{"id":730382,"date":"2026-06-28T03:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T03:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/730382\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T03:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T03:33:09","slug":"world-cup-2026-spains-nico-williams-criticises-tackle-that-left-him-injured","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/730382\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Spain’s Nico Williams criticises tackle that left him injured"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nico Williams has criticised Uruguay’s Nicolas de la Cruz for a “completely unnecessary” tackle that injured the Spain winger, who is expected to miss at least his nation’s World Cup last-32 fixture.<\/p>\n

Williams sustained a muscle injury following the challenge in a 1-0 win for Spain<\/a> that sent Uruguay home, calling it “one of the worst days of my life”.<\/p>\n

De la Cruz was booked for the tackle in added time, before team-mate Agustin Canobbio was shown a straight red card for diving in on Pau Cubarsi.<\/p>\n

Williams, 23, has had an injury-disrupted season with Athletic Club in Bilbao and only made brief appearances as a substitute in Spain’s three group games.<\/p>\n

“Today is one of the worst days of my life. I am injured again after a very difficult year,” he posted on social media.<\/p>\n

“Yesterday, I suffered a new injury following an incident where a fellow professional acted out of frustration, unhappiness, and sadness over the situation he was going through.<\/p>\n

“In my opinion, it was a play that could have been avoided, as it was completely unnecessary. But this won’t stop me.”<\/p>\n

The Spanish Football Federation said Williams had suffered a “moderate” injury and still had a chance to return later in the tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nico Williams has criticised Uruguay’s Nicolas de la Cruz for a “completely unnecessary” tackle that injured the Spain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-730382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}