Neymar’s tears mark another misstep for Brazil’s great unfulfilled and its World Cup dark age

Paolo Sorrentino perched over the barricades at the Red Bulls Performance Center in Morristown. He looked at the viewfinder of his camera and began filming. Brazil were preparing for the World Cup under the observation of an Oscar-winning film director. In May, it was announced Sorrentino is making his first ever documentary. His subject: Carlo Ancelotti. “It’s an honour to tell my story alongside the great Paolo Sorrentino,” Ancelotti said. “I’ve always admired his masterpieces and his commitment to artful storytelling.”

Sorrentino’s pictures are studies in power. He has made movies about Italian prime ministers, presidents and popes. The coach of the national team is a role of similar dimensions not only in a football mad country like Italy but Brazil too. On one of his past press junkets, Sorrentino described what makes a subject interesting to him. “If we had the best ballerina in the world performing in a beautiful dance, and then,” Sorrentino said, “she suddenly stumbled and became clumsy, we would all remember that moment when she failed and made herself grotesque and not at her best. So I just wait for people to stumble.”

Ancelotti stumbled on Sunday, as Brazil fell to Norway in New Jersey and exited the World Cup. It was the first time they suffered elimination in the round of 16 since 1990 (although this year Brazil played a game more in FIFA’s new expanded format) and as was the case in the past five World Cups defeat came at the hands of a European team. The wait for the hexa goes on. A sixth title slips further away. The tournament’s most successful nation finds itself in the midst of its longest ever drought, one that now stretches to 28 years. The front page of Correio declared a “Failed generation.”

Ancelotti called the 2-1 loss to Norway “a profound disappointment.” Neymar collapsed to the floor and sobbed. “I tried. I tried,” he said. “Now it’s over. I started here. I finished here.” The 34-year-old had made his debut for Brazil at this stadium in 2010. Only a teenager when he first ran out at MetLife, he marked the occasion with a goal against the US. Sixteen years later, here he was again. More childish than childlike. Taunting. Beaten. The great unfulfilled. His era over. The front page of Meia Hora put it in perspective. “Brazil’s golden age at the World Cup; the Garrincha era, the Pelé era, the Romário era, the Ronaldo era — and that was that!” A dark age.

Get free access to the most comprehensive World Cup coverage in The Athletic app

As the players traipsed through the mixed zone, hurt and in a hurry, nobody stopped.

“Ninguém vai falar?” the Brazilian press pack shouted. “Is no one going to talk?” They wanted answers. Marquinhos at least fronted up to the broadcasters. “We have to take responsibility. Me, as captain, and the older players have to take the blame so the new generation can move forward with calmness. We can’t arrive at a World Cup after a cycle like we had…” Finishing fifth in South American qualifying, losing home and away (4-1) to Argentina. Going through four coaches in four years with power struggles consuming the Brazilian Federation (CBF). Too much turbulence. Too long waiting for Ancelotti to leave Real Madrid and take charge only in May last year.

“We have to be clear: we don’t yet have the maturity that France or Argentina have today as a team,” one of the team’s senators, Danilo Luiz, acknowledged earlier in the tournament. This did not go down well with legends of the Brazilian game and past winners like Dunga, who lifted the World Cup the last time it was held in the US in 1994. “I never imagined hearing a player say: ‘Let’s try to win’. Or saying that we are inferior to France, Argentina or Portugal. This was unacceptable, and the fan doesn’t want to hear this kind of statement. You can’t pass this opinion on to the public.” But what if it’s the reality?

When Ancelotti announced his squad for the World Cup, it didn’t blow anyone away. There was no Nike advert, no Mas que Nada. People looked at the full-backs and wondered what happened to the teams of Cafu and Roberto Carlos, Dani Alves and Marcelo. “They are right here!” Cafu told The Athletic. In the VIP suites watching Brazil.

Appearing on FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s Instagram feed so he can point at Rivaldo, Kaka, Ronaldo and Bebeto and say with bombast: “One World Cup! Two World Cups! Three World Cups! Four!” Is the presence of the Hall of Famers at every Brazil game not a pressure? A prompt to commentators and critics to highlight the inadequacies of the current team when compared to those from years gone by. “It should be the opposite!” Cafu says. “We should be bringing them peace. They should think the world champions are here to watch their game and to root for them. That is our intention. We really want to bring them support and to show them we are on their side.”

While Cafu was understandably “sad” after Brazil suffered what newspaper Estado de Minas called “the wrath of the Vikings”, he conceded “football and the World Cup is not an exact science.” Norway coach Stale Solbakken humbly admitted: “This game could have gone either way. We have to be honest about that.” It was not false modesty either amid the many compliments he received for how he set his team up. Bruno Guimaraes missed a N. Brazil created 2.7xG. For an hour, Erling Braut Haaland was not in the game. “We had match winners with (Orjan) Nyland in goal and Erling up front,” Solbakken said.

Brazil did not.

Unlucky to an extent, the game served to reveal a lot about the shortcomings of this Brazil squad and its assembly. Brazil look old. Casemiro and Danilo Luiz are 34. Nearing the end. Alisson is 33 and coming off an unexpectedly bad title defence at Liverpool. Douglas Santos is 32, as is Marquinhos who played in the U.S. last summer, where his club Paris Saint-Germain reached the Club World Cup final in between retaining the Champions League. Bruno and Gabriel are 28. Eight of the players in the squad are based in Brazil. Fabinho and Roger Ibanez have been out in Saudi for a couple of years now. For all the attention given to the midfield, the Bruno-Casemiro tandem is in keeping with what has gone before. Brazil won the World Cup in 1994 with Dunga and Mauro Silva then Kleberson and Gilberto Silva in 2002. What Brazil lack is a Haaland. A world-leading No 9. Unfortunately for them the heir to the original Ronaldo is French. The closest thing to him is Kylian Mbappe.

