{"id":756503,"date":"2026-07-11T10:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T10:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/756503\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T10:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T10:29:11","slug":"world-cup-2026-will-england-join-spain-and-france-in-semi-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/756503\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Will England join Spain and France in semi-finals?"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘I’m happy no matter where I’m playing’ – Konsapublished at 10:25 BST<\/p>\n

10:25 BST<\/p>\n

Norway v England (22:00 BST)<\/p>\n

\"\"Sami Mokbel
BBC Sport Senior football correspondent<\/p>\n

\"MarcusImage source, Getty Images<\/p>\n

Central defender Ezri Konsa told BBC Sport about being asked to fill in at right-back during the win over Mexico following Quansah’s dismissal.<\/p>\n

“With the heat and everything and having to change positions, going to right wing-back with a man down, it’s not easy,” said the Aston Villa player.<\/p>\n

“You have to tuck in and then, when the ball gets switched, you’ve got to run out and try and stop crosses.<\/p>\n

“And I think the first 10 minutes mentally was tough because I was feeling it a little bit, but I had to find a switch and overcome it.”<\/p>\n

Konsa recalled the encouragement he received from team-mate John Stones, who he said “kept pushing me”.<\/p>\n

“He even asked to swap positions,” Konsa said.<\/p>\n

“But I told him: ‘No, don’t worry, it’s fine.’<\/p>\n

“So yeah, I had to find a switch. And thankfully I managed to find it just in time.<\/p>\n

“Super proud of the boys and what we managed to achieve that night.<\/p>\n

“I’ll always play wherever the manager wants me to play. As long as I’m on that pitch and helping the team, I’m happy no matter where I’m playing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘I’m happy no matter where I’m playing’ – Konsapublished at 10:25 BST 10:25 BST Norway v England (22:00…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-756503","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\/756503","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=756503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}