{"id":451866,"date":"2026-02-01T15:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T15:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/451866\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T15:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T15:46:10","slug":"two-malaga-born-rugby-stars-in-spain-squad-for-european-championship-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/451866\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Malaga-born rugby stars in Spain squad for European Championship opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"v-mdl-ath__p v-mdl-ath__p--6\">\nSunday, 1 February 2026, 14:52<\/p>\n<p class=\"v-p\">Spain\u2019s rugby XV side have included two Malaga-born players in their squad for the opening match of the 2026 European Championship, with Alberto Carmona and Hugo Gonz\u00e1lez selected for the tournament curtain-raiser on 7 February.<\/p>\n<p class=\"v-p\">Head coach Pablo Bouza named the pair for the first call-up of the competition, which also covers a week-long training camp in Madrid, which started on Sunday, 1 February.<\/p>\n<p class=\"v-p\">Carmona, the more experienced of the two, has been a regular in recent squads and currently plays in France, having moved from Toulon to Colomiers. The full-back was part of the side that secured qualification for the 2027 World Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"v-p\">Gonz\u00e1lez, meanwhile, is the new face from Malaga. The prop plays for Aviron Bayonnais and is continuing his early steps at senior international level after progressing through Spain\u2019s youth teams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"v-p\">The European Championship features eight teams, with the final phase scheduled for March in Madrid. Spain begin their Group A campaign away to the Netherlands in Amsterdam, with Switzerland and holders Georgia also in the section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunday, 1 February 2026, 14:52 Spain\u2019s rugby XV side have included two Malaga-born players in their squad for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,9663,16946,580,233376,57062,760,2020,85,9677,1974,29525],"class_list":["post-451866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-championship","tag-european","tag-for","tag-malagaborn","tag-opener","tag-rugby","tag-spain","tag-sports","tag-squad","tag-stars","tag-two"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}