The restlessness this provokes has been one of the principal issues Ancelotti has faced in his first tournament in international football. Joao Pedro might not have changed the outcome of the Norway game. But Ancelotti’s decision to leave him out of the squad amid the cacophonous debate around Neymar, the national team’s all-time leading scorer, set the tone for the tournament. “Well done to the anonymous Neymar fans and to the influencer press, who mounted a ridiculous campaign for the former footballer Neymar to go to this World Cup,” Walter Casagrande, the former Brazil striker, wrote in his column.

Casemiro celebrates scoring against Japan but a lack of goals ultimately brought Brazil down (Photo: Molly Darlington/Getty Images)

Neymar had not played for the national team in years. He washed up back at Santos after Al Hilal and brought nothing other than prospective commercial upside and attention from adoring team-mates to whom he was a childhood idol. When he pulled up injured shortly after making the squad, Ancelotti was asked if he regretted the decision to take him. He replied with an old Italian saying. “If my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike.”

Nevertheless if Brazil started the tournament with Igor Thiago up front and ended it with Neymar it was indicative things had gone awry. Thiago kicked off Brazil’s opener against Morocco at MetLife. It was the last time he would start. Hooked at half-time, he was usurped, against Haiti, by Matheus Cunha who took his chance, scoring a brace. Online they still weren’t satisfied. Memes depicting Ancelotti’s apparent unwillingness to play Endrick flooded the internet. When he brought Neymar on for the final 15 minutes against Scotland, Ancelotti’s assistant and son, Davide, shook his head and pulled a face in the dugout. He had to issue a statement on Instagram to “clear up fabricated controversies”, as “the gesture was misunderstood”. Davide clarified “I was speaking to Paul Clement”, another of Ancelotti’s trusted lieutenants.

The back-to-back 3-0 wins that closed out the group stage perhaps left a false impression that a work-in-progress was becoming a finished article. At the end of the day, Brazil beat Haiti and Scotland. Vini Jr had, to his credit, stepped up and more responsibility fell on his shoulders once Raphinha was ruled out through injury. Maybe he could drag Brazil to the final. Ancelotti’s aura was also never stronger than after the Japan game. Brazil had fallen behind as they had done against Morocco and would subsequently do so against Norway. Casemiro again looked cut adrift as Bruno and Lucas Paqueta got caught ahead of the ball. Pundits demanded Ancelotti withdraw him off at half-time. Instead he kept the faith and was rewarded for it. Casemiro equalised and substitute Gabriel Martinelli won the game in the fifth minute of added time.

On the sideline Ancelotti looked as cool as he did when he blew on his coffee as Everton beat Tottenham 5-4 in the Premier League. There was no celebration only a show of calm. “I can’t run because I’ll tear my knee ligaments,” Ancelotti said. “I’m 67 years old.” And yet he still seems capable of anything. In the afterglow, Ancelotti sat down with Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper at Brazil’s base, the Ridge Hotel, in Basking Ridge. He presented himself as a regular guy. Just one with 1400 games under his belt. “It’s 100 per cent certain that I’m not a genius,” he said. “But it’s 100 per cent certain that I’m not stupid.”

Ancelotti lifts Vinicius Jnr off the floor, but can he do the same for Brazil? (Photo: Buda Mendes/Getty Images)

Against Norway, people asked how Brazil could have as little as 34 per cent of the ball. But Ancelotti wanted it that way. He felt Norway were difficult to press high and didn’t want to run the risk of leaving wide open spaces for Haaland. They also wondered why Bruno stepped up for the first-half penalty and not Vini. “When we looked at the numbers at the start of the tournament, Raphinha was the best option,” Ancelotti said. “Then Neymar, then Bruno Guimaraes, then Martinelli. So we chose Bruno because he was the best option on the field.” He had scored seven of his last eight. He missed.

It remained a delicately poised game. Until, that is, he brought on Neymar with 20 minutes to go. Brazil lost their shape. They were no longer compact. While aggro-Neymar later scored a consolation penalty, his unwillingness to track back contributed to Norway getting on top. Casemiro needed help. Endrick, switched out to the right, couldn’t cover Danilo as effectively as Rayan. 

“It looked like Norway was doing jogo bonito,” Zlatan Ibrahimovic quipped on Fox. “While Brazil was doing jogo I don’t know what.”

When Brazil bowed out, Ancelotti did not tender his resignation. He signed a new deal before the tournament began and is enjoying the job. If he was shorthanded by some of his own selection choices — picking the midfielder Ederson to replace the injured full-back Wesley — he was also unable to count on Estevao and Rodrygo. The pair of them, unfortunately, suffered injuries in the lead-up. They figure in Brazil’s future. “Endrick, Vinicius, Estevao, Militao, Rodrygo,” Ancelotti mused. “They are all very young players who will also be in the next World Cup.”

What Brazil need right now is Ancelotti’s calm. More turbulence is not the answer.

“It is up to us now,” CBF executive director Rodrigo Caetano said. “To emphasise the need for a cycle within a normal framework, with a little more calm, with work that will be continued by the coach until the 2030 World Cup, with the necessary adjustments. We need at least a minimum of tranquility to move forward and prepare for the next World Cup.”

Ancelotti and Brazil have stumbled. In the years to come Sorrentino won’t be the only one curious to see how they pick themselves up.