Brazil have fallen from their pedestal and the way back to the elite will be long and painful | OneFootball

It was the end of the world for Brazil. “That’s football,” shrugged Carlo Ancelotti. Few have the temperament to treat heartbreak with such equanimity. Brazil may have imagined their World Cup would end at the MetLife Stadium and so it did: but in the last 16, not the final, with defeat to Norway, not a win over France or Spain. There will be a conspicuous absence from the quarter-finals: for the first time since 1990, there is no Brazil.

The serial Champions League winner will not be a World Cup winner: not now, anyway, though Ancelotti has a contract that goes through to 2030, when he will be in his seventies, when they will be in their longest drought without winning the World Cup. They had never gone six tournaments without triumphing before. They have now.

The marriage of Don Carlo, the Champions League’s greatest winner, and Brazil, the most successful team in World Cup history, promised glory and delivered failure for each. But perhaps Ancelotti was the most deluxe of sticking plasters, charged with covering up the many failings of the Selecao. Instead, they ended up highlighted.

The damning conclusion may be that Brazil have just slipped back into the pack. A tournament when they were held by Morocco and beaten by Norway was bookended by ambushes executed by rising forces. Morocco had more shots than them, Norway more possession and goals. Brazil have the prestige, the glamour, the history, the shirt, the romance: but maybe not the team anymore. Or not all of it, anyway.

A decline may date back almost a quarter of a century, since Ronaldo’s double defeated Germany in Yokohama. Since then, Brazil have only reached a semi-final on home soil. In six consecutive World Cups, they have gone out to European opposition, whether France, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Croatia or now Norway. In the last three, a country of 200 million people, which produces more players than anyone else, have been knocked out by nations of 11, four and five million respectively.

But Norway’s five million include Erling Haaland, the destroyer of Brazilian dreams. There was a striking contrast in New Jersey: Haaland against Matheus Cunha. The Manchester United player won a penalty. The Manchester City one scored twice.

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Brazil's last-16 exit at the World Cup leaves Carlo Ancelotti with the painful task of rebuilding the national team (Getty)

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Erling Haaland proved to be Brazil's destroyer as Norway knocked out the five-time World Cup champions (AP)

Cunha is not really a No 9 anyway and Ancelotti has not seemed convinced by him. Maybe the Italian should have picked Joao Pedro, a surprise omission from the squad, but he is no Romario or Ronaldo either. Brazil have no elite centre-forward.

And that is part of the problem: in too many positions, Brazil pale in comparison with their predecessors. The World Cup winners Dunga and Cafu were at the MetLife Stadium, outlining what Brazil lack: a defensive midfielder at the peak of his powers, a flying full-back in their truest tradition.

The strange shortage of Brazilian full-backs was a factor in 2022, and again. It is an indictment that Danilo remains their best. It scarcely helped that the injured Eder Militao missed the tournament, but he is more of a central defender.

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Matheus Cunha (left) won Brazil a penalty but they couldn't beat Norway (Reuters)

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Serial Champions League winner Carlo Ancelotti failed to inspire Brazil through the World Cup (Reuters)

In midfield, Brazil have seen the best and worst of Casemiro in this tournament. His deputy was Fabinho, scarcely younger, pensioned off by Liverpool three years ago. Bruno Guimaraes’ tournament contained four assists but a crucial missed penalty. Brazil, whose midfield struggled against Morocco, need an overhaul in the middle of the pitch, and not merely because they have been left behind by possession teams. They lacked the mobility or the ability to retain the ball. “It is very evident that in the midfield that we have to move some players,” said Ancelotti.

He took a short-termist approach in bringing Casemiro back. The veteran was one of 11 thirty-somethings in the World Cup’s sixth-oldest squad. There are a few emerging talents - Endrick, Estevao, Rayan – but the latter pair are on the wings, where Brazil have less need for fresh blood.

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Neymar Jr will never win the World Cup with Brazil (Reuters)

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Norway are the latest smaller nation to defeat Brazil at the World Cup (AP)

Brazil could plead misfortune in some respects. They looked over-reliant on Vinicius Junior after losing two of their three premier wingers: Rodrygo in March and Raphinha in the group stages. The latter came at a cost. The Barcelona player would have taken the first-half penalty against Norway, not Guimaraes, if he had been on the pitch.

Neymar’s shock recall seemed to stem more from desperation than inspiration, a piece of wishful thinking rather than a strategy to win the World Cup. He scored a 100th-minute spot kick in what, even before he hinted at international retirement, had the potential to prove his final cap; the tears he cried at the final whistle may have been selfish ones, but he will never win the World Cup. He has Pele’s goalscoring record for Brazil, but not his medals. That some of the few members of this Brazil squad who could be called world class now, in Marquinhos and Alisson, are also in their thirties prompts the question of who and what comes next.

Brazil have the burden of being Brazil, with everything that entails, when less would be expected of this group in another shirt. Their two comfortable wins came against the stragglers of Scotland and Haiti. They only just beat Japan; then, as against Morocco, Brazil were the worse side until Ancelotti made astute changes.

In the context of Brazil’s past, Ancelotti’s assessment sounded unduly flattering. “We didn’t do a spectacular World Cup campaign but we did a good one,” he said. A last-16 departure can never be good for Brazil, though. Nor for a manager with five Champions Leagues, whose motivation was surely to go one better than in 1994, when he was Italy’s assistant manager as they were runners-up in the World Cup. That was agonisingly close, this embarrassingly far away. “Everyone is profoundly disappointed,” said Ancelotti. “Sometimes you have to manage the sadness and bitter taste of a defeat. I am very used to that.” And for Brazil, every four years brings the bitterness of an exit to a smaller country, in a game they enter as favourites, and when the deficiencies of their team are underlined on a global stage.