{"id":730495,"date":"2026-06-28T05:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T05:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/730495\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T05:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T05:08:10","slug":"colombia-0-0-portugal-south-americans-top-group-k-as-cristiano-ronaldos-side-finish-second","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/730495\/","title":{"rendered":"Colombia 0-0 Portugal: South Americans top Group K as Cristiano Ronaldo&#8217;s side finish second"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Rather than progression or elimination, this game was to decide the order of the top two in Group K.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Portugal needed a win in order to top the pool, against opponents roared on by vast swathes of yellow-shirted fans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Colombia striker Jhon Cordoba, brought into the starting XI for this game, headed over the bar inside the first minute before being denied brilliantly by a one-handed Diogo Costa save shortly after.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Portugal, led once again by 41-year-old Ronaldo, came into the game later in the first half as Colombia keeper Camilo Vargas made a stunning point-blank save from Bruno Fernandes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ronaldo, who had proclaimed &#8220;I&#8217;m back&#8221; when scoring twice last time out in the 5-0 win over Uzbekistan, returned to being a peripheral figure here as he had been in the 1-1 draw against DR Congo in Portugal&#8217;s opener.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And the Portuguese hung on in the second half as Colombia came forward in waves, both Richard Rios and Gustavo Puerta coming close.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Luis Suarez hooked a volley over an open goal, before Sanchez was denied.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Yet while Colombia drew a World Cup blank for the first time since losing to England in 1998, they deservedly earned top spot in the group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rather than progression or elimination, this game was to decide the order of the top two in Group&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-730495","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\/730495","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=730495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}