{"id":22624,"date":"2026-06-21T02:32:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T02:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/22624\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T02:32:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T02:32:19","slug":"doku-ruled-out-of-belgiums-world-cup-match-against-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/22624\/","title":{"rendered":"Doku Ruled Out of Belgium&#8217;s World Cup Match Against Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Winger Jeremy Doku has been ruled out of Belgium\u2019s second World Cup group match against Iran at SoFi Stadium due to illness, the Belgian team announced on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Rudi Garcia\u2019s side face Iran on Sunday looking to build on an opening 1-1 draw with Egypt, but will do so without Manchester City player Doku.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDue to illness, Jeremy Doku will not be part of the squad for our upcoming game against Iran,\u201d Belgium posted on social media.<\/p>\n<p>Doku started against Egypt but struggled to make an impact before being replaced by Matias Fernandez-Pardo in the 86th minute.<\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old could also miss a knock-out stage match, as his wife is due to give birth to their first child in the second week of July.<\/p>\n<p>Doku is one of the best young players in the Belgium squad, who are attempting to rebuild after their \u2018golden generation\u2019 unravelled with a group-stage exit from the 2022 World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>AFP<\/p>\n<p> All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contact\">Contact: <a href=\"http:\/\/punchng.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#3c48545959585548534e7c4c49525f54525b125f5351\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> [email\u00a0protected] <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winger Jeremy Doku has been ruled out of Belgium\u2019s second World Cup group match against Iran at SoFi&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,499,13837,3164,5419,2105,5407,13651,1816,1849],"class_list":["post-22624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgium","tag-football","tag-injury-update","tag-iran","tag-jeremy-doku","tag-manchester-city","tag-rudi-garcia","tag-sofi-stadium","tag-sports-news","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116785757991490236","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22624","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=22624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}