Brazil, the most decorated team in World Cup history, just got bounced from the 2026 tournament by Norway. The 2-1 Round of 16 loss, powered by an Erling Haaland brace, marks Brazil’s earliest exit since 1990 and extends a championship drought that now stretches across six consecutive World Cups.

The match took place at MetLife Stadium, and Haaland scored twice to send Norway through and five-time champions Brazil packing. Brazil managed to pull one back, but it wasn’t enough.

A Datafolha poll conducted in April 2026 found that only 29% of Brazilians believed their team would win the tournament. Brazil’s last World Cup title came in 2002. That’s now 24 years and counting. Head coach Carlo Ancelotti, one of the most decorated managers in club football history, now faces serious questions about his future with the national team.

Some analysts have suggested the Brazilian national team now functions more as a commercial entity than a genuinely competitive unit.

The Brazil National Football Team Fan Token, known as BFT, was launched as a way to deepen fan engagement and tap into the digital asset market. Fan tokens promise holders voting rights on minor team decisions, exclusive content, and a sense of closer connection to their favorite clubs and national teams.

In a somewhat bizarre footnote, Coinbase reportedly published an AI-generated match result before the actual game concluded, incorrectly projecting a 3-2 Norway victory. The final score turned out to be 2-1.

Kraken has been linked to sponsorship deals in the football space. Brazil’s early exit means that any crypto brand with significant exposure to the Brazilian national team lost weeks of potential prime-time visibility.

The immediate aftermath will likely see reduced trading volumes and potential price pressure on BFT and related tokens. Historical patterns across fan token markets suggest that elimination from major tournaments typically leads to a cooling period in both engagement metrics and token valuations.