Key Points
- Norway beat Brazil 2-1 in the World Cup round of 16 on July 5.
- Erling Haaland scored both Norway goals; Neymar replied with a stoppage-time penalty.
- It is Norway's first World Cup quarterfinal.
- Brazil exit in the round of 16 for the first time in eight World Cups.
Norway knocked five-time champions Brazil out of the 2026 World Cup, winning 2-1 in the round of 16 on July 5 at MetLife Stadium behind two Erling Haaland goals. It is Norway's first World Cup quarterfinal; Brazil, the tournament's most decorated nation, failed to reach the last eight for the first time in eight World Cups.
Haaland struck twice late in the game. He rose above Gabriel Magalhães to head an Andreas Schjelderup cross past Alisson, then beat the goalkeeper again with a low shot from outside the box that went in off the far post. Haaland, who had already scored half of Norway's goals at the tournament, delivered again on the biggest stage he has played.
Brazil created chances but could not find a way through until it no longer mattered. Norway goalkeeper Ørjan Nyland saved a Bruno Guimarães penalty in the first half and turned aside Vinícius Júnior, and the substitute Endrick spurned a one-on-one. Brazil's goal came only in stoppage time, when Neymar converted a penalty for a 2-1 consolation. The billing had been Haaland against Vinícius; Haaland won it. In the days after the loss, Neymar announced his retirement from the Brazil national team, making that stoppage-time penalty the final goal of his international career.
It is the upset of the tournament. Brazil arrived as five-time world champions and among the favorites, and they leave in the round of 16 — one of the standout results of the first 32-team knockout stage in World Cup history — beaten by a Norway side that had never been a tournament force but now travels on the shoulders of the world's most feared striker. Norway had beaten Brazil at a World Cup once before — also 2-1, in the 1998 group stage — but never with stakes like these. Norway reached the last 16 on Haaland's late winner against Ivory Coast; Brazil had edged Japan to get here. For a generation raised on Brazil as the sport's gold standard, watching them exit to Haaland's Norway is the kind of result that resets the bracket and the storyline in one afternoon.
Source: Al Jazeera and NBC Sports.
Comments