{"id":3904,"date":"2026-07-11T08:47:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T08:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/?p=3904"},"modified":"2026-07-11T08:47:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T08:47:41","slug":"merinos-88th-minute-winner-sends-spain-past-belgium-into-world-cup-semi-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/11\/merinos-88th-minute-winner-sends-spain-past-belgium-into-world-cup-semi-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"Merino&#8217;s 88th-Minute Winner Sends Spain Past Belgium Into World Cup Semi-Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a fiercely contested 2026 FIFA World Cup quarter-final match, Spain defeated Belgium 2-1 to secure their place in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Tuesday, Spain will face one of the tournament favourites, France, in the first semi-final to be held in Dallas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the 30th minute of the game, Fabian Ruiz scored to put Spain 1-0 ahead. In the 41st minute, Belgium\u2019s Charles De Ketelaere equalised with a brilliant header to make it 1-1. This was the first goal Spain had conceded in the current World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With just 2 minutes left in the match, in the 88th minute, Spain substitute Mikel Merino scored the winning goal for his team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the 71st minute, Belgium\u2019s star goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois was injured and had to leave the field. Merino capitalised on a mistake by his replacement, backup goalkeeper Senne Lammens, to score Spain\u2019s winner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With this victory, Spain have taken another step towards lifting the World Cup trophy once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a fiercely contested 2026 FIFA World Cup quarter-final match, Spain defeated Belgium 2-1 to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":3905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3906,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3904\/revisions\/3906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}