"Brazil will never be underestimated" — that's the line from French journalist Julien Laurens, and it gets to the heart of something worth examining as the Seleção prepare to face Norway in the World Cup round of 16. Five titles. Pelé. Ronaldo. Ronaldinho. The yellow shirt. The fear they used to generate walking onto any pitch in the world. Is any of that still real, or is it just a brand coasting on inherited glory?
The record still holds up on paper. Brazil haven't exited in the group stage since 1966, and they've reached at least the quarterfinals at every World Cup since 1990. Norway will need a genuine performance to stop that run continuing. But the conversation around Brazil has quietly shifted — from "how far will they go?" to "are they still Brazil?"
The gap between reputation and reality
The journalists ESPN surveyed across the U.S., Mexico, UK, France, Spain and Australia all agreed on the legend. They disagreed, subtly but meaningfully, on the present.
Spanish writer Lluís Bou put it plainly: Brazil have "drifted away from the principles that made them so admired." The appointment of more pragmatic, physically-oriented coaches. A generation that doesn't produce the same free-flowing attackers. A team that feels, at times, like it's trying to win rather than trying to be Brazilian. That distinction used to be irrelevant — winning and being Brazilian were the same thing.
Vinícius Júnior is the exception everyone agrees on. Laurens, not prone to exaggeration, said he's the only current player who would have made those devastating 1990s squads. One player doesn't make a carnival.
Sam Borden's point is worth sitting with too: the rest of the world has caught up. CONMEBOL qualifying is brutal now. Europe produces technically elite squads at a depth unimaginable in 1970. No team carries the same gravitational pull Brazil once had, partly because the sport no longer allows it. Norway aren't walking out Sunday night thinking they're beaten before kickoff.
What the aura actually was
The writers who grew up watching the 1994 and 2002 squads describe something almost cinematic — Romário and Bebeto as a partnership built on mutual dislike and devastating efficiency, Ronaldo returning from a mysterious pre-final seizure to win the whole thing four years later, Ronaldinho making defenders look like they'd never kicked a ball. The 2006 squad Bou describes — Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Kaká, Adriano all in yellow simultaneously — remains one of the great "what if" teams in tournament history. They went out in the quarterfinals to France.
That's the other side of the myth. Brazil's record since 2002 is one of underachievement measured against expectation. A home semifinal humiliation against Germany in 2014. Early exits. The weight of five stars on the badge and no sixth in sight.
- Last World Cup title: 2002
- Home World Cup in 2014: eliminated in the semifinals, 7-1 by Germany
- 2018: quarterfinal exit to Belgium
- 2022: quarterfinal exit to Croatia on penalties
Against Norway, Brazil are still the favourites, and any market pricing them otherwise would be a surprise. But their odds to win the tournament reflect a team people respect rather than fear. That's a meaningful shift from the days when drawing Brazil in the knockout rounds felt like a sentence.
The aura isn't gone. But it's living more in memory than on the pitch — and Sunday gives them another chance to prove that wrong.
