{"id":74746,"date":"2026-08-23T21:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T21:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/74746\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T21:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T21:30:14","slug":"spain-stun-belgium-to-reach-mens-2026-hockey-world-cup-semi-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/74746\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain stun Belgium to reach Men’s 2026 Hockey World Cup semi-finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The hockey venue built for the rise of the Red Lions went from boisterous to bereft on Sunday night as Spain ruined Belgium\u2019s campaign in stunning style.<\/p>\n

At Paris 2024, they ousted the defending champions in the quarter-finals<\/a>. To EuroHockey 2025, they beat the Red Lions to reach the semi-finals.<\/p>\n

And now, one year on, Spain completed the treble with a stunning knockout, via a 1-1 draw, to reach their first Men\u2019s World Cup semi-final since 2006.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Australia men exit to German bite and brilliance<\/a>
PLUS: World Cup diary: Gorzelany matches Aymar, flair continental goals<\/a><\/p>\n

Max Caldas has turned Spain into a formidable, gutsy unit and he was embraced at the final hooter in Wavre.<\/p>\n

If there is a hoodoo, it is that Belgium\u2019s exit was the third in succession from a host nation failing to reach the last four (after India\u2019s two previous attempts).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Arthur van Doren scored from a fourth minute corner and then Belgium had a goal disallowed.<\/p>\n

One minute into the fourth quarter, Spain\u2019s seventh corner saw Marc Miralles net his 50th goal.<\/p>\n

Spain had scored only one from more than 20 setpiece attempts prior to Miralles levelling.<\/p>\n

Thibeau Stockbroekx hit the post, then De Sloover saw his effort blocked by Marc Vizcaino.<\/p>\n

Tom Boon had two chances late on, but Luis Calzado made some exceptional stops. The best came via an angled deflection which came off his pads.<\/p>\n

Victor Wegnez said: \u201cWe weren\u2019t good enough. When you don\u2019t win the big games you don\u2019t deserve to play in a semi-final.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australia became the third semi-finalist in the women\u2019s tournament, joining the Dutch and Argentina, after holding India to a 0-0 draw.<\/p>\n

With a 4-2 victory over Australia<\/a>, Germany men also qualified for the semi-finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The hockey venue built for the rise of the Red Lions went from boisterous to bereft on Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2881,17],"class_list":["post-74746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-belgium","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}