Norway’s miracle at the 2026 World Cup continues and no one knows where Ståle Solbakken’s team can go next. With… its beast (Erling Haaland) striking again (twice), Norway defeated Brazil 2-1 in New Jersey and for the first time in its history will find itself in the quarter-finals of a World Cup, leaving out one of the favorites to win the trophy. Now, it will wait for the winner of Mexico-England, to find out its opponent in the “8” of the tournament…
To achieve this triumph, Solbakken’s amazing team had two major protagonists in tonight’s game. Goalkeeper Nyland, who had the match of his life with life-saving saves and the highlight was Guimaraes’ penalty at the start of the match, and Haaland, who with two goals was the one who took his team by the hand (he reached 7 goals, the same as Messi and Mbappe) and sent it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup.
Brazil missed a huge opportunity to take the lead in the 14th minute. Ajer brought down Cunha in the penalty area, referee Ilfat waved play on, but VAR (correctly) intervened and after reviewing the play on the monitor, the American referee corrected his mistake. Guimaraes took the penalty, but Niland fell correctly and saved the 1-0.
On a big day, the Norwegian goalkeeper said “no” twice more to… clear opportunities for the “Seleçao” from Martinelli and Vinicius, making life-saving saves, while Alisson did the same for Brazil in stoppage time of the first half, blocking with a double effort the shot of the completely unmarked Odegaard inside the area.
Edric missed a rare opportunity for Brazil in the 59th minute, one minute after entering the field in place of Cunha. Vinicius’ assist put the Real Madrid striker in front of Niland, but his finish was not good and the ball went out of bounds.
In the 61st minute, the Norwegian goalkeeper made another difficult save on Ryan’s powerful shot, once again preventing Ancelotti’s team from taking the lead. Fifteen minutes before the 90th minute, it was Alisson’s turn to save Selderup’s volley.
Who else provided the solution for Norway? The huge Erling Haaland. In the 79th minute, from a cross by Sølderup, the City striker beat Magajaes in the air and with a powerful header made it 1-0. It was his sixth goal of the World Cup…
In the 85th minute, Brazil hit the post, after Niland intervened to prevent the worst, while a minute later Casemiro failed to score from an extremely advantageous position. However, Haaland did not do the same in the 90th minute and made it 2-0 with a sliding diagonal shot.
Brazil managed to reduce the deficit with Neymar’s penalty in the 90’+10, but was unable to do anything more, as the 2-1 score remained unchanged…
Referee: I. Ilfath (USA)
Yellow cards: Neymar
The compositions of the two teams:
BRAZIL (Carlo Ancelotti): Alisson, Magalhaes, Marquinhos, Danilo, Douglas Santos, Casemiro, Guimarães (79′ Ederson), Vinicius, Cunha (58′ Edric), Martinelli (67′ Neymar), Ryan (67′ Danilo Santos)
NORWAY (Stale Solbakken): Nyland, Ajer, Wolfe (90’+5 Ostigaard), Hegem, Berg, Berge, Odegaard, Sorlot (46′ Bob), Haaland, Noosa (46′ Selderup), Ryerson (63′ Aursnes)