Hands up anyone who thought we\u2019d be discussing Cabo Verde on Tuesday morning with anything other than slightly condescending remarks about plucky debutants just enjoying being at a World Cup?<\/p>\n
Or that with 14 matches gone, and some less-than-inspiring displays among the presumptive favourites already in the books, we\u2019d still lack any sign of their being a special team in the mix.<\/p>\n
And what odds would you have had on a coach being sacked inside the first week when Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis isn\u2019t making the decisions?<\/p>\n
To suggest it\u2019s been a busy few hours is something of an understatement. From a remarkable draw in Atlanta, to an overreaction in Tunisia, an absorbing clash between Egypt and Belgium, and the opening skirmishes of Uruguay and Saudi Arabia, here\u2019s what happened while you were sleeping.<\/p>\n
Half-time update<\/p>\n
Uruguay and Saudi Arabia are presently battling it out in Miami, where the temperature is finally justifying hydration breaks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hands up anyone who thought we\u2019d be discussing Cabo Verde on Tuesday morning with anything other than slightly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[5362,7,13087,13300,5260,13298,6142,13285,4552,13297,13299,2339,12757,116,3205],"class_list":["post-21521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-atlanta","tag-belgium","tag-cabo-verde","tag-dublin","tag-egypt","tag-evangelos-marinakis","tag-mercedes-benz-stadium","tag-mohamed-hany","tag-nottingham-forest","tag-roberto-lopes","tag-sabri-lamouchi","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-seattle","tag-spain","tag-tunisia"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116756703179685513","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}