{"id":572299,"date":"2026-03-31T05:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/572299\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:58:07","slug":"kosovo-aiming-for-historic-world-cup-qualification-in-play-off-against-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/572299\/","title":{"rendered":"Kosovo aiming for historic World Cup qualification in play-off against Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If Kosovo qualify, they would be in Group D and face Australia in Vancouver on Saturday, 13 June, Paraguay in San Francisco six days later and then co-hosts the United States in Los Angeles on 25 June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After the Kosovo War of 1998-1999, Kosovo celebrated its liberation day on 12 June, 1999, following the withdrawal of Serbian forces and the entry of Nato-led peacekeeping troops.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Independence came nine years later, although, as of December 2025, out of 193 United Nations member states, only 110 recognise Kosovo as an independent nation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Qualifying for the World Cup would be historic, bearing in mind it&#8217;s only 10 years since we&#8217;ve been recognised by Fifa and Uefa,&#8221; added Berisha.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Some have called Tuesday the biggest day in Kosovo&#8217;s history since Kosovo declared independence in 2008.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Some say it would be the third historic day for Kosovo &#8211; liberation day in 1999 after the war ended, Kosovo&#8217;s declaration of independence and this would be the third most important day in Kosovo&#8217;s history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It would have a huge impact if Kosovo managed to qualify, bearing in mind the political situation. It would be a huge impact worldwide.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Kosovo qualify, they would be in Group D and face Australia in Vancouver on Saturday, 13 June,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-572299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}