Neymar’s Brazil career is over. It ended the way many feared it might: a shock 2-1 loss to Norway in the round of 16, knocking the five-time champions out of the World Cup earlier than anyone expected.
The 34-year-old forward was in tears after Sunday’s match at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. He’d scored a stoppage-time penalty, but it was never going to be enough.
“I tried. I tried. It started here, I finished here. Now it’s over,” he said afterward, in the same stadium, as it happens, where he made his Brazil debut back in a 2010 friendly against the US.
It’s Brazil’s worst World Cup finish since 1990. The wait for a sixth title now stretches to at least 2030.
Norway rode Erling Haaland to the win; he scored both goals and sent his country into its first-ever World Cup quarterfinal. Brazil pushed hard late, but Neymar’s penalty was just a consolation prize for Carlo Ancelotti’s side.
He leaves as Brazil’s all-time leading scorer: 80 goals, 58 assists, 130 caps. Numbers that won’t be touched for a long time.
But the numbers only tell half of it. Neymar’s Brazil career was brilliant and dramatic and, more often than fans wanted, painful. He carried this team for over a decade and never got the one thing Brazil cares about most, the World Cup itself.
His only senior trophy with the national team was the 2013 Confederations Cup. He was also part of the 2016 Olympic gold-medal squad, though it was the under-23 team.
At World Cups specifically, it was one gut punch after another. Hurt before the 7-1 humiliation against Germany in 2014. Struggling with fitness in 2018. In tears after the penalty shootout loss to Croatia in 2022. And now this: a calf injury limited him to just two appearances in 2026, and by the time he came off the bench against Norway trying to save the game, it was already too late.
Brazil’s got real talent coming through: Vinícius Júnior, Endrick, Rodrygo, but this loss exposed real cracks in midfield, finishing, and tactical structure. Ancelotti didn’t sugarcoat it afterward, saying the team needs new ideas and better young players, especially through the middle.
Neymar’s exit is complicated for many Brazilian fans. He was brilliant and infuriating in equal measure; the skill was never in question, but the injuries, the theatrics, the World Cups that never quite came together, all of it left people conflicted. That’s probably how his career should be remembered: not clean, not simple, genuinely mixed.
At his best, though, he was everything people love about Brazilian football: creative, unpredictable, fun to watch even when the team around him wasn’t good enough.
He came in as the guy who was supposed to bring Brazil back to the top of the world game. He’s leaving with that promise still unfulfilled; Brazil hasn’t won it all since 2002, and now they’ll try again without him.
You can also check our earlier coverage of Brazil’s group-stage form.
For Norway, this is one of the tournament’s biggest upsets. For Brazil, it’s another painful early exit and the start of trying to figure out its attack without the player who’s defined it for 15 years.
No trophy. Still the record scorer. Still, probably one of the most gifted players ever to wear the shirt.
He tried. That’s the whole story, really. And now it’s over.
0 Comments