. I needed to go to João Pessoa and stay in the furthest house possible away from everyone and in front of the sea. I needed to live it, just live it.”
Cunha also clung to his family during this time. The everyday advice from his mother and father helped him live in a new world, away from the spotlight of fame. “My parents made me realise that football is just one part of my life,” he says. “My father was a chemist. I remember when I was sad, he called me and said that private companies are like that, that it’s hard to work in private companies. Look at my father’s simplicity – he sees a footballer’s career as a normal profession, even with the pressure everyone gets. And I started to understand it like that, too. That helped me a lot to understand my football life. Everyone has difficulties, everyone has problems, no matter what you do. Mine is in football and my father is in chemistry. That helped me a lot.”
The Brazil national team still bring anguish to Cunha’s life, sadly. He scored against Argentina in Tuesday’s World Cup qualifier but was part of a team that lost 4-1, leading to more criticism of a side who have largely embarrassed on the road to the 2026 tournament.
“I think all this criticism, all this fuss, all this feeling, both positive and negative, is because we live our national team very intensely,” Cunha says. “The Seleção has given us a lot of joy and I’m also a supporter. I cheer, argue with, cry with and celebrate. Being Olympic champions was an absurd thrill. The World Cup is very close. I want to be part of it and, God willing, taste something very similar to Tokyo.”
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Cunha is an interesting character. He likes to learn, ask questions and understand the environment in which he lives. When he moved to Germany, he asked professionals from the Seleção to help him with equipment to improve his physical condition. Curiosity also made him a polyglot. He speaks Portuguese, English, Italian, French, German and Spanish fluently. All of this at the age of 25. His method could be an example for those who seek to learn but he admits he does not have a perfect explanation for having so much knowledge without reading books or watching films.
“I’m almost illiterate when it comes to reading languages,” Cunha says with a laugh. “I can only speak very well. My method is the life. I think living is my method. I’m only good at speaking because that’s what I need to use. All in practice. What’s that like? Living, talking, making mistakes. There’s no theory.”
When asked if this spirit of curiosity could lead to a life as a manager in the future, Cunha says: “I love learning, but I don’t like the football life. The football life deprives you of a lot. I left home and have been living off football since I was 13. Maybe when I stop, I’ll be a bit calmer and can think about coaching. But I’ll need to take a few years off to rest, get my head round it and live like a normal person for a while. I need to live a different life.”
This season will almost certainly be Cunha’s farewell to Wolves. In the last winter window he received a few offers to leave the club, one of which was from Arsenal. But he decided to stay in a show of loyalty to the club that rescued him from the worst time in his life.
“I had a lot of offers but I wouldn’t feel well if I had done it,” he says. “Some things you can’t control but I couldn’t leave the club in the middle of the season, in a difficult situation, in the relegation zone.
“Now, we’re close to achieving our goal [of staying up]. But I’ve made it clear that I need to take the next step. I want to fight for titles, for big things. I have potential.”