{"id":501795,"date":"2026-06-20T01:10:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T01:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/501795\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T01:10:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T01:10:18","slug":"world-cup-while-you-were-sleeping-selfish-ronaldo-told-to-quit-us-win-scotland-lose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/501795\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup while you were sleeping: \u2018selfish\u2019 Ronaldo told to quit, US win, Scotland lose"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Genuine semi-final contenders or just home-nation pretenders? It\u2019s difficult to tell with the USA team at the moment given the nature of their opposition so far.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Australia were the latest Group D lambs to be held up for sacrifice, and were duly dispatched in Seattle with a minimum of fuss. Coach Mauricio Pochettino can now start planning for what comes next.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">World Cups have always been as much about team drama off the pitch as on it, although even by those standards openly calling for Cristiano Ronaldo to quit when your partner is his teammate is another level, even if it is what most people are thinking he should do.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Meanwhile, the Tartan Army is still in Boston although losing 1-0 to Morocco with the only goal coming after just 71 seconds probably wasn\u2019t part of the plan for the day\u2019s festivities.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Morocco\u2019s Ismael Saibari (top right) puts his side ahead early on in Foxborough. Photo: AP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/04aa41c8-7632-4b70-8b95-8bab1138a966_68e68173.jpg\" title=\"Morocco\u2019s Ismael Saibari (top right) puts his side ahead early on in Foxborough. Photo: AP\"\/>Morocco\u2019s Ismael Saibari (top right) puts his side ahead early on in Foxborough. Photo: APHistory not quite repeating<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Before Friday night in Foxborough, the last time Morocco and Scotland met in the World Cup was the last time Scotland were in a World Cup, at the 1998 edition in France.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Genuine semi-final contenders or just home-nation pretenders? It\u2019s difficult to tell with the USA team at the moment&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[230685,230682,972,5576,1083,230684,245,17558,18088,1912,19712,230688,230686,230687,230683,85,46,105],"class_list":["post-501795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-alex-freeman","tag-assim-madibo","tag-australia","tag-boston","tag-brazil","tag-cameron-burgess","tag-canada","tag-cristiano-ronaldo","tag-dallas","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-fifa","tag-folarin-balogun","tag-foxborough","tag-group-b","tag-group-d","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}