{"id":273043,"date":"2025-07-18T21:27:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T21:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/273043\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T21:27:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T21:27:11","slug":"spain-2-0-switzerland-world-champions-through-to-semi-finals-as-hosts-knocked-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/273043\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain 2-0 Switzerland: World champions through to semi-finals as hosts knocked out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Spain continued their quest for a first European Championship crown by scoring two second-half goals to knock out hosts Switzerland and reach the semi-finals.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The world champions were made to work hard for the victory in Bern as they struggled to break down a stubborn Swiss defence in the opening half.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Spain twice failed from the penalty spot, but goals from Athenea del Castillo and Claudia Pina ensured they reached their first Euro semi-final since 1997.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After being brought down in the box by Nadine Riesen, Mariona Caldentey spurned the chance to put Spain ahead in the ninth minute when she dragged her spot-kick wide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Alexia Putellas later sent her penalty straight at Swiss goalkeeper Livia Peng when Spain had a two-goal cushion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Peng had made two smart saves in the first half, while Olga Carmona and Aitana Bonmati sent frustrated efforts over the bar as the Swiss backline remained resolute during the opening 45 minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Del Castillo made an instant impact for Spain &#8211; scoring three minutes and 24 seconds after being brought on as a substitute with a cool slotted finish.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Pina added a second with a sublime curling strike in the 71st minute to set up a semi-final encounter with either France or Germany on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain continued their quest for a first European Championship crown by scoring two second-half goals to knock out&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-273043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114876359788790641","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}