For seventy nine minutes this was a taut, nervy chess match, and then Erling Haaland decided to end Brazil's tournament in the space of a few minutes. A header to break the deadlock, then a second strike from outside the box that the goalkeeper barely saw, and a five-time world champion was suddenly staring at the exit door.

Brazil will have nightmares about the margins. Bruno Guimaraes had an early penalty saved, the kind of miss that haunts a knockout, and Neymar's penalty deep in stoppage time was pure consolation, a goal that made the scoreline respectable and nothing more. Orjan Nyland in the Norway goal was a wall whenever it counted.

As a spectacle it delivered everything a knockout should: a slow build, a genuine superstar moment, a giant going down and a nation reaching a height it had never touched. Norway into the last eight for the first time is a story, and Haaland writing it in the final eleven minutes is exactly the drama this tournament exists for.