🎥 Neymar in tears 😢 World Cup dream 💔 Brazil farewell: it ends here! | OneFootball

Alone in the middle of the pitch, devastated, wearing the number 10 shirt and carrying the weight of an entire generation on his shoulders.

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His penalty in the 100th minute reopened Brazil-Norway for a few seconds, but it did not change the Seleção’s fate: 2-1 to Norway, Erling Haaland with a brace, and Brazil eliminated in the Round of 16 of the 2026 World Cup.

Goal number 80 for Brazil, but also the most bitter. He arrived at the tournament as the Seleção’s all-time top scorer with 79 goals, and his penalty against Norway updated a historic tally, without saving what may have been his last great World Cup night.

For Neymar Jr., it was not just a defeat. It felt like the closing of a circle. After the final whistle, Brazil’s number 10 suggested that the match against Norway may have been his last for Brazil: “I tried, I tried. Now it’s over. I started here and I finish here.”

Tears at the final whistle

The defining image came immediately after the final whistle. Neymar was left in tears and looked inconsolable: a broken player, aware that this could have been his last chance to win a World Cup.

Neymar on his knees, then standing still in the middle of the pitch, with his teammates around him trying to comfort him. 

Raphinha and the other Brazil players tried to embrace him, but the number 10 already seemed to be inside another match: the one with his own history.

The last dance

The tears immediately became a generational symbol.

The contrast is striking: in 2014 Neymar was the face of the World Cup at home, the chosen prince after Pelé; then came the back injury against Colombia, the 7-1 against Germany experienced from the sidelines, and the painful eliminations of 2018 and 2022. 

Now the worst exit of all: the Round of 16, against a Norway side inspired by Haaland, on the day of his final World Cup goal.

The farewell line: “I tried, now it’s over”

Neymar’s words turned the night of elimination into something even bigger than a simple World Cup exit. The Brazilian, scorer of Brazil’s only goal from the penalty spot in stoppage time, effectively signaled the end of his attempt to win a world title with the Seleção.

“I tried, I tried. Now it’s over. I started here and I finish here,” Neymar said after the defeat against Norway.

A short sentence, but a hugely significant one. It contains everything: the dream pursued for more than a decade, the wounds, the comebacks, the criticism, the hopes, and the awareness of not having managed to win the World Cup Brazil had expected from him.

The stadium of his debut and his final night

The strongest detail is almost cinematic: Neymar’s first match for Brazil had been played in the same stadium as the clash against Norway. That is where his story with the Seleção began, and that is where it may have ended.

A perfect circle, but a painful one. From a debut full of promise to a final World Cup night lived in tears, Neymar went through an entire era of Brazilian football.

In 2014 he was the face of the home World Cup, the prince named as Pelé’s symbolic heir. Twelve years later, he leaves the stage with a goal that was not enough and with Brazil eliminated far too early.

A bitter record: like Pelé, but without the Cup

The penalty against Norway also gives him another historic stat: Neymar has scored in four different World Cups, after his goals in 2014, 2018 and 2022. 

At Qatar 2022 he had become the third Brazilian after Pelé and Ronaldo to score in three editions; with the 2026 goal, he enters Pelé’s territory as a Brazilian capable of leaving his mark in four World Cups.

Yet the biggest void remains: no World Cup won. Brazil fall short once again, Neymar bows out with a goal and with tears. The prince left the biggest stage without becoming king.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.