{"id":7980,"date":"2026-06-22T08:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T08:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/?p=7980"},"modified":"2026-06-22T08:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T08:50:08","slug":"victory-for-merino-as-trossards-belgium-draw-international-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/?p=7980","title":{"rendered":"Victory for Merino as Trossard&#8217;s Belgium draw | International | News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Mikel Merino played 30 minutes as Spain got their first win of the World Cup with a 4-0 crushing of Saudi Arabia.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Following on from a disappointing draw with Cape Verde in the first round of group games, La Roja got back on track with a first-half blitz against the Asian outfit.<\/p>\n<p>Lamine Yamal got the scoring underway before a double from Mikel Oyarzabal put Spain 3-0 up inside 25 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Hassan Altambakti then put through his own net in the second half before the introduction of Merino for his 45th Spain cap.<\/p>\n<p>David Raya and Martin Zubimendi remained as unused substitutes as Spain moved to the top of Group H following Cape Verde and Uruguay&#8217;s 2-2 draw.<\/p>\n<p>Spain now face the Uruguayans in their final group game at Estadio Guadalajara on Saturday, June 27 at 1am UK time.<\/p>\n<h2>SECOND DRAW FOR LEO<\/h2>\n<article data-entity-type=\"media\" data-entity-uuid=\"a335aadc-48f3-4d1c-b37a-57f6b90f29c9\" data-embed-button=\"image_embed\" data-entity-embed-display=\"view_mode:media.card\" data-entity-embed-display-settings=\"()\" data-langcode=\"en\" class=\"embedded-entity u-spacing-down--xxl\">\n<article>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n<p>While Merino&#8217;s Spain got their first three points, a victory still eludes Belgium and Lenadro Trossard.<\/p>\n<p>Leo played the full 90 minutes as the Red Devils played out a 0-0 draw with Iran in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>Our winger was the brightest spark for Belgium, who went down to 10 players in the second half following Nathan Ngoy&#8217;s dismissal.<\/p>\n<p>The Belgians, who are second in the group behind Egypt, will now take on New Zealand in their final group game on Saturday, June 27, at 4am UK time.<\/p>\n<article data-entity-type=\"block_content\" data-entity-uuid=\"1ec15726-7f8b-4d56-819f-e8c219430652\" data-embed-button=\"javascript_embed\" data-entity-embed-display=\"view_mode:block_content.full\" data-langcode=\"en\" data-entity-embed-display-settings=\"()\" class=\"embedded-entity u-spacing-down--xxl\">\n<\/article>\n<h2>WHO PLAYS TODAY?<\/h2>\n<article data-entity-type=\"media\" data-entity-uuid=\"eb288a4d-0273-466f-b1b8-49fe2a4650f9\" data-embed-button=\"image_embed\" data-entity-embed-display=\"view_mode:media.card\" data-entity-embed-display-settings=\"()\" data-langcode=\"en\" class=\"embedded-entity u-spacing-down--xxl\">\n<article>\n<\/article>\n<\/article>\n<p>Arsenal supporters can now turn their attentions towards Group I today as two of our stars could feature.<\/p>\n<p>First up, William Saliba&#8217;s France face Iraq in Philadelphia at 10pm UK time. Wilo helped Les Bleus to a 3-1 victory over Senegal in their first match.<\/p>\n<p>Then, into the early hours of Tuesday morning, it&#8217;s the turn of our skipper, Martin Odegaard, as Norway face Senegal.<\/p>\n<p>Martin provided an assist in Norway&#8217;s first match, a 4-1 victory over Iraq, and will be looking to confirm their spot in the round of 32 with a victory in New York.<\/p>\n<article data-entity-type=\"block_content\" data-entity-uuid=\"880a219f-b98b-4522-94a7-e72a5717dad0\" data-embed-button=\"javascript_embed\" data-entity-embed-display=\"view_mode:block_content.full\" data-langcode=\"en\" data-entity-embed-display-settings=\"()\" class=\"embedded-entity u-spacing-down--xxl\">\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mikel Merino played 30 minutes as Spain got their first<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeepat.name.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}