{"id":1891957,"date":"2026-07-10T16:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T20:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/?p=1891957"},"modified":"2026-07-11T10:03:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T14:03:56","slug":"mikel-merino-stars-again-as-spain-edges-belgium-2-1-in-the-world-cup-quarterfinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/?p=1891957","title":{"rendered":"Mikel Merino stars again as Spain edges Belgium 2-1 in the World Cup quarterfinals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mikel Merino scored in the 88th minute off a rebound yielded by backup Belgium goalkeeper Senne Lammens, and Spain advanced to the World Cup semifinals with a 2-1 victory. Merino was the late hero for the second straight match for Spain, which advanced to face tournament favorite France in the se&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wral.com\/news\/ap\/78024-belgiums-charles-de-ketelaere-ends-spains-world-cup-shutout-run-teams-even-1-1-at-halftime\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Click here to read the full article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mikel Merino scored in the 88th minute off a rebound yielded by backup Belgium goalkeeper Senne Lammens, and Spain advanced to the World Cup semifinals with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1891957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-stories","wpcat-79-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1891957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1891958,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1891957\/revisions\/1891958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1891957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1891957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1891957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}