‘This Is Not The End,’ Ancelotti Insists After Brazil Crash Out
Brazil’s search for a sixth World Cup title has been pushed back yet again, and this time the wound cuts deeper than most. Carlo Ancelotti, the man handed the job of ending a drought that now stretches back a quarter of a century, watched his side crash out of the 2026 tournament at the last-16 stage on Sunday, undone by two late Erling Haaland strikes in a 2-1 defeat to Norway at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
The Italian, however, refused to treat the loss as the end of anything. “I don’t think this is the end. I think this is the start of a new cycle,” Ancelotti said afterwards. It was a message aimed as much at a grieving Brazilian public as at his own dressing room, and he doubled down on it when pressed on his own position, quickly dismissing any notion that he might walk away just over a year into the role.
The match itself carried a cruel symmetry. Brazil were handed an early opening when Bruno Guimaraes stepped up to a penalty inside the opening exchanges, only for Norway goalkeeper Orjan Nyland to guess correctly and push it away. That miss loomed large as the game wore on. Haaland, quiet for long stretches, rose above Gabriel to head Norway in front in the 79th minute, then drilled a low finish from the edge of the box in the 90th to settle it. Neymar’s penalty deep in stoppage time, converted after an elbow on Casemiro, was, in Ancelotti’s own admission, no more than “scant consolation.”
For a country that measures its football in trophies rather than performances, the numbers make grim reading. Brazil last lifted the World Cup in Japan in 2002, and their exit here at the round of 16 is their worst showing at the tournament since 1990, when Argentina beat them at the same stage. It is also the sixth consecutive World Cup in which Brazil have been eliminated by European opposition, a pattern that has hardened from coincidence into something closer to a structural weakness.
Ancelotti, appointed just over a year ago and contracted through to the 2030 finals, insisted the raw material for recovery is already in place. “I think with the squad they have, Brazil could have competed right to the end of this World Cup, even considering what happened in today’s game,” he said. He spoke of digesting the defeat, of continuing to earn places, and of channelling the disappointment into something useful. “I am very much used to this, and we will handle this. We will use it as fuel going forward.”
The sorrow was written plainly across his players. Vinicius Junior, who finished the tournament with four goals, called it “a very sad day” and admitted the squad had barely begun to process what had happened. “Being knocked out of a World Cup is always a huge blow,” the Real Madrid forward said. “I know it’s been a long time since we’ve won, the people want joy back, but it wasn’t this time.”
There was history at the other end of the pitch. Haaland’s brace took his tournament tally to seven, level with Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe at the top of the Golden Boot race, and carried Norway into the World Cup quarterfinals for the first time in their history. They will now meet England in Miami, having reached the last eight in only their first appearance at the tournament since 1998. Norway also preserved a remarkable record against Brazil, a side they have now faced five times without ever losing.
For Ancelotti, the road to 2030 begins immediately, and it begins in the shadow of a result his employers will not quickly forget. Whether the “new cycle” he describes becomes a genuine rebuild or simply the next chapter in Brazil’s long wait will be measured not in words spoken at MetLife, but in the years of work that follow.