The end came where the beginning did. Neymar, who made his Brazil debut in New Jersey as a teenager in 2010, said goodbye to the national team on the same field on Sunday, moments after Norway knocked Brazil out of the World Cup.

'Now it's over'

Speaking through tears after the 2-1 defeat, Neymar announced that he was done with the Brazil national team. "I tried, I tried. Now it's over," he said, ESPN reported, noting that he had begun his international career at the same stadium where it now ended. He is 34.

His retirement is from the national team; the announcement did not close the book on his club career, ABC7 reported. But the Brazil chapter, the one he cared about most, is finished.

A record-setting career

By the numbers, Neymar leaves as the most prolific scorer his country has ever produced. He finishes as Brazil's all-time leading goalscorer, having passed the great Pelé, and won nearly everything available to him at club level with Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and beyond, ESPN reported. For more than a decade he was the face of Brazilian football, a player whose flair and creativity carried the weight of a nation's expectations.

The one that got away

What he never got was the trophy that matters most in Brazil. Neymar's World Cup story was one of near-misses and cruel timing. At the 2014 tournament on home soil, his campaign ended with a back injury in the quarterfinals, and Brazil was humiliated without him. Later tournaments brought more disappointment, and this one was the harshest exit of all: a Round of 16 loss to a Norway side led by Erling Haaland, Brazil's earliest World Cup exit since 1990.

Injuries shadowed him to the finish. Neymar was limited by a calf problem during this tournament and did not play a full part, and his only goal on Sunday was a penalty in stoppage time, long after the result was decided.

A complicated legacy

Neymar's career always invited debate, between those who saw a generational talent and those who felt he never quite reached the heights of the very greatest. What is not in dispute is the scale of what he did in a Brazil shirt, or the emotion of how it ended. He walked off as his country's leading scorer, and in tears, the World Cup he chased for 16 years still out of reach.

For Brazil, his exit closes an era and opens a difficult question about what comes next, for a proud football nation now waiting even longer for a sixth world title.