Carlo Ancelotti faces one of the biggest challenges of his career with 23-year Brazil curse

Norway aren’t a traditional powerhouse of world football, but they might just have the edge when it comes to facing Brazil at the World Cup. Here’s why.

Carlo Ancelotti faces the daunting task of overseeing Brazil’s first World Cup knockout win over European opposition in almost a quarter of a century.

Brazil haven’t beaten a European side in a win-or-go-home match at the World Cup since their victory over Germany in the 2002 final in Japan.

Not only that, but they’ve been dumped out of each of the last five World Cups the first time they’ve faced a European side.

Erling Haaland and Norway will be looking to keep up Brazil’s long-running European curse.

But in appointing their first-ever foreign full-time manager, the Brazilian FA have landed the perfect candidate to end the Selecao’s long-running European hoodoo.

There’s a strong argument that no coach in the history of European football boasts more pedigree than Don Carlo.

Not only has he won more Champions Leagues than any other manager with five – two with AC Milan, three with Real Madrid – but he’s also the only manager to have won the league title in each of Europe’s five major leagues.

After winning the Scudetto with Milan, he since went on and won the Premier League, Ligue 1 and Bundesliga with Chelsea, PSG and Bayern Munich respectively. He finally completed the set in his second stint with a La Liga title at Real Madrid.

International football is a different beast, but Ancelotti’s almost unparalleled experience at the elite level will surely stand him in good stead when it comes to finally delivering a knockout win over European opposition.

The run started at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, which they went into as the reigning champions. They beat Croatia, as well as Australia and Japan, in the group stage before making short work of Ghana in the Round of 16.

But they were undone by France at the quarter-final stage, a 1-0 defeat in a World Cup classic that’s best remembered for Zinedine Zidane’s majestic individual performance.

Four years later, in South Africa, they topped their group after a hard-fought 0-0 draw with Portugal and vanquished Marcelo Bielsa’s Chile with an impressive 3-0 victory in the Round of 16.

But it was then that they faced the Netherlands in the quarters. Robinho had given Brazil an early lead, but the Dutch produced a stunning second-half comeback in Port Elizabeth to progress to the semis at their expense.

Both France and the Netherlands ended up as the losing finalists, but Germany bucked that trend in 2014, going on to lift the trophy at the Maracana following their astonishing 7-1 thrashing of hosts Brazil in Belo Horizonte.

Brazil had shown great spirit to make it past Chile and Colombia when they hosted the tournament, but an injury suffered by star man Neymar and a suspension served by captain Thiago Silva resulted in an astonishing collapse at the Mineirao. A 3-0 defeat to the Netherlands in the third-place play-off only rubbed salt into their wounds.

In 2018, Brazil put in a competitive display in a hard-fought match against Belgium – who boasted their prime ‘golden generation’ – in the quarter-finals.

And last time out in Qatar they largely outplayed Croatia, and thought they’d got their rewards when Neymar scored an inspired goal in extra time, only for them to be sucker-punched in the dying minutes before losing on penalties.

Norway can be filed alongside Belgium and Croatia – a nation that don’t have anything like the historical pedigree of Brazil, but they have at least one world-class player, a solid squad, and face Brazil riding the crest of a wave.

It’s only the Round of 16 – a stage that Brazil haven’t failed to make it past since Italia ‘90 – but beating Norway would get a monkey off Brazil’s back and give Ancelotti the first genuinely statement-making win of his reign.

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