{"id":26852,"date":"2018-07-12T11:51:14","date_gmt":"2018-07-12T10:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/?p=26852"},"modified":"2018-07-12T11:51:14","modified_gmt":"2018-07-12T10:51:14","slug":"football-is-not-coming-home-but-pride-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2018\/07\/12\/football-is-not-coming-home-but-pride-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Football Is Not Coming Home but Pride is"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">As the nation watched the semi-final last night of the World Cup 2018 with hope that England will play in the final on Sunday it came crashing down after being beaten 2-1 to Croatia. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">England took the lead early in the match with a free kick shot by Tripper within five minutes of the game. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">But the team were unable to yet score again after Croatia equalised in the second half before winning their second goal in extra time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Gareth Southgate and his entire squad and support staff looked in a daze as they stood just 20 yards from the banks of England supporters who had flooded into Russia fuelled by hope and the desire to witness history.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">To say the very least, Southgate and his players have helped redefine the way the England team are perceived around the world. New heroes have emerged, with a new respect and a new outlook.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">\u201cWe all feel the pain,\u201d Southgate said. Football\u2019s not coming home, after all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Croatia will now go on to play France in the final in Moscow on Sunday, July 15.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">England will play Belgium in a third-placed playoff on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">There was plenty of disappointment but also pride in the team for getting as far as they did.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the nation watched the semi-final last night of the World Cup 2018 with hope that England will play in the final on Sunday it came crashing down after being beaten 2-1 to Croatia. England took the lead early in the match with a free kick shot by Tripper within five minutes of the game. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,3,27,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-sport","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}