Brazil Faces Historic Challenge Against Japan in the World Cup

The Brazilian national team enters the second half of their match against Japan in the round of 32 of the 2026 World Cup trailing 1-0, a situation that recalls a historical record that the Seleção has not managed to break for decades.

Opta, the statistics network, pointed out that the last time the Brazilian national team managed to win a knockout match in the World Cup, excluding the third-place match, after trailing at the end of the first half, was in 1938.

The network added that the Brazilian team turned its deficit at that time into a 2-1 victory against the Czechoslovakian team, while it lost all four of its subsequent matches in the knockout stages after trailing at halftime.

The Brazilian national team is required to overturn the result against Japan if it wants to end this negative streak and achieve a new accomplishment that hasn't been realized in the knockout stages of the World Cup for 88 years.