{"id":6215,"date":"2026-07-05T22:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T22:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=6215"},"modified":"2026-07-05T22:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T22:45:13","slug":"the-viking-stuns-a-giant-4-takeaways-from-norways-historic-world-cup-win-over-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=6215","title":{"rendered":"The Viking Stuns A Giant: 4 Takeaways From Norway&#039;s Historic World Cup Win Over Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            POPULAR SEARCHES\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"subnav-title ff-ffc bold fs-23 lh-25 uc pd-b-10\">\n            BROWSE BY\n          <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Surprised? Then you haven&#8217;t been paying attention.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Norway just beat Brazil, 2-1, to reach its first-ever quarterfinal, and the wildest part is that it wasn&#8217;t even a smash-and-grab. Norway had nearly 70% possession. Norway controlled the tempo. Norway had Erling Haaland, the only superstar who showed up today. Brazil had 34 percent possession, a missed penalty, a missed sitter, and now a very long flight home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>The five-time champions are out in the round of 16. Sit with that. Then remember Norway has never \u2014 not once, not ever \u2014 lost to Brazil. Four games before tonight, zero defeats. Make it five.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Here are my four takeaways from a night Norwegian football will never forget:<\/p>\n<p><span>(Photo by Justin Setterfield\/Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Let&#8217;s cut to the chase and say the truth. Carlo Ancelotti&#8217;s team simply wasn&#8217;t good enough. They lost their aura. The &#8220;jogo bonito&#8221; is long gone. Brazil set up like a provincial \u2014 read that again, Brazil, at a World Cup, barely touching the ball \u2014 and there was zero swagger in their play, zero Brazilian identity, zero of anything that makes that legendary yellow shirt mean something. Just a gray, joyless side waiting to counter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>And when the moments came, the finishing was criminal. \u00d8rjan Nyland saved Bruno Guimar\u00e3es&#8217;s first-half penalty. Then Endrick, played clean through by Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior, produced a first touch so heavy it needed its own boarding pass and poked the sitter wide. Endrick perhaps showed why Ancelotti was so reluctant to use him in this tournament. That&#8217;s the game, right there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Neymar&#8217;s stoppage-time penalty was useless, and the trash-talking between him and Nyland before and after the penalty was quite frankly an embarrassment for the former superstar now in the twilight of his career. Brazil will miss the World Cup quarterfinals for the first time in 36 years. On this evidence, nobody should be shocked.<\/p>\n<p><span>(Photo by Richard Sellers\/Sportsphoto\/Allstar via Getty Images)<\/span> <!--&gt;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>I called Norway my favorite dark horse before this tournament, and nights like this are exactly why. This wasn't luck. Norway stepped onto the field with the clear intention of dominating from the opening whistle. They pressed them ferociously, and dictated the tempo like a giant of the game. Martin \u00d8degaard ran the game. Patrick Berg even had a curler chalked off for offside. Brazil chased shadows in their own round of 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>If you watched qualifying, none of this is new. Norway went a perfect eight-for-eight, scored 37, conceded five, and beat Italy twice \u2014 including 4-1 at the San Siro. Haaland scored 16 times in eight qualifiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Brazil? The worst qualifying campaign in their history. Fifth place, six defeats, humiliated 4-1 in Buenos Aires, three managers deep before Ancelotti. One team arrived in form. It just wasn't the one in yellow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span>(Photo by Jewel SAMAD \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/span> --><\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>The historic weight of this result is hard to overstate. Brazil, out before the quarterfinals for the first time since 1990. The wait for a sixth star now stretches beyond 2002 into a sixth straight World Cup \u2014 territory this nation has never known.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Tactically, Ancelotti got it wrong. He surrendered midfield to \u00d8degaard and company, turned Brazil into a Catenaccio (tactically defensive door-bolt) side, and asked an aging spine \u2014 Casemiro, Danilo, Marquinhos, all thirtysomethings \u2014 to survive Norway&#8217;s press. Japan exposed those legs a week ago. Norway buried them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>But let&#8217;s be honest: this was bigger than one game plan. This Brazilian team is flawed at its core \u2014 old in the wrong places, timid in possession, and toothless in the box. The flaws that flickered in qualifying and against Japan showed up at the worst possible moment, in the biggest game. Flawed teams don&#8217;t survive knockout football. Brazil didn&#8217;t either.<\/p>\n<p><span>(Photo by Stephen Nadler\/ISI Photos\/ISI Photos via Getty Images)<\/span> <!--&gt;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior versus Erling Haaland was the billing. Only one of them answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>As Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107 said on air: Haaland needs one touch to score one goal. He got two, he scored two. A towering header in the 79th minute to break Brazil, then a thunderbolt from the top of the box in the 90th that Alisson Becker could only wave at. A brace, seven goals in the tournament, level with Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 in the Golden Boot race, and the single greatest result in the history of Norwegian football delivered on his back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>And spare a roar for \u00d8rjan Nyland, who was magnificent again \u2014 the penalty save from Guimar\u00e3es, a string of stops on Rayan and Bruno Guimar\u00e3es, and one absurd backwards fingertip claw off his own post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" data-v-a2155f14>Norway is in the quarterfinals for the first time ever. England or Mexico await in Miami. Believe it now?<\/p>\n\n--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Surprised? Then you haven&#8217;t been paying attention. Norway just beat Brazil, 2-1, to reach its first-ever quarterfinal, and the wildest part is that it wasn&#8217;t even a smash-and-grab. Norway had nearly 70% possession. Norway controlled the tempo. Norway had Erling Haaland, the only superstar who showed up today. Brazil had 34 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}