{"id":9804,"date":"2026-04-01T04:57:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/9804\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T04:57:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:57:05","slug":"mexico-draw-1-1-with-belgium-in-chicago-ahead-of-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/9804\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico draw 1-1 with Belgium in Chicago ahead of World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" alt=\"\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"912\" height=\"570\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"html-img h-auto w-full\" style=\"color:transparent\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4d353f1d-dodi-lukebakio-reuters01_04_26.webp.jpeg\"\/>An euphoric Dodi Lukebakio celebrates after scoring the equaliser for Belgium in the friendly against Mexico. (Reuters pic)<br \/>\nLONG BEACH: Mexico and Belgium played out a 1-1 draw in a friendly at Soldier Field on Tuesday, capping off their final warm-up matches before finalising their 26-man World Cup squads.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Mexico dominated possession in the first half and took the lead in the 19th minute when Jorge Sanchez scored at a corner, slotting the ball home while falling backwards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Belgium responded immediately after the break when Dodi Lukebakio seized on a gap in the Mexican defence to unleash a powerful strike from distance to equalize in the 46th minute.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Both teams made a host of substitutions in the second half to give players an opportunity to stake their claim for a place in the squad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Belgium, who thrashed the United States 5-2 in their previous outing, next play Croatia on June 2 while Mexico face Ghana in a friendly on May 22.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">The World Cup runs from June 11 to July 19 and is being co-hosted by Mexico, the US and Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An euphoric Dodi Lukebakio celebrates after scoring the equaliser for Belgium in the friendly against Mexico. (Reuters pic)&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,6572,6573,2732,1849],"class_list":["post-9804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgium","tag-chicago","tag-draw","tag-mexico","tag-world-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116327680890956613","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9804","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=9804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}