Jeremy Cross in Houston <\/p>\n
The atmosphere amongst DR Congo supporters couldn’t be happier.<\/p>\n
Unlike the one engulfing the Portuguese media covering their side’s opening World Cup game of 2026.<\/p>\n
Most of them are sat inside the Houston Stadium shaking their heads at what has been witnessed in the first half.<\/p>\n
Portugal took the lead, but Congo equalised through Yoane Wissa, with a goal of historic proportions.<\/p>\n
It is Congo’s first ever goal at a World Cup. Back in 1974, their only previous appearance at the tournament, they lost all three games by an aggregate of 14-0.<\/p>\n
They were so bad, even Scotland beat them.<\/p>\n
But it’s not Wissa’s header which has aggrieved the Portuguese press pack.<\/p>\n
It’s the performance of Cristiano Ronaldo, and manager Roberto Martinez’s reluctance to take him off.<\/p>\n
Instead, Martinez has taken Bernardo Silva off, despite him posing much more of a threat than Ronaldo did.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo is doing a fine impression of walking football.<\/p>\n
He looks all of his 41 years today. Trouble is brewing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeremy Cross in Houston The atmosphere amongst DR Congo supporters couldn’t be happier. Unlike the one engulfing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3204,309,8111,59,2713,217137,101,55531,56,54,55,142725,58033,211618,217138],"class_list":["post-644332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cristiano-ronaldo","tag-england","tag-england-football-team","tag-gb","tag-lionel-messi","tag-portugal-vs-congo","tag-sports","tag-thomas-tuchel","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-world-cup-section","tag-world-cup-2026","tag-world-cup-news","tag-world-cup-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}