Neymar, the all-time top scorer for the Brazilian national football team, has announced his retirement from international football.

On the night of July 6, Ashgabat time, the Norwegian national team beat Brazil 2–1 in the round of 1/8 of the 2026 World Cup.  Neymar came on in the 67th minute, replacing Gabriel Martinelli, and this match marked his 15th appearance at World Cups – a tally that saw him surpass three-time World Cup winner Pelé. In second-half stoppage time, Neymar converted a penalty awarded for a foul on Casemiro, sealing the final score and becoming the second Brazilian after Pelé to have scored at four World Cups. After the final whistle, the player was unable to hold back his tears.

“I tried, I tried. It’s all over now. I started here, and I’ve finished here,” Globo quotes Neymar as saying.

Neymar is 34 years old; with 80 goals in 130 matches, he is the all-time leading goalscorer for the Brazilian national team. A product of the "Santos" youth academy, he has also played for "Barcelona" in Spain, "Paris Saint-Germain" in France and "Al-Hilal" in Saudi Arabia.

The Norwegian national team’s victory was secured by a brace from Erling Haaland, the "Manchester City" forward, who took his tally in the tournament to seven goals, drawing level with France’s Kylian Mbappé and Argentina’s Lionel Messi.

The Norwegian also equalled the record set by Poland’s Grzegorz Lato for the number of goals scored at a debut World Cup, and became the first player in 56 years – since Germany’s Gerd Müller – to find the net seven times in his first four World Cup matches. Haaland was named man of the match.

The head coach of the Brazilian national team, the Italian Carlo Ancelotti, stated after the match that, despite being knocked out of the tournament, he would continue working with the team. According to him, the defeat is not the end, but the start of a new cycle, and the squad will continue to improve whilst sticking to their chosen approach. Ancelotti has been in charge of the Brazilian national team since May 2025, and his contract runs until July 2030.

The Norwegian national team have reached the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time in their history: previously, at World Cups, the team had either failed to progress beyond the group stage (1994) or been knocked out in the round of 1/8 (1938, 1998). The Brazilian national team, for its part, failed to reach the quarter-finals of the tournament for the first time in 36 years.

In the quarter-finals, Norway will face England, who beat Mexico 3–2 in another round of 1/8 match.

The 2026 World Cup is being held in the USA, Canada and Mexico; the current champions are Argentina.