Rowed home

The Brazilian media’s reaction to their country’s early exit will heap pressure on Carlo Ancelotti

By ROBBIE BLAKELEY

Brazil have been eliminated early from World Cups before, but this was a sobering one to take on the chin. A 2-1 defeat to Norway in the round of 16 courtesy of two expertly taken Erling Haaland goals sent the five-time champions home at the earliest stage since 1990.

A few weeks on, the inquest shows no sign of dying down. On the pitch, the story was one of frustration and a nagging sense of wasted opportunity. For the best part of 70 minutes, Carlo Ancelotti’s side had more than matched Norway, missing a first-half penalty through Bruno Guimarães’ tame kick, but otherwise looking composed and in control.

Then came the moment that defined the tournament for Brazil. With the game still goalless, Ancelotti threw on Neymar alongside Vinícius Júnior and Endrick, chasing a win against a team happy to sit deep and hit on the break. Norway’s shape held, Haaland punished the gaps that opened up due to Neymar’s unwillingness or physical incapability to track back, and Brazil’s cautious control evaporated.

The deeper diagnosis of course runs beyond one substitution, and Ancelotti himself has since said as much. Days after the defeat, he conceded that Brazil’s midfield problem is now “very evident”, and that the squad needs an infusion of “high-level players” – a rare admission from a manager more usually inclined to accentuate the positive.

But in truth the seleção never truly convinced. Brazil needed an injury-time strike to squeeze past Japan in the round of 32 , and leaned on a startling number of crosses as the match wore on, instead of the incisive passing football they are more associated with. Against a well-drilled and resilient team, the lack of midfield creativity finally caught up with them.

If the football was painful, the reaction in Brazil was brutal. O Globo, the country’s leading newspaper, noted that Brazil’s possession stat was its lowest in a World Cup match since records began. Folha de São Paulo’s analysis was equally mournful, painting Norway as a team that “had rowed past a Brazil side left stranded on the beach”. Meanwhile, UOL ’s football desk landed the harshest tactical verdict, branding Ancelotti’s tactical reshuffle “disastrous” and accusing him of pandering to popular demand by bringing on Neymar at a crucial time in a knockout tie.

On the pitch, the story was one of frustration and a nagging sense of wasted opportunity

It’s no understatement to say that fury centred on Neymar’s recall for a tournament he entered short of fitness and rhythm. O Globo ’s own sports coverage suggested Ancelotti had compounded the error by introducing him at the exact moment Brazil needed discipline, with one line proposing that Neymar’s only real piece of skill on the day was talking his way past his own manager. The player confirmed his international retirement shortly after the final whistle.

Ancelotti meanwhile has stood by his selections, insisting the performance merited a different result. The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) has backed him, with team co-ordinator Rodrigo Caetano appealing for calm as a rebuild targeted at 2030 begins.

The question now is whether this was misfortune or something more structural, and the language coming out of Brazil suggests the latter is winning the debate. Commentators have invoked “identity”, in asking what kind of team they actually want to be. It’s a discussion that seems pertinent as the team strayed from an attacking approach towards a pragmatism designed to cover shortcomings at full-back and in midfield. There are reasons for both patience and alarm. The spine of the side – Alisson, Marquinhos, Casemiro – is ageing, and the reserves who came on looked callow, especially when compared to the physicality and discipline of robust opponents. But Ancelotti’s contract extension to 2030 gives him room to work, while players’ sombre reflections following elimination suggest a group willing to confront its shortcomings instead of papering over them: Marquinhos’ publicapology to supporters, asking for four years of patience to “achieve great things”, was itself an admission that the squad is indeed in need of long-term repair.

Whether this becomes a genuine reckoning or just another turn in the recent cycle of heartbreak and renewal will ultimately depend on how honestly the CBF confronts the questions early elimination has raised.